66 Square Feet (Plus)
Time 2021-10-30 23:04:39Web Name: 66 Square Feet (Plus)
WebSite: http://66squarefeet.blogspot.com
ID:216606
Keywords:
Square,Plus,Feet,Description:
keywords: description:One woman, 12 seasons, and an appetite for plants
On a gale-force day we visited Fort Tilden. The autumn olives are still heavy with fruit, their season now in its fifth week. For some reason some trees ripen much, much later than others. Their juicy, sweetly-tart and slightly tannic fruit is delicious. Birds agree, which is why these trees - very invasive, locally - spread so quickly.
The tide was high and foamy and dry sand from the dunes was blasting across the wet beach.
Many people discovered this refuge during the worst days of the pandemic, and summer saw the sand crowded. But today there was no one on the beach, and just one (extremely proficient) kite boarder in the strong waves.
Back in the shelter of the dunes where native bayberry, black cherry and juniper formed a shoreline windbreak, a man with a strong accent told us that the path ahead was blocked by high water. "Do not be deceived," he said, "You cannot pass." He was right.
So we picnicked, instead. Tomato soup so hot it burned out tongues. But the heat melted the cheese into pleasing strings.
_______
2 November:
Chrysanthemum Pop-Up Walk, Central Park
0commentsLabels:Flora,Fruit,Invasive Plants,New York Fall Wednesday, October 27, 2021 The October filterOctober is about the Boston ivy doing its final best. It is a misunderstood vine (at least in the US, where it is often neurotically ripped from walls, ironically doing actual harm, then). Its overlapping, leafy layers are good for buildings and people, insulating them in summer, and catching pollution on thousands of five-pointed leaves. And the purple fruits feed birds on their way south. This building (a short walk from home) is a happy exception and it looks wonderful.
October is also when blewits appear. Slicing their stalks lets you see if they are buggy or not (in warm weather, they can be). No holes? No bugs. They are delicious.
And this October has been the best hen month, ever. Hen of the woods, ormaitake:bad for trees (usually they appear on oaks, which they eventually kill) but very good for humans.
And it is the month for late grasses allowed to grow tall in Green-Wood Cemetery.
...where we spent a recent evening after the gates had closed, listening to an outdoor performance of Fauré's Requiem. None of the backbone of Mozart or Verdi, but it has a dramatic moment. Crickets and migrating geese and city lights made it an unforgettably beautiful experience.
It is also a good time to visit the city's edges, like Hunter Island in Pelham Bay Park, where we walked and picnicked last weekend, identifying plants and mushrooms along the way.
Our group found hen of the woods and lion's mane and beautiful seaweeds and a brave few swam in the high-tide Long Island Sound, smooth as a swimming pool.
October is when the prickly ash on the terrace redeems itself. It needs to be root-pruned - the green veins tell me the roots are in trouble and can't absorb enough nutrients. But when the leaves turn orange they are gorgeous.
Late in the month flower sellers acquiesce to the hues of Halloween.
And we are all watched.
All the time.
____________
Chrysanthemum Pop-Up Walk, Central Park
2 November 12pm
2commentsLabels:New York Fall Sunday, October 24, 2021 Passionfruit, all shook upThere is the glorious scent of passionfruit in our living room. The big, purple-shelled fruits were grown in California by a small, family-owned business called Rincon Tropics.
In South Africa I grew up calling passionfruit grenadillas. They are a common fruit, there, and not expensive; at least, not compared with the insane passionfruit prices, Stateside. Just yesterday I saw some - since this is their season - at a local supermarket, at $3.59. Each! (In a Cape Town supermarket you'd pay roughly $3 for about 30 fruit.)
In a happy Instagram accident a few weeks ago I discovered Rincon Tropics after learning that they grow grow the South Americanfeijoa (or pineapple guavas -Acca sellowiana, botanically), a fruit I had not tasted since childhood, and then only once, but never forgotten. I decided that because this is my birthday month I am going to buy the things I desire. All month. With zero guilt. (I am not exactly a big-time shopper.) So fruit and books have been streaming in.
