Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

The real Chicken Lo Mein meal, originating from Cantonese cuisine -- one of eight official Chinese preparation styles -- is a complicated but rich and rewarding dish.  First, you have to come to accept the Enoki Mushrooms.  As with all mushrooms, it might be wished for to not look at the fungi's

Enoki Mushrooms

bizarre shapes and fanned undersides until they are diced down and cooked, at which point they seem to make one of the great transformations in all of cooking.  The Enoki is a thin stemmed bunch with a very small terminal cap. When first picked up as a bunch they look something more like an unusual plastic candy, white, almost gooey, and as uniform as they are at the top.  Once you cut off the stem of the clump, all those strands separate and become more easily cookable.  The rest of the Lo Mein

includes many of the expected usual suspects: scallion, carrots, celery garlic, wonton noodles, baby bok choy, chicken and both sesame oil and soy glaze for that final richening sauce that gives Asian food its very distinct charm.  In essence, all of the vegetables get diced and reduced down, including the Enoki, while the wonton noodles quickly boil. Add some of the noodle water to the vegetables to soften, then finally the noodles themselves, a large clump that fills the pan, and all that is waiting is

Baby Bok Choy

for the soy and the oil.  At this point, you can begin to test which of this dynamic list of ingredients stand out.  At every bite of the Enoki mushrooms, a strange and exotic flavor arises, similar to other mushrooms in their earthy bounce, but because of the texture of their thin-ness, even more distinct.  The obvious second highlight is the baby bok choy, a great treat to add to almost any type of stir fry.  The noodles and the chicken speak for themselves in a familiar way.  One of the great secrets of Chinese food, is that they have found a way to pull together some of the more healthy ingredients imaginable, but by adding noodles and sauces turn what might be a light meal to something very sound and filling. In this way, a great family weeknight meal.

Some Notes on India

"I began to realize that the entire land of India is a great network of pilgrimage places–referential, inter-referential, ancient and modern, complex and ever-changing." – Diana Eck, from India: Sacred Geography











There might be more questions to consider when thinking about the history of India than right here at home in America.  To dig any deeper than the 1500's on the North American continent is a difficult matter.  We find out more and more about the true original settlers of our land, the native Americans, every day, but it comes in archeological smatterings and much tapestry of linking tribal stories and buried dwellings.  India is a vast and diverse country with ancient underpinnings.  As with other countries, continents, we do not talk about India as somewhere merely with a modern beginning but would speak of it in the same breath as China, Mesopotamia, Africa and the like.  In her introduction to India: Sacred Geography, Diana Eck reveals that she finally found a unifying thread to weave her own story of an India she knows and has lived – that India, in all its diverse religious leanings (Buddhism itself had began near Benares, or Kasha, City of Light), could be revealed as a vast network of routes to seek religious awakening, or what is commonly called pilgrimages, whereby the pilgrim sacrifices much security in order to either find our simply co-experience an unity and awakening.  Taken as a whole, and understood as not something that happens with a brief minority, but great majorities of people, the cycle of giving up something in order to move along a known spiritual route for the same of great understanding, lead Eck to perceive the idea of Sacred Geography. Such a revelation seems to quickly brighten the map of India. What may be initially imagined as a vast and foreign entity, strung through by the world-renown Ganges River, and set off by a seemingly unusual language, becomes something more of a rich-veined map, full of the same sort of character many modern viewers might think of when they remember Gandhi the movie.  Benares is the spiritual capital of India and a place that is seen internally as not only a pilgrimage stop-over, but for many, a sacred city to lay oneself to rest and many bathing ghats (baths on the Ganges along the banks of the city) are cremation zones as well as baths for ritual.  The imagined geographical zone of comfort could be thought of the same kind of compliment that we hope many Americans experience when they visit great and beautiful wild lands as a compliment to churches.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen:
The Strange Case of the
Pan Fried Meatloaf

"People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do?... The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry." MFK Fisher from "The Gastronomical Me"













When the hunger strikes, as Fisher plays it above, and the deadline for the produced meal is fast approaching -- or to be a bit behind schedule -- there are some hopeful safeguards against failure.  These safeguards come in many forms and by degrees, but there are some real standards: the best one is that you have done some planning from the day before or that morning.  A daily trip to the grocery store should bring back to your refrigerator all of the necessary items for even the simplest recipe.  If the meal is complex, let's hope the planning has been as complex and that the proper ingredients are

clean, dry, refrigerated pre-prepared if necessary, and that the oven has been preheat.  Then, for better or worse, there are the only vaguely imagined recipes that will, you already know by the late afternoon, maybe or may not work perfectly, but it will be attempted because the alternative will be bread and braunschweiger, which only approximately 1 percent of the population of your family can even look at...from a distance.  My strange case of the pan fried meatloaf was a combination of vague

