Chili and other good ideas

Yesterday afternoon was spent on the Making of the Firefighter Chili. Here's where the recipe is to be found

They give the recipe for a huge crowd, hence the men stirring a  vat, but they do give a column for the family size, too

And here are the spices, looking and smelling wonderful, right before they joined the onions and garlic and ground turkey then tomato paste in the pot. After this the tomatoes and the broth and they use cornmeal, I use chickpea flour, for thickening.

This recipe is really a journey of scents and textures. It takes a couple of hours, start to bowl, and makes about six big helpings.

Scallions and grated cheddar on top. It's a great recipe, very recommended. It's hot, and I sneeze and tear up and thoroughly enjoy it. 

 The mail brought this nice material from the Arbor Day people, with questionnaire about trees and prizes. 

Yes, it's a fundraiser.  I think the foundation may be past its day now, what with HOAs and cities making tree decisions, however you see I did use the bookmark right away in my WCK cookbook. I think bookmarks too are a bit of a relic, though I have quite a few.

And since I recently tossed out the squirrels'  favorite, butternut squash seeds, it was only a short time before they showed up to fight over them, this one playing King of the hill

While I'm waiting for Yellowface, another library selection came in, which I confused with another writer, thanks, Sue.

This one stunned me by opening in a location a few miles from here, at a Jewish funeral, before moving to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Ithaca in the course of the narrative. 

The central figures, officially narrated by a fourth, later child, but really an omniscient narrator,  are in vitro triplets from a wealthy family.  They feel no connection with each other, attributing it, dubiously, I think, to their petri dish start. There's their wildly wealthy art collector father,  and complications of Cornell, (hence Ithaca, for non American readers, its location), sexual orientation,  infidelity, issues of art as experience and as commodity, and wait,  there's more.. 

Paintings also show up as characters, by Brice Marsden, Cy Twombly and others of the time, real ones in the fictional collection, with roles in the story. There's also what used to be known snobbishly as Outsider Art, understood by the collector,  but seen as puzzling lucrative commodities by the art world's insider dealers and agents. 

It's the art of untrained people, often with religious significance, sometimes in the throes of mental illness, often stunning in effect, but there's the, well grounded, I think, fear of artist exploitation by the art establishment.  Anyway this book has a lot to say,  in an accessible, unselfconscious style, and I'm finding it gripping. Its narrative is full of real toads in imaginary gardens.

Since New Year's Eve is almost upon us, when we're all supposed to wear hats, blow horns and generally get all partied up, or feel envious/guilty if we don't,  I thought you'd like this absolution

Simple pleasures for simple folk. Happy day,  everyone, enjoy the weekend with your version of reading, food, or hats and horns.

Celebrating Arbor Day

The state forestry folks celebrated the day, and Earth Day, with a giveaway of native tree whips. right at the local library. Crowds of excited people, many with kids, to show them how a big tree starts and all that.

So I carried home a wild cherry, which will grow ready to take over from the aged one, what's left of her after many years of service. She provided shade for dear HP when he was out on the patio, food for birds and other critters all year long, between fruit and the little thorns which birds and squirrels are mad for, and a wonderful place for bees in early spring,as well as shade for my houseplants all summer.  

The forestry folks  pressed two more trees on me, too, a black walnut and a chestnut oak.  These will either go to a friend or be a subject of a bit of stealth gardening on  my part.  Quite a while since I did any, but it's not very stealthy to go about with a big spade.  Looks a bit suspicious, in fact.

Anyway, the Dollivers, since they are All Green, sent out a team of hardy foresters to run the event once I got home with the trees.  

They came with little leaflets of explanation, I love the forestry guys, and here they are, reading left to right, well, I forget...I do know the cherry well, though, since it has that lenticular form on the branches even at this age.  And the identity of the others not so important, since they won't be fitting onto my patio.  

Anyway, I bet if Quinn our total blogista expert on all things tree, can tear herself away from her new goat twins for long enough, she'll set me right. And in case you wondered why the black walnut does not have a spot on my patio, here's a view, over the roofs, of mature black walnuts and friends, and you see the size these fellers can get.  The framing branch you see is what's left of the old cherry.

Black walnuts are not friendly to some other plants and shrubs, so it's better they're over there on their own turf.  But they're wonderful for harvesting to make black walnut ink, a la van Gogh.  We lost a lot of trees from Sandy so that might be a destination for the two spares.

Here's the future home of the little (well, it will eventually be big) cherry.  And here are the laborers posing for Dolliver Gothic and ready for action.

And here's New Cherry in place, bravely standing up and taking notice.

The  laboring Dollivers explained that they needed to sit down and take care of the other trees, which involved resting after the heavy job of forking out a ton of pachysandra,  and digging a big enough hole, and setting up the tree, and patting down and all that is required to establish it. 

And they reminded me to keep the other roots nice and damp while they rest up.