Thanks to my enthusiastic online ordering over the last two weeks (first a small box, then a large) I have been eating those fragrant fruits every night, after supper. And then the surprise, gift-box of big, fat, passionfruit arrived at the door. Happiness.
While passionfruit mousse demands to be made (despite the fact that we never eat dessert....so, dinner for friends?), I have been scooping out the tartly sweet pulp by the spoonful, and also shaking up some good drinks.
Rincón is an interesting word. It is a corner, a nook, a recess, a secluded valley, or - idiomatically - the habit of declining invitations (sounds like me!). Maybe our little terrace is a rincón? It is also the name of several towns in several countries.
Rincón:
3 oz gin1.5 oz passionfruit juice (from 1 large passionfruit)0.5 oz feijoa syrup0.5 oz fresh lime juice
To separate passionfruit seeds from pulp, give the pulp a quick pulse in a food processor, then pour through a strainer. The feijoa syrup is made by covering leftover but very aromatic feijoa skins with an equal weight of sugar in a jar (loose lid, not tight, because it ferments, a little). After about two days a syrup begins to form. When as much as possible has been extracted, bottle, and keep in the fridge.
Shake up all of the above with plenty of ice. Strain, pour, sip.
_____________
My Books
3commentsLabels:Fruit,Recipes Tuesday, October 19, 2021 The turn
Autumn in the hood.
The first street trees to take color are green ash,Fraxinus pensylvanica. I knew that this was an ash tree but the NYC Tree Map helped me identify the species - it's a wonderful tool that maps every city tree.
Also turning yellow now are the honey locusts (Gleditsia species). Their tiny leaflets are a yellow confetti that the strange, ragged wind of the last two days has been blowing up and down the sidewalks. They gather in drifts.
The oaks are still deep green, and the maples are not even thinking red thoughts. But it's on its way.
3commentsLabels:New York Fall Tuesday, October 12, 2021 Tilting the other wayOctober is upon us.
We sip drinks now under a long, soft twilight. The terrace lights are twinkling at 6pm, no longer switched on when we sit down to eat, at a too-bright summertime 8pm. Dinner is dark.
In response to early fall, and to a summer of heavy rain, hen of the woods (maitake - Grifola frondosa) mushrooms are popping up at the rough feet of every oak tree in town. And perhaps every oak tree in the Northeast. The apartment is filled with their chestnut honey scent as they roast for recipes to come. Vivid chicken of the woods (Laetiporous species) are still around, and the season feels bountiful.
The windowboxes on the terrace now hold cool-weather brassicas and lettuce - the latter decimated by the local mossies (Afrikaans for sparrows). Every morning I put out a dish of chopped blueberries for One-Foot. We have lost count, and track, of the bold mockingbirds of summer, but One-Foot (perhaps one of them?) is a regular visitor whose left foot is hurt or malformed. S/he hops on the other foot and gobbles up the fruit. Recently, a great horned owl called in the night. if we pay attention, we hear the migrating cheeps of songbirds.
Soon, it will be Halloween, and batwings for breakfast.
___________________
Find me on Instagram
1 commentsLabels:The Windsor Terrace Tuesday, October 5, 2021 Black nightshade vs deadly nightshadeBlack nightshade
[Published in 2016, and updated 5 October 2021]
You won't learn the last word here on black nightshade because the word is evolving, and I am not a botanist. But:
Late, late summer, and the black nightshade is ripe, on cue. I tasted these and they had a good, sweetly earthy flavor. It can vary. Some are quite bland.
"But isn't it deadly?"
Noooooo. Deadly nightshade is another plant.And it looks different.
The problem with common names versus botanical - or scientific - names is that occasionally you run into real confusion. So people hear "nightshade" and freak out. But the same people happily wolf potatoes and tomatoes and peppers and eggplant. All nightshades. Also, the Web is rife with misinformation on the differences between the two plants. Read carefully.