intentions, reduced time, but eventual luck.  I had foresight to defrost the package of four ground turkey patties.  These could be used as simply as to fry and serve, maybe bread, maybe applesauce, but at least there would be the patty.  In the pantry I then found an ancient packet of meatloaf seasoning -- yes, this would liven it up a little. With a simple dash of ketchup over the top of the tucked loaf, and there would a version of the one of the more venerated meals of all time: the meatloaf, or scrapple as it might have known in previous times, which had always consisted of some form of meat with a binding agent and hopefully, where available, seasoning.  The Argentinians called it Pan de carne and filled it with ham, cheese and carrots; the Austrians called it Faschierter Braten, not filled, but wrapped in ham before baking; the Cubans made pulpeta and stuffed theirs with hard boiled eggs; the Czechs made sekana, stuffed by gherkins and wienerwurst. The idea dawns on you that meatloaf had been ancient version of the "5:00 Hustle" and one could easily envision large farm families of 5, 10, 15, looking around the stone-walled kitchen for their own version of gourmet items of offal, onion bulbs, and brown eggs, perhaps a lean strip of unused pork, squashing it all together and tossing it over the flame. The result would have been anything but alluring visually, but fatty vegetableized loaf would have packed a calorie load that might have lasted until the same time

next day.  Conditions here, safe to say, not as dire as all that, but the need for the hustle and a calorie load still with us.  Other products in my kitchen that I could raise to the level of meatloaf were shallots, orange grape-size tomatoes, and the egg.  I gooped all of the components together and let sit in the refrigerator to form. Our appointment went a little late; the cross town to school, then back home was trying to drive through ferry of parked cars and there tends to be two fire engines squealing past side streets per trip in the city.  Meatloaf takes at least 30 minutes to bake, sometimes more depending on the thickness of the loaf. What to do, what to do?  Off to the ceremony in 45 minutes. I took a cake spatula and duly cut the loaf into two inch slices and tossed them onto the frying pan in coconut oil (important fat content for our purposes), and let them sizzle, all four sides, for at least 8 minutes per side.  The outside became beautifully marbled, the shallots began waft and the tomatoes to soften.  Most importantly though -- and this is what separated the loaf from the standard burger, other than shape -- was the meatloaf seasoning, full of dried onions and other red meat compliments.  On the plate the large cubes of meatloaf looked just a little bit more appetizing than the standard-fare meatloaf, browned on all sides, juices rising, and ketchup along the side. This strange case finished with the surprising revelation that this was one of the best pieces of meat that we had ever had. It was turkey, which can tend to be a little less flavorful than a good bunch of red meat, but the meatloaf seasoning did well to balance this out.  The shallots and tomatoes inside the meat, bound by an egg, created a level of texture usually not had in a standard burger.  Most important...finished in 15 minutes and back on the road again, through the ferry load of cars on the street, past the six firetrucks no doubt rushing back to the station for a bite of meat loaf.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

Mushrooms are a wildly usable natural ingredient. It's hard to think of many things that it would not be suited to compliment.  Of the top of my head, I could see a diced portobello enhancing the texture and flavor of virtually any soup, both broth based or tomato based; nearly any kind of meat except for

maybe fish; salads and definitely rices.  The Wild Mushroom Risotto recipe calls for only 2/3 cups of diced porcini mushrooms, a type that wasn't available at the store, so a quick swap to portobello worked just fine.  Start the dish with a standard shallot sauté in oil, then a pinch more oil and 1 and 1/2 cups of Arborio rice, a large and silky style that is well suited to soaking up the mushroom liquid, 1/2 cup of white wine and a full 4 cups of chicken broth.  As the recipe suggests, the process of making the rice is to slowly dissolve the broth, ladling in smaller portions at a time, absorbing the

liquid, then ladling more for what could take up to 35 minutes constant stirring.  The result, however, is a very fluffy and flavorful batch, not sticky or burnt (because of constant stirring).  I placed a batch of boiled asparagus over the arborio and alongside slices of lemon pepper pork loin. A small bowl of cauliflower hummus lined by carrots and this became an earthy, fresh dinner, with hints of coming spring spiced in.

Arboretum Diary:
The Grady Tract

"The thrushes were hurrying back to the wood where the blackbird was croaking hoarsely, a sort of neighboring, as if ordering all the birds to keep quiet and go to sleep." Renard, "The Woodcock"









The small parking lot to the Evjue Pines of the Grady Tract, Arboretum, is set right at the cross hairs of some of the heaviest traffic in the city, where Seminole meets the Beltline East, and one couldn't imagine a more unusual spot to locate the beginning of a linkage of Oak Savannahs inside Kettle Moraines and finally a fully restored marshland Prairie.  But that is the unusual jewel of the city, the Arboretum, as it is made up of pockets of restored naturally occurring forms of habitat.  Once past the initial part of the trail, the pines do a nice job of silencing the ongoing traffic and then quickly the fields of oak grubs take over and long stretching knolls of restored oak savannah spread out in holes

and hillocks.  This morning the recently knocked down swaths of forest stand in piles of cherry, walnut and some oak, all soon to be burned away, the same natural process that allowed for the savannah to occur pre-settlement.  Hawks, robins and chickadees the primary birds here this morning, geese in the background and a lone woodpecker pounding in the background.  Down into the Greene Prairie, though a more lively story as the sedge and bulrush begin green and the water subsides enough to reveal the wood planks as walkway through the immaculately restored marshland.  Sandhill Cranes can be common to see in the vast wetland, but today's show is a flock of Goldfinches that stir at my arrival and they playfully disperse into a near by underbrush.  One of the more vibrant birds in north america, the gold finch can be common here all year round, are seedeaters, and like the open edges near creeks and water.  The sun is not out today, so the rest of the Greene Prairie is a bit quieter than it had been in the day past at 60 degrees and sunny, when the Noe Woods, a scattering of pine and oak, was worth a concert ticket.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

