Monday, September 27, 2021

Micro seasons, butterfly migration, America's test kitchen,

So we're up to page two, season three, in the microseasons journal.



Just making deliberate observations each day, enough for a few words for the day, is proving to be a great focus, little pressure and a lot of pleasure. This might suit me better than those rambling narrative journals some people love to keep.

So today's observation is of a flurry of activity in the butterfly bush, many small cabbage butterflies, tiny brown ones, several species of bees,  and, spectacularly, two monarchs dancing and feeding all day. 




Since they will be migrating in a few days, I expect they're fuelling up before the thousands of miles they fly south. They fly high up in the air for migrating, like flocks of birds. 

The first time we went to Cape May, in early October about fifteen years ago, we were in a seafront hotel, four floors up, and there were thousands of monarchs flying over the sea,  resting all over the building facades as far as you could see, all over our balcony. It was a rare, unforgettable experience. Total silence, just movement, a moving blanket of orange and cream and black.

Cape May is a good resting place for migratory butterflies and birds, both before they take on the open ocean south and when they return in spring. 

They follow the coastline south for a long way before heading inland toward their south American destination. On the trip north in spring, it's a sheltered and  food rich environment, with both salt and fresh water marshes, plants and insect life.

We don't get the enormous flocks we used to, so we treasure the sightings we get.

Swallows, swifts, hummingbirds, left weeks ago. 

Closer to home, America's test kitchen book is proving to be a mixed blessing. There are some good food ideas and tips, a useful section on equipment, see, someone invented a tea machine!

And sources for tools and foods. Including the notorious cinnamon..

But, big but, it's too big. Very heavy to handle. The type size so tiny I really can't read it, and the printing ink they used, no doubt very ecological, smells so bad I don't want it near the kitchen. 

Open a page and there's a waft of something between rotten eggs and boiled cabbage. It's truly awful. If you owned this book perhaps you'd leave it in sunlight to deodorize.  

I did get a few ideas as you see, then it's back to the libe. A good idea that didn't work for me. I wish it had come in a couple of volumes, to be more manageable and readable, but I expect there were production and shipping considerations in the way of that.

So there's the House of Boud today.



15 comments:

  1. The cheap, smelly ink is probably the reason they're able to sell that huge cookbook at such a low price. I like when cookbooks come spiral bound, so they will open and lay flat. Very handy when referencing a recipe while cooking in the kitchen.

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    1. The only cookbook I have that lies flat is my ancient Sunset book. The others are all perfect bound, a pest when they try to close when your back's turned.

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  2. Sorry you have a smelly book. I know the kind. If you leave in a dry area that freezes, and heats, trunk of a car. then in a year (round) or so, the odor might be gone. It worked with such a book that I had.

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    1. I wonder if the library has a cure, too. They'll get it back this week.

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  3. It must have been wonderful to see all those monarchs flying over the sea! My test kitchen book never did smell bad but it is an older copy. That would bother me too! I love ring binder style cookbooks that will always lay flat. I have two older ones, Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Garden.

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    1. I had that cookbook with the red gingham cover. I finally realized only about three recipes ever interested me, so I cut them out and put them in my binder. Recycled the book.

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  4. Your butterfly experience at Cape May sounds incredible. The two you had in your garden must have been a thrill to see as well.

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    1. The Cape May evening was probably once in a lifetime. By next day only a few stragglers left, the millions had gone south.

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  5. I had meant to say that I love the idea of your micro-seasons journal. That is truly a lovely idea.
    How amazing that vast sea of monarchs must have been! What a wonderment! Thank you for sharing that image with us. I will be thinking about that today.

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  6. I like making a few notes every day on nature. Maybe I'll start. butterflies seem so rare these days. we humans just go about destroying habitat without a backward glance and the world and ourselves are poorer for it.

    when I need a recipe idea I just browse the internet. which I did today for cabbage.

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    1. I'm rarely in search of recipes. More often I want ideas, new combos of food, new to me sauces or condiments. That's what I find cookbooks good for.

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  7. I've thought about recording what I see in nature now. It's so dismal, so few animals and insects seem to be around these days. Maybe if I record what I observe, I will find there are more than I perhaps thought there were. I need something to cheer me up as far as nature goes in this continuing drought situation. But a few drops of rain fell today, so maybe we will get a rainly season after all.

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    1. See now, if you were to start your observation journal you have your first entry right there.

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  8. Sorry that the book has been a disappointment, and to add insult to injury, smelly too. I'd be tempted to write a note to the publisher and complain (not that it would get you anywhere but at least then they'd be aware of it).

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    1. I'm thinking of a note on their YouTube channel. I doubt if the chefs know how this reflects on them.

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