Our black nightshade friend, pictured above and below, isSolanum nigrum - or, as it turns out, several different species of Solanum.Eastern black nightshade is Solanum emulans. All black nightshades are edible.
Deadly nightshade isAtropa belladonna. You don't want to eat it.
A fear of and prejudice against black nightshade as a food persists where people are not familiar with how plants are classified or with plant identification in general. Most people suffer from plant blindness. And that's to be expected. Fortunately, it's curable.
But both black and deadly nightshades belong to the tricky family Solanaceae. As mentioned, other edible members of the nightshade family include potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and chiles. (When they first encountered them, Europeans were afraid of tomatoes. Green potatoes are toxic. But we don't tremble when we walk down the fresh produce aisle. Death and deliciousness are in the details.)
In South Africa I grew up snacking on black nightshade, and there, and in other parts of the world, the cooked greens are eaten, too. Black nightshade is edible, and not to be feared.
Read on to learn to identify edible black nightshade versus toxic deadly nightshade. Luckily, the differences are quite obvious, once you start paying attention.
Edible black nightshade
Edible black nightshade fruit occurs in clusters (above). And you almost always see clusters of ripe as well as green fruit on the plant at the same time. The fruits have a matt appearance - no shine. And here is the real tell: the calyces of black nightshade (the green bits like lapels or a collar between stem and fruit) are smaller than the fruit.
Black nightshade flowers
Black nightshade has tiny, star-like white flowers with prominent yellow anthers. Sometimes the petals are furled back. Not always.
Black nightshade
The ripe black fruits of black nightshade range in flavor from insipid to delicious (like a sweetish tomato with dark undertones).
The green, unripe fruit of black nightshade are considered toxic, so avoid those (the same way you would avoid a green potato). As Ben-Erik van Wyk writes in his encyclopedic Food Plants of the World, "Care should be taken to only pick ripe berries, because the unripe (green) fruits may contain toxic levels of alkaloids (6 - 8 berries may kill a child)."
Note that uses he word "may" twice.
He goes on to write that "the dark purple to black berries are delicious to eat raw and make excellent jams. The juicy pulp may be used for pie fillings, jellies, and drinks. Young leaves are commonly used as pot-herb in rural parts of Africa and Asia."
Black nightshade jam at the Daggaboer Farmstall in South Africa
My aunt calls black nightshade fruitsoepsoepertjies (an Afrikaans word) and used to make jam from them, before her fingers became too sore. She is 93. Nightshade jam is sold at regional farmstalls in South Africa.
Black nightshade with its tomato cousins, peaches, and burrata
I like more savory applications. A fermented black nightshade ketchup lasts indefinitely in the fridge, and I deploy the raw fruits in luscious salads.
Tomato and mugwort confit with sheep cheese, lambs quarter and black nightshade
And as beautiful garnishes for seasonal tartlets I carry on forage picnics.In the US, garden huckleberry is the user-friendly and exceedingly confusing commonname given to a black nightshade variety (Solanum nigrum var. melanocerasum) that is cultivated as a garden crop. Huckleberries belong to the genusVaccinium, like blueberries, and this name is all about marketing, rather than botanical accuracy.Its fruits are somewhat larger than the feral versions of black nightshade. You can buy it online at Baker Creek and elsewhere. I was introduced to it by the lovely folks at Tyrant Farms, who sent me a package years ago.
But even seed sources muddy the identification Internet waters by saying inane things like, "Caution should be advised not to confuse the fruits with those of nighshade [sic] (a very close relative), as nightshade fruits are highly poisonous."
Um... It is a nightshade. They're all nightshades.
Deadly nightshade. Photo: Stefancek
Let's move on:
What about deadly nightshade identification? Atropa belladonnafruit is borne singly, never in clusters. Deadly nightshade fruit is glossy. (Even though a reputable source like Illinois Wildflowers flips this distinction, and incorrectly states the opposite! Head explodes.)