The beauty of the frittata is that virtually anything goes – if you have 10 eggs on hand, a favorite meat in mind, and some fresh herbs, a frittata could be yours in 30 minutes.  This particular recipe calls for smoked salmon and chives, but I could as easily see crumbled pork sausage or good ham at

the bottom of the pan with fluffy eggs cooked over the top.  First need is to chip away the smoked salmon to bite size pieces and set aside.  Whip up 10 eggs and some rich milk in a bowl, add some diced chives and grated cheese if desired (we skipped the cheese in this case but added some extra

coconut oil for richness and texture). Add the chipped salmon to the bowl, softly stir, and season by at least salt and pepper, then dump this mixture into a pan that is deep enough and that is okay for the oven.  Let the mixture solidify for just a couple of minutes over medium heat on the stove top, then bake uncovered for 25 minutes in a 350 oven.  The frittata is done when the top begins to brown and

fluff up; the sides begin pull away from the greased pan and should easily cut all the way through.  We served with sweet potato waffle fries as our sort of hash brown substitute.  When an egg dish, for whatever reason, sounds like a good dinner option but a fried egg or omelette seems too much like breakfast, the frittata might be the ticket.

Arboretum Diary

"Silent and quite lifeless as we approach it, it'll start to live as soon as it thinks we've gone, because we're as quiet as it is." Renard, "The Sparrow"











3-26


At the hour when the rain stops and the wildlife anticipates some time for open hunting, the birds come out as if on cue and early spring chorus begins in earnest.  We had entered the Wingra Spring Parking Lot, a very common trail which leads to a less than common marshland surrounding this edge of the Lake. Here are natural springs and where they bubble up through the mantle and flow on into the lake, through underbrush, reeds, cattails and bulrush, it leaves a blindingly green trail of what looks to be water clover. Needless to say this spring trail must be a boon for birds of all seasons. Finches and titmouse hover over the thin branches skittering from place to place, likely eyeing up our invasion the space known to them as the great bath, seeds trickling over rocks, insects rising to the

surface as if self-advertisement for a free meal.  Along the two-inch thick mud trail, through a mix of oak, pine and occasional birch, a Downy Woodpecker bobbles against the tough and ancient crust of an oak.  A few steps forward up on the very tops of three old pines stumps, overlooking the marsh as if sentries, are three turkey vultures, steady as statues for the moment.  So the cycle has begun. Seeing these large New World Vultures from the back looks very much like the back side of golden eagles. As we saw only one initially, we thought it possible, but then saw the other two stationed at around 20 foot intervals, shaking their wings from the recent rain.  The binoculars revealed the greatest obvious difference between the two species, the red ugly head in comparison to the stealthy and stoic head of the golden eagle.  As one jumped from its perch through a forest underbrush that was still void of its leaves, it was easy to hear the vast flap of the wings against the silence.  No doubt in this northern climate, recently landed from migration, this large bird comes to Wisconsin considerably hungry and what better place to wait your turn at the table than a fresh marsh spring.

The Southseas

"The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats, low on the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the current. The the sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and the, as it rose clear, the flat sea send it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it." Old Man and The Sea


To be up this early in the morning was a revelation for the grandfather. It had been too long, he thought, since he woke in the same pattern as the sun. At that moment, when the world goes from the dark to the first glimpses of the sun as it used spread out behind him along the cliffs to the north of San Francisco, was to find the peace for the day, for only then could you map out the hours and the varieties of birds that either clung to their shrubs on land or skimmed the shallows of the bays by certain hours and tides as they too were magnetically pulled by the shifting of the heavens.  A certain smell of the fishing rose up to them at the beach, a faint smell of motor oil as the local fisherman were already skipping by the straits at the resort, and the smell of eucalyptus and jasmine from behind them at the small golf course. It was true, he began to think, that he had lost some of his initial zeal for finding some enormous treasure for its own sake -- to become a treasure hunter and historian of the sea.  He had been this all the while, of course, nothing, really, but that very thing for all of these years but that nobody would have known this but he and his mind and his stories in which he lived inside.  Lily had found a moth washed up on the shore and was trying to find it some dry ground.  As the water line scooted into the sand, she ran from it, as if chased, and spoke to it as though it were a new friend.  Aha, he thought, this is the adventure, is it not? "What do you say we paddle back out to our spot out on the strait before all the boats anchor in?" He asked.
"I believe there is a dolphin kingdom down there," she said, "that is why you want to go back."
"You may be right about that," but how will we know unless we see." A comforting breeze stirred up. At that hour, despite the sun reaching up over the thin blue line across the bay, the water and the air was still a bit crisp.  He had secretly brought with him some very makeshift tools and a bag.  The children's shovel and bucket would have to do for the treasure seeking, and the bag might work for bringing shells back up to the surface as he hid the jewels in his back pocket.
"What is that out there, Gpa?"
"Where are you looking?" he said as he turned around the face the open water.
"Something floating and moving very slowly. It comes to the top then down and back up again."
"We should go paddle and see, shouldn't we?"

