How to Rescue Wrinkly Grape Tomatoes

We like tomatoes. We like tomatoes A LOT. We mostly do without in the winter, except for sales on pints of organic grape tomatoes. If they're not tossed into a salad, they're delicious with hummus and cucumbers as a snack.

In summer, unused tomatoes tend to rot. I buy mostly heirloom tomatoes, and even when kept out in the open, treated tenderly (just short of being coddled in cotton batting), a few will over-ripen and split and ugh, the smell is usually my first warning that the bottom tomato has given up.

In winter, in our house, unused grape tomatoes tend to dry out. Weird. Kept in their plastic pint container, in cool temperatures and fairly low humidity, they slowly turn wrinkly and slightly leathery. When I notice this happening, I usually slice them in half and add them to a stir-fry or saute -- nice juicy little nuggets of faux summer in my otherwise (mostly) seasonal dishes.

I had an entire pint go wrinkly not long ago, as I simply forgot about them. It happens. The wrinkly tomatoes were still juicy inside. I was in an experimenting mood, so I sliced the lot, put them in a baking dish, sluiced them with olive oil and a bit of salt, and roasted them. I was baking a pie that day, anyway.

I think the oven was set to 350F or 375F. I stirred the tomatoes every fifteen minutes so they wouldn't stick. Forty-five minutes later, I had a baking dish full of what tasted very like sun-dried tomatoes, but much squishier. Sweet, savory, chewy, with charred notes that were beyond delicious.

A few days later, these little flavor bombs became a homemade pizza topping, Mushrooms, anchovies, lots of shredded mozzarella, and fresh-made dough from my local gourmet shop, and behold. A thing of wonky well-meaning and very tasty beauty.

BTW sliced chorizo -- another wonderful product of the same gourmet shop -- is another revelation when roasted. The next time I made pizza it was chorizo, roasted tomatoes and "Mexican cheese mix" from Trader Joe's. There was space around the edges of the foil-lined baking sheet (yeah, no pizza stone in this house) so I laid out six spare slices to cook. SPICY BACON BEST EVER THING OMG.

Seriously, do the tomatoes thing and also the chorizo thing. Totally worth the trouble.

Catching Up, Part 1: Summer 2018

Been a long time since I made a blog post. Much has happened in our lives since I last nattered on about birds and orchids and cookery and books I like. I reckon I’ve felt distracted.

We recently went to Ireland for a week to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, and that seems to have knocked loose some inspiration, some renewed desire to natter on again outside of Facebook.

Spouse and I made two trips to new places back in 2018: San Jose, CA (again for Worldcon), and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (for a birdy vacation). (SEE NEXT POST for more about that trip.)

California is a delight to us because we know delightful people there. We stayed in Piedmont (part of the Bay Area) with a delightful family for a week, from Spouse’s group of amazing friends. They made us comfortable and fed us and entertained us and we did our best to be good guests. We love and adore these people and feel so lucky that they seem to like us too. The August weather was cool and bracing; we enjoyed the open windows in our guest room every night, and only once in that week did we catch whiff of the terrible wildfires destroying huge swathes of northern California that month. (The fires did come much closer in the next few weeks, but we were gone by then. Our friends were fortunate to suffer only from the choking smoke, though for asthmatics that is plenty terrible.) (See above for a sunset view from their home.)

One thing we did that was necessary was to visit the American Museum of Bookbinding in San Francisco. Our hospitable artist friend needed to see the place, and we wanted to see author and friend Madeleine Robins again, as she now works there. (Do please visit her page in Book View Café. We are fans of hers as well as friends.) I highly recommend this museum to anyone with a love of books, a geeky love of the history of technology, and a love of the arts of covers and type. Witness the efforts people have made over the centuries to make the written word not just more widely accessible but also attractive to have and hold.

What else was wonderful was our new appreciation for the bird life of the Bay Area. When last we visited it wasn’t quite one of our obsessions yet. But now? I paged through the guide to Western US birds on the plane, with emphasis on those creatures featured in the eBird lists Spouse had shared. One of my rewards was to stand on our host’s rear deck overlooking a forested canyon road lined with native scrub as well as hill gardens, and know INSTANTLY that the twittering cigar with wings swooping at eye level had to be a White-throated Swift. The backyard also yielded Anna’s Hummingbird, California Scrub Jay, Lesser Goldfinches and Hermit Warbler. Spouse later saw Bushtits, and I was sorely vexed to have missed those. They remain a target bird for me.