The green calyces of deadly nightshade are very prominent, more Elizabethan ruffle than collar,extending beyond the fruit.
Deadly nightshade flower by Bojana Matic
The flowers of deadly nightshade are tubular and bell-shaped, and range from purple to lilac, with green. They are distinctly ornamental, versus the hard-to-spot tiny white flowers of black nightshade.
Incidentally, deadly nightshade is not very widespread in the US- it occurs mostly on the West Coast, but that will inevitably change (since first publishing this post it has crept to the East Coast).
__________
Read the Books9commentsLabels:Botanical Walks,Eating weeds,Flora,Foraging,Plant walks Monday, September 20, 2021 Yuzu season
The first green yuzu fruit are on the young, potted tree on our terrace.Citrus x junois a cross between a wild citrus and a mandarin-type orange, hailing from either Korea or northern China around a millennium ago. Mine came a little more recently from Four Winds Growers in... Let's figure it out:
I-know-we-were-living-here-so-late-2018-aka-the-year-from-hell-but-was-it-then-no-probably-spring-2019-hang-on-a-second-NO-WAY!-it-was May-2020! (Thank goodness for emails.)
In other words: Pandemic Purchase. A good one.
The dilemma is: Do I harvest the green yuzu now, when they are unripe, microplane their intensely perfumed green zest from their hard round bodies, and make yuzu kosho (above), the powerful Japanese condiment that transforms everything it touches? (My earlier recipe is in the prickly ash chapter of Forage, Harvest, Feast - now, I tend to ferment it.)
Or do I wait for them to ripen, turn yellow, and then make the very-very delicious Korean-style yuja-tea - the ripe slices macerated in sugar (which is what I do to just about every fragrant thing I forage), the slices-plus-sugar forming a slow syrup while candying the yuzu. (That would be around December or January, when our tree will be back indoors, and I may be in Cape Town, universe and virus variants willing.)
The syrup is wonderful in hot black tea, very fragrant; and delicious in icy drinks, too. I eke out my jarful from last January, made from ripe yuzu bought at Eataly in Manhattan. I soaked the squeezed yuzu fruit - still very perfumed - in gin to make the most of them, too. It's some good gin.
If you'd like to try yuzu and don't grow your own, there are more and more sources, thanks to small growers beginning to expand their citrus flocks. It's illegal to import the fresh fruit from Japan, where most yuzu is grown (because of citrus pest and disease issues; nothing to do with Japan, and everything to do with protecting the local and major citrus economiesfrom pathogens. That's also why you can't buy trees from US growers if you live in certain states - citrus lockdown).
Try the New Jersey-based Bhumi Growers. Or Suzuki Farms, Delaware. And Californian Mud Creek Ranch sells via the distributor, Fruitstand.
It's hard to walk away once the citrus bug has bit.