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

When it comes to hummus, you just have to dive in, so to speak. No need to over think whether the popular, maybe trendy, Mediterranean inspired dip looks a little beige or clumpy to eat.  This recipe, Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Hummus, is so quick and easy it's done and ready to try it's not worth the sweat to worry what it might be like.  It's good fresh, and in the previous post it was pointed out that

cauliflower has some surprisingly wonderful benefits for cardiovascular and as an anti-inflammatory. The recipe started with the need for a full head of garlic roasted for half an hour. You have to cut off the head of the garlic then drizzle with olive oil. By minute 15 the aroma near the oven seems very similar to your favorite restaurant which has probably been doing the same thing for hours getting

ready to use those soft pellets of garlic for bread or roasting, who knows.  Cut a head of cauliflower into small florets, making sure to keep some of the stalk -- this too will soften as it steams and is certainly edible.  Find a blender or processor and dump the soft cauliflower and the roasted garlic in, enough olive oil to fully moisten, two full tablespoons of Tahini Paste (this is sesame seeds reduced,

high in good fat and fiber), a pinch of lemon juice, dashes of cumin, paprika, salt and pepper and basically pulse the warm and aromatic mixture until it reaches a consistency you prefer. Scoop out and sprinkle with a dash more of paprika. Find your favorite vegetables for dippers; find your favorite funky crackers, like multigrain seasoned, or pita chips and eat while still warm.  What you find is that the store bought hummus, although good in its own right, tends to carry far more seasonings and far more flavors that tend to stay with you for hours.  Here, the mildness of the central ingredient, cauliflower, is very mellow, with slight flavors of acidic lemon, pinches of the tahini, and slight cumin.  The texture, though, is the true seller of the homemade version, soft, slightly chunky, and basically comfort food.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

Although seemingly complicated at the outset, the Mediterranean Paleo diet is supposed to be, interestingly, as simple as possible.  The concept is to provide ingredients and meals that are more natural, less processed, and closer to how the human body ate in virtually all generations previous to this age.  Convenience and mass production has complicated foods; as the use-by date extends, so too do the artificial ingredients. In theory, cooks can by-pass all of this by walking to the market, buying

fresh, unprocessed ingredients, and taking that to prepare back home in order to apply and recipe that calls for techniques that preserve flavor and nutrition.  The original recipe for Zesty Crab Cakes with Aioli definitely would have played by these rules because the chef lived in San Francisco when he was inspired to first prepare them. He was able to buy the Dungeness fresh and had fun picking out the meat from the cracked shells.  Being from Algiers, the chef had found a similarly vast selection of ocean raised seafood, ranch raised meats and cheeses, and farm raised vegetables.  So, first to cook the crabmeat in any way desired, as long it can eventually be shredded for patties.  Place in a bowl with coconut flour (stay away from the grains in breadcrumbs), two eggs, scallions, garlic powder, cayenne, paprika, salt and pepper, and you have the fresh beginnings of a certainly aromatic crab patty.

To fry, the chef is a strong defender of using alternative forms of cooking oil to anything corn based, including standard vegetable oil or canola oil.  The unprocessed fats found in coconut oil are what are called unprocessed and are the very kinds the body needs for full functioning, nerve enhancement, and brain functioning.  Looking at the make-up coconut oil, it consists of some 60 percent of daily recommended fats, and serves as a very good source of clean fat. Fry the three inch patties about three minutes per side, until golden brown and that the rest of ingredients, including the scallions on the inside, are tender.  Drizzle over with a home made aioli sauce, scatter with some sharp greens, and this is a very real taste of the Mediterranean.

For the accompanying soup, the cumin cauliflower is a great Mediterranean option.  In essence, this soup is seasoned cauliflower and chicken broth. As the side note on the recipe states, "Cauliflower and onions are rich sources of quercetin, a potent antioxidant that regulates blood sugar, lowers inflammation, and provides cardiovascular benefits." This is a good and easy sell, especially considering that cooked and seasoned cauliflower is twenty times more interesting than raw.  This

recipe also starts with 2 tbsp. of the coconut oil (by now combining benefits for both the brain and the heart), and sautéing white onion, adding garlic, cumin and chili powder for taste.  Place a full head of cauliflower florets into the mix, warming, then 4 cups of chicken broth for the real base of the thin soup.  As 10 minutes rolls past, the cauliflower should feel tender. It is time to puree this stock in a blender or processor, pulsing until as thick or thin as chosen.  What comes out is entirely different soup flavor than what might be expected.  All of the bland to bitterness of the cauliflower has been absorbed by the stock and the seasoning.  The coconut fat adds richness.  Drizzle over the top with olive oil, and here is a great compliment to the crisp heartiness of the crab cake.

