Bertram, details, tygers and gophers and poptarts

 Yesterday I advised on making poptarts, which was mainly about referring people to Jack Monroe, from Cooking on a Bootstrap. I made these a couple of times, a while back, and now someone else is excitedly baking her own junk food. 

 Then I embarked on William Bartram as he explored Georgia on his way to Florida. What a knowledge of plants he had.

I had to look up quite a few, and check on his naming. He often mentions tygers, which it turns out was the current term -- this was the early eighteenth century -- for panthers. I'm not sure the Florida panther still survives. 

He was part of the start of today's problems in damaging the natural habitat in the south, taking part in his plant  expeditions as part of surveying land for cultivation and pretty much forcing the resident indigenous people into accepting treaties which were promptly broken. He was full of admiration for a white rice farmer whose method of flooding and draining the rice fields he observed.

He also talks of gophers, not the mammals, but gopher tortoises. I wonder if they still survive, too. He writes eloquent descriptions of fish, such as the red belly, which I looked up for a picture, and really loved everything he was seeing as he went around on endless horseback treks.

He does tend to fall into endless lists, though, and you tend to glaze over, but his enthusiasm does keep you reading. I got this as a library ebook, thanks for the recommendation, Mary, I'm learning a lot.

And the detail aspect was very timely, as I sat in later on an online free writing lesson from a college professor who's unwillingly free at the moment, his writing classes having failed to meet enrollment numbers.  

Take a look at his subject! He did emphasize selecting significant details, though, not a Bartram info dump.

It was interesting to see how someone else teaches writing skills to eager beginners, and he was agreeable to having me there. The levels ranged from current playwright to just now trying this.

And you never know who'll show up in your manuscript

Yesterday my prospective income improved again, this time a bit more substantively, with the annual arrival of the Senior Freeze package, with many forms to fill out including one I take in to the tax office for Jesse the Tax Collector to attest to what I paid last year in real estate tax.  

The State will eventually send me the difference between my established baseline tax year and the increase in the  taxes I've been paying since. It's meant to keep seniors in their longtime homes as taxes rise. It will be more than $5. 

Happy day everyone, Tuesday knitting group today, last week having been snowed out. I'm taking my Tunisian crochet scarf along and I'll cast on a glove for the knitting ministry for a change, if I can't do the lace and talk at the same time. Lace work is not always a social activity.

Enjoy your day, social or not.

Hummingbird and poptarts

Yesterday was the first sighting this year of a hummingbird. In the butterfly bush next door. My heart literally leaps when I see her, that slight movement that catches my eye, then a few minutes of watching as she feeds here and there around the bush before flying straight up over the roof. No pictures, no chance!  We see few hummers, and only once did I ever see two at one time.

Then, as if that weren't enough, the first monarch butterfly of the year suddenly showed up. This year we've seen very few butterflies so this was a banner day for spotting nature, right from my sofa. The butterfly bush flowers just opened, so they wasted no time.

It was the universe rewarding my finally sharpening the knives. It's the noise of the sharpener that puts me off. But the three main ones are done. Friday is a Misfits box day, so I need them sharp for prepping vegetables.

But I did have what may become a biannual Junk Food Bake. In April 2019 I blogged about making poptarts, the only junk food I've ever been interested in. And yesterday I thought I'd make a batch again.

This is my translation of Jack Monroe's English recipe. She's a wonderful person, activist, humanist, writer, cook who understands poverty, just admirable. She also knows the mental health value of the occasional foray into making junk food amidst healthy eating.

First I had to make the jam, since as you may know, it's a pastry event with jam inside.

Blueberry jam, small quantity, another Jack Monroe idea, small quantity of jam rather than masses, because you might have a small quantity of fruit and sugar.

Then the pastry, cooled for an hour before rolling out

Cut into rectangles using the bench scraper

Then spreading the jam, and closing the sandwich. Pretty artisanal compared to the machine made shop ones.

And sealing the edges. 350°f for 15 minutes.

Pink icing once cooled. And a text to Handsome Son to mention them in case he would like to visit and sample one. Shameless, me.

This will do it for the next couple of years!

Sometimes you need a spot of junk food

Lately I've been thinking about PopTarts, not buying any, but thinking it would be nice..

Then today, on Twitter, Jack Monroe gave a recipe for homemade ones, and, well, this happened.

Just a pastry recipe, roll thin, jam one side, bake, cool, ice. Done. I used the top of the freezer as a pastry surface, worked fine. The jam is my raspberry peach jam.

No sprinkles in the house, so I made some lurid pink icing.

Homemade junk food.

Bite Club! new at the libe

I just found out about this cookbook book club, say that fast, at the libe where I go to my regular bookclub.  That's been a nice experience, so why not combine another monthly bookclub with interesting cooking experiments, I thought.

Next week is the first meeting, so I'm studying my Alice Waters. The idea is that each month there's a selection of authors to pick from, try out a recipe, then compare notes and experience at the book club meeting.  This might help me with the farmshare, too.

However, you'll note that I set up a couple of Poptarts to sustain me while I study Alice.  She probably wouldn't approve, so I won't tell her.