________
Walks
2commentsLabels:Fruit,Gardening,Growing Citrus Older PostsHomeSubscribe to:Posts (Atom)CopyrightCopyright Notice:Text photos 2007 - 2021 Marie Viljoen.All rights reserved.@66squarefeet
Book 2:
Book 1:
About me
Pigeon holes1st Place(95)66 Square Feet - the book(13)66 Square Feet: the terrace(712)Blogging(39)Books and Reading(55)Botanical Walks(105)Bronx(14)Brooklyn(711)Camping(26)Cape Town(344)Cape Town Summer(4)Catskills(17)Central Park(6)Container gardening(187)COVID-19 Life(17)Domestica(291)Drink(188)Eating weeds(72)Edible Brooklyn(12)Edible Gardening(39)Edible Manhattan(16)Esoterica(155)Evangelism(133)Fauna(92)Flora(795)Food(563)Forage-Harvest-Feast(24)Foraging(329)Friends and family(174)Fruit(204)Garden Design(56)Garden writing(60)Gardening(294)Gardening for the city(29)Gardening Q and A(6)Graffiti(20)Grow Journey(12)Growing Citrus(9)Growing Food(17)Harlem(48)Harlem terrace(89)Harriman State Park(2)Hikes(66)In-ground gardens(128)Invasive Plants(2)Kruger National Park(9)Lesotho(2)Lunch(94)Main Man(115)Meals for me(163)Meals for We(268)Mt Baker(3)Mushrooms(17)Namibia(20)Native American Flora(99)New York(464)New York Fall(159)New York Spring(302)New York Summer(145)New York Winter(141)No.9(25)Park maintenance(12)Picnics(69)Plant walks(37)Poems(24)Press(19)Prospect Park Litter(36)Public Parks and Gardens(333)Published work(53)Quebec(7)Queens(10)Recipes(224)Road Trip(92)Rockport(7)Roof farm(149)Roof gardens(135)Seasons without and within(275)Shopping(127)South Africa(355)South African Spring(27)Speak memory(36)Staten Island(6)The Windsor Terrace(46)TV(3)Vancouver(27)In House BlogsThe FrenchmanEchoes4 months ago66 Square Feet (The Food)Rusk recipe10 months agoReasons to Dogear a PageWe have art, Nietzsche said, so that we shall not be destroyed by the truth.
Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero
The first revolution is when you change your mind about how you look at things, and see there might be another way to look at it that you have not been shown.
Gil Scott-Heron, on his poem "The Revolution will not be Televised""I think the past is best left bleeding by the roadside, don't you agree?"
Rachel Griffiths (Sirene), Indian Summers, PBSHow will we know it's us without our past?
...How'll it be not to know what land's outside the door? How if you wake up in the night and know - and know the willow tree's not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, you can't. The willow tree is you.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.Necessity knows no magic formulae - they are all left to chance. If a love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assissi's shoulders.
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of BeingI equate happiness with contentment, and contentment with complacency, and complacency with impending disaster.
Hugh Laurie to Gavin Edwards, The New York TimesAfterwards in the street, she looks around the neighborhood. "Yes, it is certified now."
She refers to a phenomenon of moviegoing which I have called certification. Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere."
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy
The garden paths were lit by coloured lamps, as is the custom in Italy, and the supper table was laden with candles and flowers, as is the custom in all countries where they understand how to dress a table, which when properly done is the rarest of all luxuries.
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
One of the new things people began to find out in the last century was that thoughts - just mere thoughts - are as powerful as electric batteries, as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.
George Eliot, Middlemarch
(Mrs Cadwallader to Dorothea)
"I know it's a great temptation to go mad, but don't go in for it, you wouldn't like it."
George Eliot, Middlemarch
"A is for dining Alone...and so am I, if a choice must be made between most people I know and myself. This misanthropic attitude is one I am not proud of, but it is firmly there, based on my ever-increasing conviction that sharing food with another human being is an act that should not be indulged in lightly."
MFK Fisher, The Art of Eating
I always think there is something foreign about high spirits at breakfast.
Carson, Downtown Abbey, Season 4What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran with them. All his reverence and all his fondness and all the leanings of his life were for the ardenthearted and they would always be so and never be otherwise.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
I was planning on writing about a woman for 50 years. I will never be competent enough to do so, but at some point you have to try.
Cormac McCarthy, in The Wall Street Journal: Hollywood's Favourite Cowboy
Ek is 'n man met blombehoeftes.
Petra Muller, Verbeel Jou Nou Dit
"Die kierie kom uit Indonisie, gesny van 'n tak wat van jongs af omslinger was deur a wildevy se rank. Hulle het saam grootgeword, en die rank het sy spoor op die tak gelos. Daarom is die slinger ook oneweredig, en hier,"se hy, "by die punt van die kierie moes daar iets gebeur het - die slinger en die tak het inmekaar gevleg en 'n knoop gemaak. Die natuur het die kierie so gemaak."