Nature Stories

"Come in, my friend. Here everything is cool and shade. A few specks of light. Look at that beetle on that cow pat, like a needle shining on a thick cravat." Jules Renard, from "The Wood"









You say you may need a little inspiration as the ground and the plants and the trees still remain gray and beige in late March.  You may here the chickadee in the background off in the shrubs across the street.  You could hear the new chortle of the red-winged.  That is a start.  I see the magnolia buds are thick as small pouches full of powder and wings. A green tuft has just risen, as if overnight, under the new patch bark near the sticky rose bush stem.  There is more to come.  Be patient, give it a month, you will see. At the Limestone Prairie Garden what a rush of color to come, like an invasion against the husky gray bearded early spring. Nearly out of control will be the purple prairie clover, all those little bare helmets bearded underneath this time purple.  Now take a look behind that.  Is that little bluestem outfitted by the side-oats grass? You will very much like the wispy prairie smoke.

How audacious. Who, exactly, came up with this design, such small and lively heads, professor hair unhatted. If this purple is too dark, wait until the little suns in between flare by the prairie coreopsis

and the long canes of goldenrod prodding the open sky by a hidden hand somewhere far below the ground.  Now you must zoom back out, as if camera, if you can; listen now to the warblers, the thrushes, the nuthatches, the cardinal flash past like a single red bolt, an ink streak.  Why, what do the remaining white and red pines say when they shoulder up to the tall wind? Now zoom back in, the huddling turkeys crawl across the drumlin like foot soldiers waiting for the chestnut husk to finally open.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

The combination of rotisserie spiced chicken thighs mayonnaise and mustard might be enough to make a half pita good, but it's all the other little things added to this that makes the Poppy Seed-Chicken Pita a favorite dinner sandwich.  Added to the shredded chicken and mayo-mustard

combination are 1/3 cup of Greek Yogurt, which gives this Moroccan influenced sandwich a thicker, tangier sauce; chopped celery adds a crisp bright green for texture. Chopping up any kind of nut on hand is a great way to add a richness and additional crunch. A small handful of diced dried apricots (I

also decided to dice up a large slice of Gala apple for brightness), along with a peppering of poppy seeds all soak up some of the extra sauce to thicken.  Since this was already somewhat of a catchall pita, I sent ahead and stacked spinach along the bottom of the pita before I scooped in the chicken mix, then placed cut tomatoes and one good sized avocado slice over the top for good measure.  Once you bit in, there are a few things that standout: the seasoned chicken in sauce, the celery against the sauce, and the poppy seeds for a final and unique texture.  It is at once rich and creamy but without a doubt a healthy and filling portion. Alongside a bowl of tomato bisque soup, a nice and comforting meal that resembles something you might get at the local gourmet sandwich shop.

Arboretum Diary

"A magpie and a golden oriole fly across and the two turtledoves cut through the air, while a blackbird, whom I know, is no doubt going from hedge to hedge in search of his cheap little whistle." – Raynard, from "A Sunrise"








March 18

There is the self-teaching of nature that can be very fruitful – we might call it phenology reporting, as we witness our own little scenes and stations in nature and make very common sense observations.  This approach provides much open joy and the mystery that lurks behind virtually every stump, limb, leaf, caterpillar, squeal of the osprey, glint of the sizzling sun is infinite as we have senses to observe. And then there is approach of following a guide, who most certainly knows his angiosperms and his pollinators. When this world is presented, the self-taught becomes both intrigued and a bit overwhelmed until, after another short distance, and a new shrub is introduced, he realizes that it not only does not quite matter, but that mystery, either way, must be preserved. And so the botanist, we might conclude, looks out upon the sunrise as it's rays begin to laser down across the varying landscapes of Longenecker Garden and wishes that he might see the paint strokes of it all, the jazz of the morning orchestra of songbirds, and the long and deep history that he stands on; just as the impressionist might wish he knew the chemical reaction of the pollination of the beetle onto the Magnolia that is about to bloom.  To rise above the fixation of either is the trick and to be is to be. To be is to know and that no body can take that away or necessarily know more or less.  The Magnolias at Longenecker are soon to bloom. Of the most ancient species of trees, Magnolias are a wonderful storyline of both hardiness and beauty. Millions of years old, they existed before the advent of bees and therefore must have needed a separate pollinator, the beetle, itself ancient, for creation.  Magnolias have survived ice ages and continental drifts, varying climates and no doubt any number of invasive attempts at their livelihood.  And yet here they are in there ancient structure forming cottony buds readying for the right moment to burst. As the weather is perceived more unpredictable than every, the wisdom and strategy of the budding process might hold another view, and have likely seen virtually everything over the millennias. To be in the presence of a museum of trees is more than just the awaiting of the pink blush to come.  There are years of knowledge and wisdom at the end of every limb.  How man has come to interact with time in nature is as much a narrative about the man. The well tended tree that is understood is a good sign.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

"I left that evening with a bag of gingersnaps for the ride home and the conviction that these deserved a place in the pantheon of great all-American cookies." – Dorie Greenspan, from Dorie's Cookies