We visited Lake Merritt and we found an Oak Titmouse and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, California Towhees and Brewer’s Blackbird. California and Western Gulls were abundant, as were both White and Brown Pelicans. Black Phoebes were on the wires. No Bushtits. Argh.

San Jose was close by but oh so different. The sun felt so much hotter, for one thing. It’s a smaller city than San Francisco or Oakland, but has quite a distinct personality of its own. The public transit trams run frequently, there was bike and scooter sharing, and a lengthy pedestrian (and tram) street mall lined with shops and good restaurants. The Museum of Art was small but quite wonderfully inviting, with intriguing exhibits and good public space inside.

Our convention-block hotel, the Fairmont, faces Cesar Chavez Plaza. Spouse had learned from eBird and elsewhere that Acorn Woodpeckers, a normally shy and non-urban species, had established themselves in the palm trees of the park, and when we actually arrived at the hotel and saw the park we were skeptical, to say the least, that shy birds would enjoy living there. But lo! We exited the hotel after checking in, and FIRST THING we saw looking up was not one but two Acorn Woodpeckers flitting about above our heads. It turned out there were dozens of them. Magic. We soon got to know their favorite trees for acorn storage, and really enjoyed watching them going about their lawful woodpecker business every day. Furthermore, there were Black Phoebes casually perching on the backs of benches, something we’ve never seen Eastern Phoebes do in Central Park. Made more remarkable by the large numbers of people using the park every day.

Worldcon 2018 was quite enjoyable, shared with multiple friends also in attendance, and I might’ve bought a few books and um, some jewelry. The panels were good, except that towards the end the crowds did exceed many room capacities. I'll always have fond memories for attending. 

2016: A Great Year for Life Birds, Part 3

It took far too long for us to discover Jamaica Bay. We finally went there one blustery but very sunny day in March, and of course added a life bird to my list. To OUR lists.But I failed to get any photos of the American Oystercatchers we saw.

The rest of the water birds we saw that day weren't anything new: Brant, Canada Goose, Black Duck, Mute Swan, Ring-billed and Herring Gull, Double-crested Cormorant. The land birds were similarly familiar late winter New Yorkers: Robin, Song Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird. A pair of Ospreys were making nookie on their nesting platform.

The unexpected were at least 50 Boat-tailed Grackles. They were a noisy lot. We hadn't realized they we'd see more of them in Brooklyn/Queens than we did in Florida a month earlier.

Ed returned to J Bay without me a couple of times, then we finally went there together with friends in the early summer. The Black Skimmers were breathtaking.

The East Pond treasures were, for me, a long line of Oystercatchers.

And this very concerned Swan:

So many lovely birds! The terns were in fine form, fluttering and plunging into the water. So many gulls, so many swallows. So many Yellow Warblers! But it would be a year before I returned.

Too Much Yarn, Part 2 -- A New Hope

Learning to RESIST yarn emporium emails and catalogs is actually therapeutic. The hoarding shows all claim that learning not to accumulate stuff requires repeated exposure to the things you normally can’t resist. They might be right! I’m really enjoying “shopping” my stash and not adding to it.

I mean, damn. Lookit that.

That said…a whole bunch of the yarn that I’m most eager to play with needs winding. A whole bunch. Four skeins just for WIPs (where I wound half the skeins and decided to wait to wind the rest). GAH. Winding is BORING. 

Everything needs winding.

Everything.

EVERYTHING.

SO MUCH GODDAMNED WINDING.

What's worse than winding? FROGGING. Ripping apart something you worked on for possibly hours and days, because you completely failed to notice something was deeply wrong and just kept going. Because you really liked the yarn but got the gauge wrong. Because you really meant well to make a baby blanket but didn't have enough yarn and nothing else to do with it. Because halfway through you realized you were totally sick of making even one more chunky wool sweater you'd never wear. 