"n Kieriemaker sou dit eweredig gedoen het," se ek.
"My kind," se meneer Boje, "vermy die reguit lyn."
Petra Muller, Koendoes
Richard Chaston (1620-1695). Chaston wrote that men and fairies both contain within them a faculty of reason and a faculty of magic. In men reason is strong and magic is weak. With fairies it is the other way round: magic comes very naturally to them, but by human standards they are barely sane.
Susanna Clark, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen?
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Blog Archive 2021(42) October(6)On the edges in OctoberThe October filterPassionfruit, all shook upThe turnTilting the other wayBlack nightshade vs deadly nightshade September(3) August(3) July(1) June(2) May(3) April(5) March(7) February(7) January(5) 2020(69) December(4) November(6) October(7) September(7) August(9) July(5) June(6) May(5) April(6) March(10) February(3) January(1) 2019(65) December(6) November(6) October(5) September(6) August(4) July(5) June(2) May(5) April(8) March(7) February(6) January(5) 2018(49) December(1) November(4) October(3) September(5) August(4) July(6) June(4) May(7) April(5) March(4) February(3) January(3) 2017(77) December(7) November(3) October(4) September(5) August(5) July(5) June(6) May(9) April(9) March(9) February(7) January(8) 2016(135) December(10) November(12) October(12) September(14) August(6) July(7) June(12) May(16) April(12) March(13) February(11) January(10) 2015(183) December(14) November(10) October(13) September(11) August(17) July(12) June(15) May(14) April(16) March(24) February(18) January(19) 2014(295) December(15) November(21) October(29) September(22) August(24) July(21) June(23) May(26) April(31) March(28) February(23) January(32) 2013(384) December(25) November(32) October(32) September(32) August(38) July(36) June(18) May(36) April(36) March(30) February(34) January(35) 2012(495) December(27) November(36) October(41) September(42) August(48) July(38) June(47) May(44) April(47) March(51) February(40) January(34) 2011(578) December(46) November(46) October(48) September(52) August(64) July(50) June(58) May(58) April(42) March(47) February(34) January(33) 2010(604) December(38) November(45) October(56) September(62) August(58) July(68) June(64) May(59) April(62) March(40) February(14) January(38) 2009(670) December(48) November(53) October(54) September(49) August(56) July(66) June(75) May(77) April(62) March(87) February(31) January(12) 2008(518) December(40) November(51) October(61) September(40) August(49) July(48) June(40) May(58) April(42) March(35) February(28) January(26) 2007(262) December(29) November(28) October(29) September(25) August(49) July(31) June(55) May(16)
<<< Thank you for your visit >>>
Websites to related : Hemorrhoids Can Affect Your Enti
keywords:
description:
Skip to content Research NewsHemorrhoid Products#1 Top Pick Subscribe NowHomeHemorrhoid InformationTop 5 Hemorrhoid TreatmentsP
keywords:woodworking, craft, business guidance, artists, artisans, furniture maker self-employed, retired
description:As a retired computer manager an
keywords:OC Hiking, orange county, hike, hiking, backpack, backpacking, club
description:The Orange County Hiking Club (OC Hiking)
OC Hiking Club
keywords:
description:
Advanced Search x Home > Buy x < H
keywords:
description:気になる、記になる…は、海外のApple（iPhone・iPad・Mac）、Microsoft（Windows・Office）、ガジェット、インターネット等に関する情報をいち早
keywords:
description:
| HOME | カートの確認 | 特定商取引法表示 | 山猫カセット 商品一覧 並べ替え 新着順 ▼商
keywords:
description:Don't waste you time! Come see where xur is and what he's selling. We have a map of where he's located along with a video guide
keywords:
description:
keywords:
description:
keywords:
description:The Toledo Region is alive, emboldened by a heritage of hard work and a dynamic way of life that has spawned a can-do attitude.
Hot Websites