There are some things about cookies that store-bought simply can't do justice.  The gingersnap is as about a good example of this as could be.  There are good gingersnaps out there, ones that capture that nearly nasal vibrant clove and ginger taste, but they tend to miss a couple of things: one, they have lost their moistness and two there is no other way to substitute for the smell of the combination

of ginger, clove and molasses that Dorie's Princeton Gingersnaps create in the kitchen.  As she says in her recipe, these cookies are loaded with ginger – 2 tbsp. of finely chopped peeled fresh ginger (a trip of its own, to have the root in your hand to smell), 1 tbsp. of crystallized ginger (like a candy), and

then finally 1 tsp. of powdered ginger (the standard ingredient in less 'packed' cookies.) Where these three gingers meet at the crossroads of cinnamon, molasses, butter and vanilla, a very unique and alive flavor is formed; when cooked (undercooking is always the best way to ensure softness), and

out of the oven still hot, there seems to be enough sustenance in these cookies to swap six of them for dinner. The molasses does its great work days later by keeping the cookies soft and chewy; the crystallized and fresh ginger bits do their job maintaining the 'spring' in the flavor.

"A single cloud envelops ten-thousand stream side pines before my door the flowing water babbles all the time..." – Han Shan














Today only the crow call breaks the silence of new ice
tomorrow the hopeful song of the black capped chickadee
the sun-lit wings of a mallard rises from the river
like white origami tugged from a cloud by a string

The Southseas

"The boy was back now with the sardines and the two baits wrapped in a newspaper and they went down the trail to the skiff, feeling the pebbled sand under their feet, and lifted the skiff and slid her into the water." Old Man and Sea

Today they had the full day ahead of them.  There were some excuses given as to why they would not meet at the Pointe for breakfast and then stay for two hours at the small waterpark near the main pool.  They might not make lunch, either, for sea trout were trophy fish and they were fickle.  Sea trout might eat any number of things, depending upon the weather and how secluded a hole they were able to reach. "Some days I have seen them go after crustaceans, sea worms, little sandeels." The grandfather would not have known this himself, but for the captain Ossie of Southseas who had been born and raised in these magnificent waters.  He had once taken the grandfather out into the islands and he watched the Captain that day try ten different baits and in varying levels of water.  When the captain finally landed one, it was off of the simplest initial bait, the crustacean and he remembered how widely he smiled as he pulled in the three and a half pound trout with such large teeth that it was not certain at first that it was a trout.  "We will begin in the shallows wading in, fishing from land, then we can make our way to our boats, you see." Lily knew, of course, without saying, that they would reach the strait again and go diving.  But it was their secret and nobody could know what lay a mere five feet under the surface there.  As they launched that morning, lifejackets secure, paddles in hand, lunches and waters stowed, well lathered by sun screen, they had, in that instant, become now part of the very place, the sea, and they would catch a trout by crustacean and smell the briny rainbow skin of the great fish and skin it and scale to bring back to a fire and cook it as over a spit.  There were the beach days, when the wind carried over them a certain smell of the sea and of tanning oil; there, the voices of the beach carried over them. From behind them, on those beach days, gliding over the trees, here in mid-April, you could hear the slow guttural squawk of he American White Pelican fly on its way to the Ding Darling Preserve just up the coast. But these days were of visitors; the days of the kayak and the island, moving toward the wild fish, and then finally diving down into the blue haze of the sea seeking relics of the 17th century, well, these were of history, of time itself. To put ones hand on such things was not something you could merely write home about, but they might shape the way you see things.  "Yes, the day will be fine today," he said, and watched as Lily, who knew just where to go, rushed across the slender strait to the Caya and nosed her red kayak as deep as she could into the smooth brown sand.

Riverside Ovens
Test Kitchen

"Bastille is one of the legendary dishes of Morocco and something that the French have adapted infinitely to make their own." Dorie Greenspan, from Around My French Table











A few inches of snow in mid march might inspire the would-be test kitchen to try to transport itself to a more Mediterranean climate, like, maybe, Fez Morocco -- that should be far enough down in the hemisphere to imagine oneself gathering recently gathered local large onions, sweet garlic, saffron threads, pinches of ginger and lemons as big as softballs.  So away we go... Fez is of an ancient branch North African cities, sometimes considered the Athens of Africa and its primary university considered the oldest running in the world.  Along its ancient stone corridors, no doubt street vendors under its namesake, Fez hats, tanned by all time, and beating the heat by nothing more than tea or lemonade.  Gather here a recently butchered chicken, eight thighs in all, as mentioned large onions, garlic, ground ginger, coriander, cinnamon, saffron, a few eggs, honey, cilantro, fresh almonds (maybe these were plucked from the other side of the hill, facing the sea?), and don't forget to find something that will resemble philo dough for what is to be sweet dough.

Remembering that the Sultan de Fes would have taken his sweet chicken (probably pigeon) very seriously, to the point of hiring a very competent Spanish chef to prepare, you must marinade the chicken first with the onion, garlic, spices for at least an hour.  This will eventually come to a boil until falling off the bone tender; strain and cut to cubes, if possible.  To the broth, three beaten eggs,

which will form the chicken sauce. Prepare your dough for cover; sprinkle a handful of diced almonds to the sheet then spoon the chicken and sauce over, then the second dough sheet over creating your pie.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake for 20 minutes.  As the snow continues to swirl from the rooftops down onto the courtyard, the smells inside the house should by now smell of sweet cinnamon joined by rich chicken, and the sliced lemons that go along side might remind you of Fez, Morocco and the French chefs who, over the years, have co-opted the rich pie for their own.