I recently frogged a hat I’d created in great enthusiasm, because a) kept screwing up the pattern, but mostly b) 100 stitches is way too big for my head even in fine sock yarn. How is it possible so many hat patterns use 100+ stitches for the headband?? I have a fairly average-sized head and that’s too much. So I cast on again with 80, the next size down, and I hope it will go better now.

Don't be fooled by the cute doggie button.
This stupid thing needs frogging too. It's big enough for the Jolly Green Giant.
Anyone want to ask him if he needs a blue hat?

If you catch it in time, though, and you have enough yarn, an overly large hat can become a nice cowl.

Nice cowl, even if it started out as a beret.

I had fun re-organizing the pattern stash and WIPs while prepping for a four-day trip during which I knitted for HOURS each day. Every year we go to our favorite science fiction/fantasy convention, Readercon, which is heavy on books. It’s like attending grad-level lit courses for 3 days, which really is fun if that's your idea of fun. All those panel discussions are full of people knitting, crocheting, needlepointing, spinning and embroidering. It’s fabulous. We also had 5 hours riding in the car each way, so I brought 4 projects (3 WIPs and 1 new) and ACTUALLY worked on all of them. Didn't FINISH any, but made lots of progress. 

Organizing the stash takes time, that might be spent knitting instead, but it's not a bad thing to play with the yarn and re-engage with why I bought it in the first place.

Except for all the freaking winding.

Catasetum Fever

I really like Catasetums. I really like most of the species and many of the hybrids. They've fascinated me since the days of my first Jones and Scully orchid catalogues back in 1984. The images of Cstm. Orchidglade made my mouth water. But it was years before I actually grew a Catasetum. I ended up with two that were smallish and, as a bonus, semi-reliable bloomers. I was happy for many years.

Clowesetum Raymond Lerner

Ctsm atratum (I still think)

But then Fred Clarke and Sunset Valley Orchids came on the scene, and I longed for more. I hesitated. Most of those hybrid plants eventually become HUGE, especially the Ctsm pileatum hybrids. I don't have overhead space for plants that get even a foot tall. I continued to hesitate. Then the ever-inventive Mr. Clarke decided to try breeding MINI Catasetums. Oh no. I got one. It bloomed! (It's not doing so great right now, but I have hopes for its revival.)

Ctsm Karen Armstrong (Susan Fuchs x denticulatum) is a building block hybrid for the new minis SVO is creating. And creating, and creating. There are a lot of new hybrids available, and some are kind of meh and others are really exciting.

This spring, SVO had a big sale on their unbloomed seedlings in 3-inch pots. So I went in on a group order with friends, and I somehow (hah) ended up with five new Catasetum plants. Well, actually 4, since I ended up with two of one cross. Group orders tend to include surprises, after all. Some sell-outs, some extras.

Ctsm. Double Down (Ctsm. Chuck Taylor 'Wow' x Ctsm. kleberianum 'SVO) (2)

Ctsm.(Ctsm. gladiatorium 'SVO 35' x Ctsm. barbatum 'SVO' HCC/AOS)

Fredclarkeara (Mo. Painted Desert 'SVO' HCC/AOS x Ctsm. Alexa 'Good One')

Fredclarkeara (Mo. Painted Desert 'SVO' HCC/AOS x Ctsm. Karen Armstrong 'SVO')

Here they are, fresh out of the box.
And already sprouting!

Most of these babies were already developing new roots on the new shoots. Because I am an indoor grower with lousy humidity levels, I began watering them right away. Older pseudobulbs should not shrivel as the new growth expands, and if you don't water them enough that will happen. The plants won't grow as heartily as they should.

The popular wisdom is to keep these sprouting plants dry so their roots will hungrily seek moisture and grow rapidly, while the sprout lives off the water stored in the older bulbs. A very humid atmosphere helps keep the plants going. But honestly, in their native deciduous forests, substantial amounts of morning dew often soak the plants at this stage so I say the hell with pop wisdom and just water the damn things. Especially since I popped them out of their pots to check root growth, and I saw no issues, just lots of nice healthy white roots.

I did wait just a tad too long to actually repot them, but they didn't seem to mind.

