Blue

Plectranthus is happy in the wet.

Time to look for mushrooms?

North Cove Marina

Vincent wanted to shoot some panoramas at this pretty marina, where small yachts and behemoths alike are dwarfed by the downtown high rises of Battery Park, and where the thumping of construction at Ground Zero carries on well into a Saturday night. In the picture above, the boat driver referred to as 'Wise Guy!' was given short shrift by the dock master and pilots of the little red sailing school yachts. He was sent packing after sticking his nose in, uninvited. To add insult to his trespassing, he had no radio. They did not like that.

It was a perfect fall evening, nippy and clear, and everyone was out. I haven't spent time here in months, and I should do it more often. It's quite an un New York part of New York.

Yachts are constantly on the move, in and out of the marina, where your slip costs $6 per foot of vessel.

 

Plenty of restaurants offer places to sit in the golden light, or under tall plane trees, to sip a beer, but out on the pier you feel far enough from people that it's as good as a little holiday. 

The Frenchie set up shop beside a 'mega yacht',  that may have measured 200 feet, and waited for his light, and I took a walk south along the water, with tourists, bikers, bladers, skaters, dog walkers, fisherman, volleyballers and photographers.

In bloom in the twilight, many grasses, Ceratostigma, Heuchera, late anemones...

 Many, many places for good picnics.

 As the sun dipped I turned back north.

Little yachts were chugging back home in the afterglow, and the police came streaming out of the marina as I arrived.

The black marble of the seawall I leaned against to rest my back was warm from the day's sun. The breeze off the river was cold.

We waited for a darker night and more lights and then we walked back into the Financial District, past the Deutsche Bank Building site where posters advertise a $5,000 reward for proof leading to the conviction of anyone caught smoking. We caught the 4 train at Wall Street, back to Brooklyn, ate a supper of pancetta and poached eggs and toasted mushroom polenta, and bid adieu to Saturday night.

Recreating lamb Nirvana

...a fragrant curry is next door, at 66 Square Feet (the Food).

The visitor

 

Ha! Flushed you out! I had seen tell tale droppings on the microgreens on the roof, and was very worried about those...where was the culprit? Had I picked him with the leaves? So I washed them very carefully in two changes of water and out popped the green caterpillar.

At least it proves it's all organic up there.

A supper of poached pork loin with tonnato sauce and capers, and sliced roof tomatoes. Mionetto prosecco, $11 a bottle.

Eating salad that was home to a recent caterpillar is a delicate affair. One hopes not to find anything wriggly upon the tongue.

Stormy night

September roared out like a fiend and October swept in on black wings of water.

It rained some more today, and then tonight we had a spectacular sunset.

I was on the roof in a cold breeze, checking the farm, picking greens, catching a caterpillar and tying the roses back up again. 

 

The whole western sky was moving in parallel bands of cloud, quite fast, and suddenly lit from below. It lasted only a few minutes, and then it was gone, switched off.

* Is this not the worst New York mosquito year, ever?

Elephants

In my Inbox this morning. Callum is my cousin Andrea's son, and he and his girlfriend Claire are backpacking across southern Africa. Andrea is the Managing Editor of Go magazine, so she knows a little about elephants.

'Not sure if I updated you on Callum’s African adventure. We managed to speak to him a week ago – they had been through Zim (Bulawayo and Harare) and up to Lake Kariba where they had obviously pitched their rather tiny tent close to the lake. Apparently, whilst they were in the bar, an elephant decided to investigate the tent more closely (presumably attracted by the smell of tomatoes) and ripped it apart. They then were lent another larger, heavier tent (many complaints about this tent being heavy). Anyhow, Claire’s Mom said to me: “Thank God they both drink.”. Their next stop, as far as I can establish, is Malawi where there’s a big music festival mid-October.'

Eep. 

Are May apples edible?

The continuation of my Cautionary Tale [a version of which appears in Edible Manhattan's Summer Issue 2011]:

I can't remember where I first read about May apples. Perhaps on a website, now forgotten, perhaps in Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus, which was my introduction to wild food gathering, usually known as foraging.

Podophyllum peltatum, May apple, is also called American mandrake. Mandrake - the stuff of magic and legend and dark, stormy nights.