"He was asleep in a short time and he dreamed of Africa when he was a boy and the long golden beaches and the white beaches, so white they hurt your eyes, and the high capes and the great brown mountains. He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it. He smelled the tar and oakum of the deck as he slept and he smelled the smell of Africa that the land breeze brought at morning." Old Man and the Sea


The grandfather and Lilly had in common the ease of slipping into a deep and fast sleep.  The old man would not stay that way for long, it was only in the beginning that the dreams came, and then the dreams themselves that awoke him sometimes many times in the night where he would then, by instinct, rise and look out the slits of the shades to see the condition of the surf or he might peak into the rooms of grandmother or granddaughter.  If there was nothing of concern on his mind, he could slip as easily back into the thin mantle of the next dream and he quite looked forward to it.  He did this and to the image of what he later thought must be a Baby's Ear shell came to him vividly, as he sat down on the this surf of a beach and watched the strange drawing pattern of the shell curl and scoot along the bottom to create a strange and squiggly drawing of sorts.  The water in his dream was not entirely clear but an artificial green and it was warm.  He cup his hands and bring some of the green water to his mouth. It was sweet but did not taste like anything that he had ever yet encountered.  Pictures of dolphins who lived under neath the islands in sand caves came to him. The air above him had weight and was sweet as well, something strangely enough like the subtle taste of cinnamon.  And then, abruptly, came an image of underneath the water, inside the vast green, and he was, of course, breathing now underneath, certainly gilled, in along the hull of a golden ship.  His second, conscious mind, commented that he knew he was dreaming, and his swimming self nodded pleasantly but opined that he must be allowed to continue, just this one time.  The dream came to him in waves and it felt warm and comforted him.  He looked up and could see at the surface his Lily looking down at him from a surfboard that leaped and charged by the rhythm of the waves.  Her mouth moved but there was no sound.  His eyes opened. A very sharp sliver of sunshine had placed onto the floor in front of him. "And so the dreams become stranger on vacation," he thought to himself, shook his head and rose to check on the direction of the wind.

Arboretum Diary

"I was swelling with pride at having been taken for a tree by a kingfisher." – Jules Renard "Kingfisher"












March 9

Having finally found the remnants of the Lost City again at the far east portion of the Arboretum, it seemed only fitting that it would be the smallest of its species, the Downy Woodpecker, to be the culprit splitting open the silence of the forest in spring.  There had been the flickering nuthatch or two which had stirred in interest to our visit along the more slender trails of the Lost City.  They bob at the thin end of the basswood trees which are still so leafless as to look paltry and sickly even.  Without the glamor of foliage it becomes very obvious what the crowding of the tree species does to the reach of the dominant canopy oaks, the pine trees which flourish only at their highest peak, the basswood bending so far as to near collapse in search for limited sunshine.  Yet the nuthatch sees this as a jungle gym, small little temporary rulers of the airwaves.  That is until we moved outside of the jungle gym of the Arboretum proper and out onto the heavily forested neighboring streets that line Arboretum Drive near the vast Redwing Marsh.  Three old oaks stood leafless in the side yard of ancient home.  It itself  had been silent for a moment, but then, in among the enormous tubes of limbs, the unmistakable drumming of some such species of woodpecker in its patterned attack.  We walked a bit past the scene and tried to find the knocking head and there it was built inside an open air ring, five or six reverberating knocks, then silence again, as if in pondering of the work of the indestructible beak.  In deep cold spring, the houses themselves lifeless except for the competition of the nail gun by carpenters in the distance fastening tar sheets onto a garage roof.  Off in the distance, barely awakening in the cold air, the song-a-lee of the red winged blackbird striking its own fierce notes announcing its cattail territory.

The Southseas

"Keep the blanket around you," the boy said. 'You'll not fish without eating while I'm alive.''Then live a long time and take care of yourself,' the old man said. 'What are we eating?' 'Black beans and rice, fried bananas, and some stew.'" – Old Man and the Sea




The sunset with dolphins had been as lively as ever.  Captiva was little more than wind-formed mound of sand and so there were very few natural impurities to their beaches -- all white sand churned in and among white shells, which tumbled up onto the beach pleasantly, rarely by waves any taller than Lily's ankles.  The sailboats that drifted by sliced through layers of horizon and at the very correct moment the spinnakers bisected the setting of the orange sun and it all looked very pastel until the sleek hump of a dolphin surfaced to interrupt the perfect peace.  Lily had walked in several feet, quite shallow, and waited for the flying fish spit up near her, some of them landing randomly on the thick sand then wiggling back into the water thinking, she supposed, to fake out the dolphins then climb back into the water seeking an escape route.  The grandmother took her traditional seat up into the landed beach chairs, her one gin and tonic in her hand, thinking, knowing, that these were the postcards of moments. The grandfather had now two things that he was thinking about at all times.