The old tiny pots were completely packed with roots by now, and so I just popped them into bigger pots and filled in with seedling mix. Once they go dormant and the roots die back, I'll clean them up and repot them properly. Probably.

The first one to spike and bloom was this (gladiatorium x barbatum):

It's got spots and a fringy lip from both parents, not quite best of both (which are very similar) but pretty nice. It's a great flower count for a first-bloom seedling!

Two other people also had this cross bloom first. So it's a great choice for even beginners with this group of hybrids! That same plant pictured now has a second spike filled with buds. I'm seriously thrilled with it.

I'm curious to see if the Fredclarkeara hybrids will wait to spike until they've dropped their foliage, the way Mormodes species usually do. (I won't have long to wait for two of them, since uh, they were fiercely attacked by spider mites and my battle waged didn't prevent premature leaf drop.) 

I'm happy to have these plants doing fairly well...this summer has been a bummer for my plants overall. Mostly my fault, not watering sufficiently even though I started out well feeding and misting. I'm trying to make amends and see what the rest of summer holds.

Too Much Yarn, Part 1

I overdid buying yarn last year. And the year before that, and before that. And at the beginning of this year. One night not long ago, I realized that I’d forgotten to enter a whole 2-gallon bag of yarns from late 2016 into my Ravelry stash. (I knew they existed, but not being on Rav they weren’t ready to be claimed by queued Rav projects.) I wasn’t a very good girl January, February and March of this year either…but I’ve been good ever since. I HAVE TO BE.

No regrets for these final skeins. None at all. 

Digging into more neglected parts of the stash in order to log them properly, I found myself seriously wondering WTH I was thinking on some occasions. Just 1 ball of Lion Brand Kool Wool?? I gave it away. (Along with a bunch of other odd skeins not worth combining with others in a project.)

One thing struck me very hard, as I was hunting for a couple of skeins for a new project.

All those storage bags and bins of yarn I have -- eight or nine, packed pretty full -- represented dreams and POTENTIAL when I bought that stuff. Potential new sweaters, new shawls and hats and scarves. SO many pretty things -- so many patterns! I locked myself into a yarn shop of my own desires. At my present best rate of usage -- about 12000 yards a year -- I’m set for the next ten or fifteen years of knitting. And I’m in my mid fifties.

Mild regrets for this stuff.
I'm sure I'll love the sweater I'll make 5 years from now. 

Giving away the excess yarn -- something I’ve been doing for years anyway -- is becoming an even bigger goal than just knitting it up as fast as possible. I give a few bags to a friend for charitable knitting every year, some to a women’s shelter. I sell some on Rav. I give some to friends who are down on their luck but love to knit. I'm keeping only what I really love. 

But even if I give away more things than I keep, there’s still only so many sweaters my spouse and I can wear or stuff into drawers. Only so many scarves and hats. Only so many throws to pile on the sofa. I surprised myself by giving away a shawl I spent weeks and weeks working on; I didn't love the colors once it was finished, but my friend had been admiring it so now it's hers. 

I like piling up small projects like hats, cowls, scarves, simple shawls and baby sweaters to give away. It’s entirely win-win. I get to enjoy the yarn for a while -- or not, as sometimes happens. I get to try another new pattern. I get near-instant gratification of a finished project. And I get that yarn out of the house entirely! So back in April, I decided to make a game out of my goal, similar to plowing through a book a week, to cut my To Read list down a bit each year. I decided to knit a hat or cowl every week for the rest of the year, in addition to the usual scarves and shawls that I work on while I commute. Depending on the gauge, it takes me 3-5 days to make one.

This one took 2 sessions watching TV.

To speed things up a bit, I organized the stash better, and made a bag of "ready-to-knit" skeins that don't need winding (thank you Big Yarn Companies) or I already wound. Imagine my joy when I dug into one bag and came up with a bunch of Deep Stash skeins I'd forgotten about, all set for hats and stuff! I’m capable of whiling away a whole evening browsing my pattern printouts and fondling bags of stash instead of actually, you know, KNITTING. But I hit a new realization, as I was digging in the bag of Ready To Knit skeins a little while ago.

