Tuna, avocado, crackers

Eh, you win some you lose some. The crackers were the best thing.

So there's that.

An acquaintance died. His memorial was held at his small house outside in his small but ample back yard. The back yard was packed with people at the height of it, an unnecessarily desultory affair dragged out by a clergyman interested in drawing interest to himself. And to a loquacious and vapid popular poet. Singularly the most outstanding feature is what had all of us stunned. The entire front and back yards are surrounded with large commercial-size containers stuffed with exotic and tropical plants. 

In the front under trees, elephant ear leaf roll out from different directions filled in with other colorful shade plants caladiums by the hundreds, every variety combined with hostas and vines and other non-flowering tropical plants. 

In the back yard both fences faced with large containers, large as reasonable and close together as possible creating layers of arranged vignettes of mixed flowering plants with vegetable and with herbs, each container a world of its own. 

How I regretted not knowing him better. His garden is inspiring. His Pinterest page featured several such mixed plant containers, and it pictured a book on the subject. I bought the book. The author wrote five. I bought them all and few more and attempted to emulate what I saw at Wade's house. 

I failed. 

Most pots failed three times this summer season. These are the survivors. I killed literally hundreds of plants, some 480, to get this far. I learned a lot in a short time. Mostly what not to do.

It's all on my terrace such as the one seen below, except a little larger. I made the hummingbird feeder. 

There is a fountain in a pot underneath the vine in the corner hidden by the bench.

This is what I am most pleased with. In seven years it is only the second hummingbird that I saw. I had hoped to be ready with a camera right here the next time a bird came. Fat chance. 

And I was!

The screen door is shut. If I opened the screen door the bird would fly off, so the photo is taken through the screen. It's not out of focus, that's the screen door. This one little bird makes the whole project worthwhile.

No it doesn't. But it feels that way.

same photo, closeup.

I'll do better next year.

Bacon, apple, cheese

Six slices to a LB. 

In search of clear ice, experiment

We tried different things already taking icicle formation for example.

In the First grade in Pennsylvania the most outrageous icicles formed on eaves on the entire side of the house. They were huge knobby, sometimes all bent the same way by wind but mostly perfectly straight and pointed like dangerous weapons and surprisingly clear.

We thought the clearness had to do with the way the water is deposited built up in layers, the same way commercial ice cube makers work.  

A few days ago the weather channel reported on a lake with the clearest ice on Earth. It really is weird walking on top of it. The rocks show below through glass as if the person is walking on air. The solution to the conundrum was slow freezing just below freezing temperature that allows time for impurities to sink and for air bubbles to rise.

It didn't occur to us the icicles are formed at higher (than freezer) temperature too, just below freezing or else they could not drip at all. They need to be liquid water to form, but just so, just at that precise point of freezing before dripping off, so, cold nearly freezing sluggish water. It's another of those phenomenon that occur right at a borderline, this border being the precise line where water freezes.

That's the theory.

At 12 hours the ice has not completed freezing. The tray is bundled again and returned. 

12 hours later, 24 hours total, the ice is frozen. And partially clear.

Status: Fail. They each have a patch of opacity. This is the closest I've come. The bundles might be wrapped insufficiently on the sides. 

I'll pick up a tiny styrofoam ice box, one designed for a six pack and put that inside the freezer and see if that slows down the process on all sides sufficiently. 

For now, new bundles are prepared with filtered water. It's a ten-stage filter. 

Why do I want clear ice?

I don't know. It's a bizarre challenge.

Chicken and dumplings, Pennsylvania Dutch style

Found this. I don't know why I'd bother making noodles with whole wheat flour in it. They're always too fragile. I know better.

And the whole time I thinking, wow, this is really good. I wonder why these things don't occur to me now. Just get a chicken and do this. Even Tony's right down the street, how simple, I could bring one home, I can't go wrong. They have the best chicken of all. It's always good. Mum would place the whole chicken in boiling water and let it go until it falls away from the bone then vegetables and fat broad egg noodles go in, their conceptualization of dumplings.

Why she didn't roast the chicken to concentrate instead of dilute flavor I don't know, and why she didn't then roast the bones for double Maillard insistence I do not know, except perhaps that she just didn't know.

And they had the best chickens back then too. It wasn't the gargantuan battery chicken operations of today, rather, it was more personally knowing the farmers or having live chickens yourself. Those kinds of chicken running around all over the place taste much more gamey, more like pheasant, where modern chicken are blank slates.

The chicken down the street at Tony's are the same as the chickens up the other street a few more blocks at Whole Foods, still large production, more carefully cared for and that translates to tastier chicken and much better, significantly and noticeably better broth. More like the old days. The very old days. A dish like this, when roasted, is where those whole chickens shine.

One thinks of adding wine for depth, sophistication and warmth.  With a hearty chicken like that, even red wine, and boom, now we're in coq au vin territory, the same idea using chicken as beef bourguignon.

Breakfast burrito, chicken avocado,

The lad behind the counter seems a Central American version of a clean-cut well groomed and exceedingly well mannered all-American teen. His mother, I take it, a gracious woman. Their restaurant simple and spotlessly clean their work area visible with people at work preparing orders behind the counter in a space built for pizza at least twice as large as needed at full capacity presently and with large metal work tables mostly unused surface. 

So far the customers I encountered behave like they're caught doing something. Not doing anything actually, their vibes are off kilter. Like I walked into their den but that is their own insecurity ringing through. One woman, yesterday I'd like to have complemented her on her shoes, gave her back to me the whole time we both waited. Quite rude. Quite insecure. Even when conversing with another, even moving around the whole space, checking out photos and everything printed.  I saw nothing but her back and the backs of her outstanding shoes. Others just look up from their table like, "caught me." So far, it's been odd vibes from customers and genuine glowing warmth from the mother, I take it, and son. 

They also parece muy autentico. Written on a chalkboard yesterday special was ceviche and squid tacos. Daring. Unusual for these Western parts. I should have bought some.