Whereas before it was only Lily  on his mind at hours like these, now he kept one eye to the east to his sunken treasure ship, what might be the Hispaniola.  They returned back to the room earlier than normal -- he wanted to wake up earlier, before the sun, to get things ready for the dive.  He had sat back out onto the open breezeway on his chair and recovered his sweet cigar. After two easy puffs he had fallen asleep when Lily opened up the screen door and saw that he was hunched forward with chin nearly resting in his chest.
"What did grandma say about these cigars, Pa?" she said out loud, disturbed by the cigar that was rolling around on the floor, still lit.
"Oh, Oh, yes, this will be the last of it, I promise," he said, and smiled. There were creases along the sides of his eyes that looked something like ancient river patterns, as tributaries descending to the gulf that was his eyes.  What they had seen? "You know, Lily, you and I are going to find some very amazing things I believe."
"Like what you wouldn't tell me about at the bottom today?"
"Yes, you remember. But I did not say what I had found."
"But I know what it is, Pa," she said as she crushed out the small notch of fire at the tip of the cigar.
"What is it that you think?"
"I think that there are large jewels down there, red, ruby, and green." The old man nodded as if this could be possible.
"Someday Lily, I believe you will come back to this very place and show someone very special what is at the bottom. We will keep it a family secret, what do you say?"
"That will be very hard for me, Pa, you know I am not very good at keeping them."
"This one, I believe you might," he said.  He could remember his years as a chef back at Point Reyes, California, the very expectation of finding his day's oysters near Hog Island, what treasures!
"Tomorrow, yes, we will find our oysters, now it is time for you to go to bed and dream of sand dollars."

Arboretum Diary

"I've never seen a lark and it's pointless to get up early. The lark doesn't live on earth." Renard from Nature Stories









March 7

The wild turkey, although a mammoth species, is a strange ghost of a bird.  With such wild green plumage glistening like a long patch of emerald jewels against a bright sun, and inside a forest floor that is not hidden yet by leaves, such a creature should be a glaringly obvious thing to observe.  I had been running through the western most portion of the Arboretum, what is now called the Lost City, an enormous remnant of an attempt from back in the early 1900's to create a canaled suburban plot to be butted up against the shores of Lake Wingra, but that failed and turned to vast lots of overgrown concrete.  There was little sound by creatures of any kind today, dominated instead by the twisting of the basswood and pine tops by an aggressive wind.  I had found a long path made of old concrete planks, each intersection a golden green by a hundred years of velvety moss and suddenly the ghost bird, the largest I had ever seen, walked in its casual lungeing way across the path no more than ten feet in front of me.  With head phones on there is no crackling of the underbrush to detect. As for the turkey, with the stirring of the wind above, there are no footprints of the jogger to detect, especially across the velvet of the moss.  This one, unlike so many we see marching across the Longenecker Gardens in full regiments, was alone searching the invasive underbrush.  A few more steps difference in pace, it dawns on me that this could have been a collision or a turkey hurdle, certainly a startling moment in the Lost City on a windy day alone.

Arboretum Journal

"This time it was a rootlet of bluestem that sucked him up and lodged him in a leaf that rode the green billows of the prairie June, sharing the common task of hoarding sunlight." – Aldo Leopold, from "Marshland Elegy"















March 5, '17

The Arboretum is one of the great planned natural experiments in the world.  Considered of a handful of the great natural restoration projects, researchers from around the world take from it the lead at a time when restoration will be of the highest priority as habitats decreases and species dwindle due to encroachment and other environmental concerns.  As a piece of land within a city, its beginning were much more humble, a real hodgepodge of farmland and increasing, but accidental, urban use.  It took the kinds of efforts rarely seen for any issue in the modern times of distraction to pull together these various pockets of oak canopy, marshland, savannah, creeks and lake. To this day, it would be hard to make the case that the Arboretum is some kind of unified ecological presentation; but instead it is a researchers lab, and its very contrast of the hypothetical historical contents of the land, pre-European settlement, against what it had become through decades of neglect or farming, and now research, all show various patterns of growth and diminishment, depending upon its stage. The upper Arboretum, consisting of the nature center itself, the famous Longenecker Garden, Gallistel Woods, Teal Pond and Curtis Prairie, among others, seem fairly well-heeled. Transitions from native marsh, to savannah to oak canopy tend to move less in pockets that in a naturally occurring succession as elevation rises, then falls back down to Lake Wingra. To the south of the belt line, the Grady tract, an experiment in

Oak restoration and prairie manufacturing, seems a bit less responsive to the experiments with abundant invasive species including buckthorn and the garlic mustard and dame rockets, just to name a few.  Prescribed burns are clearly utilized here in order to eliminate the more shallow reaching roots of invasive, while allowing the more sturdy native taproots of other plants to survive. Burning can eliminate layers of leaves on the ground, opening soil to the prospect of better seeding success. Keeping buchgrasses, especially invasive, under control is critical to habitats survival for its own sake and for the sake of surrounding wildlife.  Taken in its entirety, the Arboretum is a lab that is unlike uses of landscaping, which call for a stability and visual performance; instead, the plantings and micro habitats here are bound to be ever-changing, and in that change, what we call phenology, or the observation of naturally occurring events within species, is the rule.  Today it is just before spring bloom. In a month, the transitions will begin to fill in. What will grow under the burns? To what restored portion of the marshland ponds will the waterfowl return?