Like, What the hell was I thinking?

Noro at its worst...

While it feels good to have rediscovered some yarn I once loved -- I quickly made a giveaway hat and planned a few others -- I have to curb that impulse a bit. Because my stash is vast and life is short, I need to -- I deserve to -- knit the yarns and patterns that I love the most first. Not just stuff that happens to be easiest to access because it’s sold in pull skeins. Good thing I already wound a bunch...

Pancakes for Dinner

There's nothing wrong with pancakes for dinner. You don't have to pretend they're crepes either. It's especially nice to have pancakes for dinner when the weather is hot and you're tired of eating salads.

Multi-grain pancake mix is a wonderful thing. I use Arrow Mills organic or Bob's Red Mill. Arrow has a grittier texture, probably due to more corn meal. I like both just fine.

I don't follow the package directions. I grew up eating my mom's very crepe-like pancakes made from scratch -- we never owned a single box of Bisquick or Aunt Jemima -- and so I know that proper ones include eggs as well as milk and oil. 

My recipe to make enough pancakes for two hungry adults plus leftovers for next day lunch or breakfast:

Beat 2 eggs, add 1/3 cup milk, a good splash of walnut oil. If you want a nice savory note, add either vanilla or almond extract, about a teaspoon.

Stir in at least 1 cup of the packaged mix. Here comes the tricky part! If you want thin cakes, which I never do, keep adding liquid until the texture is quite loose -- nearly as goopy as before you added the floury stuff. I like thicker cakes, because I like to add stuff into them, so I adjust liquid/mix to make a quite stiff batter.

Then I add the solid stuff we like. Verrrrrry thinly sliced bananas are excellent. Tiny wild blueberries, either fresh or frozen. Corn, either fresh or frozen, preferably white; grated corn will add more liquid to the batter, so make it extra-stiff if doing this. Theoretical additions: diced strawberries, chocolate chips, flaked coconut, anything not too chewy or crunchy. At least in my kitchen. Add at least 1 cup of solids, or you won't notice them. If adding corn? Really add corn. Lots of corn. Make these into corn fritters if you're going to add corn.

Butter or coconut oil are the only cooking fats I'll use for these, but do your thing your way. I like the butter just browned before I add the batter. Each cake should be about 2 tablespoons of batter, for ease of flipping and quickness of cooking. My 2 nonstick pans hold 5 and 6 cakes each, if I didn't goof up and make the batter too thin.

While side 1 is cooking, I can decide to sprinkle stuff on the uncooked side. Preferably sliced almonds, if there are bananas or berries in the mix. No need to toast them first, they'll toast nicely when you flip the cakes.

Is anything better than just butter and maple syrup for topping pancakes? Well, depends. For breakfast I'm happy with that, but for dinner I like more substance. Fruit is a wonderful thing. Whatever is in season and goes with the pancake theme works great. So berries with berries or bananas, or peaches with berries, whatever you like. Banana pancakes deserve some butterscotch sauce and clotted cream, Fosterizing them.

Corn pancakes/fritters go with pretty much anything, surprisingly. Last fall I mixed sauteed apples and fresh figs with butter and maple syrup. They were darned tasty. 

Sauteed apples with cinnamon & vanilla. Rum would be excellent too. 

Mascarpone is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It goes with everything. Everything, I tell you. 

Fresh strawberries and nectarines, in this case, over corn cakes.

I wanted pancakes but there wasn't much fresh fruit in the house last week. I did however have a pint of sour cherries I'd intended to pit and freeze. I thus discovered that cherry compote is a FABULOUS thing on corn and almond pancakes, especially with mascarpone.

And it's super easy to make, being essentially cherry pie filling. Pit cherries, put in small saucepan with a little water, 2 tsp cornstarch, 1/4 cup or so of sugar, and some almond extract. Simmer VERY gently until the cherries start to soften. Add more water if you added too much cornstarch. Add a little amaretto or, preferably, kirschwasser. Taste, add more sugar if needed. This is also a great topping for ice cream or cookies for desserts.

The nicest wine to enjoy with these pancake dinners is chilled Prosecco, dry and light and fruity and crisp. Vinho verde is good too.