I had kept close watch on a stand of May apples since early in the year year. I waited, and waited, and waited. I was going to eat May apples. I knew that they had to be overripe, not green, or they would still be toxic. I knew that the roots are toxic. So are the leaves of rhubarb, so are green potatoes, so are wilting Amelanchier leaves - we are surrounded by death in plant form.

A May apple bud on April 15th. The season was early.

On April 27th the same buds were now flowers, picture-perfect. April apples. Usually only one per two leaves. 

 

On June 24th the fruits were round, green and impenetrably hard.

Above, these are fruits from the flowers pictured above. The life of the May apple is a sea-green one.

By the end of June the May apple foliage was beginning to be spotty and the leaves were thinking about collapsing - all good signs. Summer dormancy was almost upon them, when the green fruit would lie on the ground, still attached to the umbilical stem, and ripen. If animals didn't eat them, first.

9 July, and a promising yellow had overtaken the pale green. But the fruit was still solidly hard. 

I picked two, put them in my bag, and forgot about them for a week. Then, one night while Vincent was at work, I rooted in my bag for my notebook, and smelled a heavenly, tropical scent. The time had come. The Frenchie does not approve of my promiscuous grazing habits, so I chose the route of non confrontation. Eat it while he's gone.

It smelled of my favorite passion fruit, and a little like pineapple. The peel came off easily, the aroma increased. My mouth watered. For a split second I considered the seeds, pondering the wisdom of swallowing them, but reasoned that they would just go straight through me. I don't crunch seeds, and so there was no danger of releasing anything unwanted. Anyway, the jelly-like pulp and the seeds were inseparable, and Mr Brill's book had simply advised, "Enjoy when ripe."

So I did, two bites and a brief mulling over the tongue and down it all went. It was delicious. Sweet, slightly astringent, and flavored more like sweet pineapple with guava than the passion fruit. Yum.

After warning of the root's toxicity, Euell Gibbon writes: 'The flavor of May apple, while agreeable to most people, is not easily described. When I eat a thoroughly ripe May apple, I am reminded of several tropical fruits, the guava, the passion fruit and the soursop, but I can't honestly say that it tastes like any of them."

Etc. etc. etc. Clearly, he had eaten them.

Mr Brill: Warnings about root and raw fruit, then, '"Peel the tough skin and enjoy it raw or cooked."

Clear enough.

I could still taste the fruit in my mouth, but I started to think. Seeds. Nobody mentions seeds. So I went to the Web. I didn't find anything good. Seeds are toxic, poisonous, rumored to be deadly. I emailed Ellen Zachos, a foraging friend, and I called Mr Brill. Who told me to call a doctor:"No one eats the seeds."

Uh, what about "enjoy it raw and cooked"?

I hung up.

In my Inbox the Ellen told me: The seeds are supposed to be poisonous.  Don't know how serious this is, probably better that you didn't chew.  I'll start checking my references. Don't freak out.

It was now or never.

I have a great respect for anyone suffering from bulimia. Those who love to eat but who loathe their bodies more, and who discipline themselves to lose it all, daily. What a terrible life. What focus.

I checked my Inbox one last time: X doesn't know how toxic and neither do I.  I've emailed Sam Thayer but he's not a constant online presence, so I may not get an answer right away. I think it may be quantity related and if you only swallowed a few, you'll be ok.  It's definitely NOT like Amanita muscaria where you feel fine and then die.  You may have a little stomach upset or nothing at all.

Still...
 
The May apple was much more pleasant going down than coming up but I bear it no ill will. Mr Brill's words on the phone were still ringing in my ears. And I could not imagine the Frenchie's wrath and pain if he'd found me in foetal position after eating Another Strange Thing.

So there it is, my cautionary tale. Trust no one. Research backwards.

I think of that May apple with nothing less than affection, and I would like to try again. I would also like authors to know their subject thoroughly and to be very careful about what they commit to print. And the Web - it is a morass of misinformation and some very good stuff.  Don't give me "apparently toxic." "Rumoured to be toxic." "Possibly toxic." Commit!

Update: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015: Having eaten several May apples every late summer - pulp,  seeds and all (not the skin, because I do not like the texture) - I am fine.

They are delicious, tropical things. And now they stay down.