Shiitakes happen. February 9, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: growing mushrooms at home, Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, mushroom growing, mushrooms, shiitake logs, shiitake mushrooms
2 comments
Shiitake log update! Our friend Ben is thrilled to report that the two shiitake logs I got Silence Dogood for Christmas* are, in fact, doing what they’re supposed to and getting ready to make mushrooms.
Well, actually only one is supposed to be making mushrooms, which is why we got two, so one can fruit while the other rests and we can have mushrooms in continuous production for, the folks at Lost Creek Mushroom Farm assure us, up to four years. However, after we soaked the logs (as recommended every two weeks), and dutifully put the fruiting log in two inches of water in its trough and slipped the plastic sleeve over the whole shebang to maintain high humidity, we simply set the resting log in its dry trough for a nice nap. So of course it immediately produced a little mushroom. We, ahem, assume it’s a shiitake-in-the-making (Silence says I can eat this one).
Meanwhile, the log which we were nurturing with such care in the other trough was doing absolutely nothing, as far as we could see. We began to fear that we’d inadvertently drowned it. Yesterday, Silence suggested that I dump out the water and see what (if anything) happened then. Hey, a miracle! After removing the sleeve and dumping the water, we could see the white mycelial growth that precedes mushroom production all over the log! Hastily standing the log upright (well, actually leaning it against one end of the trough so mushrooms will have room to expand on all sides) and replacing the sleeve, we returned the log to its home on the laundry-room floor.
The owners of Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, Sondra and Doug Williams, provided very thorough instructions (along with the inoculated logs, troughs, plastic sleeves, and recipes, not to mention an ironclad guarantee), so we’re feeling pretty confident that shiitakes are on the way and should be ready to harvest in just a few weeks. Silence promises to develop a special recipe and share it with all of you when we get our first harvest. And should you fail to hear anything from our friend Ben after this, I guess it’s safe (so to speak) to conclude that the other mushroom wasn’t a shiitake after all…
Check it all out at www.shiitakemushroomlog.com. And if you get one, please keep us appraised of your progress. Mushroom lovers unite!
* Note that we didn’t actually receive the logs at Christmas, since, ahem, it took our friend Ben a while to get around to ordering them. We haven’t been waiting since December to get mushrooms, just a few weeks.
Shiloh says “Be kind to your pets!” February 8, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in pets, wit and wisdom.Tags: AKC dog breed popularity poll, responsible pet ownership, Shiloh, Shiloh's first birthday
5 comments
Today, February 8th, is the first birthday of our friend Ben’s and Silence Dogood’s black German shepherd, Pioneer Hawk’s Haven Shiloh von Shiloh Special. Shiloh has brought us great joy and delight since her arrival at our rural Pennsylvania cottage home, and of course we’re commemorating her birthday with a broad range of her favorite treats (eggs, multigrain bread, and yogurt, in addition to the usual sweet potato and hip-healthy sour cherry treats) and a birthday gift (a tough-chew squeaking Tyrannosaurus Rex).
In honor of the occasion, and since our local paper informs us that February is Responsible Pet Owners Month, our friend Ben thought it would be a timely reminder to give some guidelines for responsible pet care. Follow these, and you and your pet(s) will have a happy life together. (Trust me on this one; I’ve had bazillion happy pets all my life.)
But first, Shiloh has asked me to point out that the German shepherd has seized second place in the annual AKC list of most popular purebred dogs. Labs continue to hold the #1 spot, for the 19th year running. But the rapid rise of the German shepherd proves, at least in Shiloh’s mind, that maybe next year they’ll topple the icon and take first place. (Our beloved golden retrievers Molly and Annie would doubtless take some comfort from their #4 rating, but are probably chatting up in Heaven about why they’re not #1. We wonder, too.)
Let’s get on with those guidelines:
1. A pet is for life. Pets are not disposable, like last year’s jeans or cell phone. A pet is a living, loving being, who is unfortunate enough to be in a subordinate position to its owner. That makes you responsible for its happiness and well being, and it places the burden on you to learn everything you can about your prospective pet’s needs and habits before you bring it home. If you can’t stand a mess, and the thought of sweeping up birdseed from around a cage drives you crazy, forget about getting birds. Ditto for the extraordinary and expressive range of sounds cage birds, from finches and canaries to parakeets and parrots (and especially cockatoos) make. Can’t bear loud, sustained chatter, calls, and other noises? Maybe a fishtank is a better option. Do your research upfront, so you can pick a pet you can live with. There’s nothing as heartbreaking as a pet abandoned by its owner.
As for those monsters who’d abandon their pets because “I have to move and my new apartment doesn’t allow pets,” how dare you play with a precious life, with someone who adores you and counts on you for their care, in that way? Don’t you dare get a pet if you’re not willing to make it a priority. You can always, and I mean always, find pet-friendly housing if you’d just be willing to bother. There is no earthly excuse for this sort of irresponsibility. Our friend Ben thinks these “everything is disposable, hey, let’s just move on” people should refrain from having pets, marrying, and especially having children. Stay by yourselves, you selfish pigs! You’re not fit to interact with anyone or anything.
2. Know yourself, then know your pet. Match your pet to your personality and habits, not your fantasies. Love cats but have cat-hair allergies? Enjoy them in books and on TV. Get a cat and it will be heading to the shelter. (Our friend Ben is avoiding the topic of hairless cats; that’s not a cat.) Think you’re a tough pitbull kinda guy when a cocker spaniel would really be more your speed? You’re the reason pitbulls are the #1 purebreds in animal shelters. Hate exercise? Think cat, bird, or fish, not puppy. Hate noise or chaos? Aquariums are soothing and quiet. Unwilling to endure the destruction of your property? See aquariums, above. Refuse to spend money on vet bills, training classes, and the like? See aquariums, above. And please God, don’t have kids if you fall into any of these categories (except allergies and pitbulls). The more you know yourself, and the more research you do into pet personalities and needs, the more you’ll know what sort of pet would be congenial. Our friend Ben is convinced that there’s a pet for every personality, but it might be a hermit crab rather than a puppy.
3. Start your pet off right. Once you choose a pet, give it the best home you can afford (and make sure you check before buying any animal to make sure you can afford the home it needs). Have plenty of food, toys, and treats for your new pet—making sure you’ve done your homework and know what foods, toys, and treats are right for your pet—take it to the vet for check-ins and vaccinations, and make sure you neuter it at the appropriate age. I know that this isn’t as easy as everyone makes it sound, especially if you really love your dog or cat. Nobody wants to subject their pet to major surgery. But it’s way more responsible to your own pet and to the endless, tragic, unwanted, discarded pet population than allowing your pet to breed and contribute to the problem.
4. Give your pet enough space. This could be giving your fish a big enough aquarium or your cage birds a huge, appropriate cage with plenty of toys. Or it could be simply giving your cats the run of the house or your dog the run of the fenced or electric-fenced backyard. So many of us are trapped all day in the dreaded cubicles that we may lose sight of our pets’ needs for space. Yes, they’re smaller than we are. But remember, please, that they can’t escape via the computer or meetings.
5. Spend time with your pet. In our friend Ben’s view, this is the crucial rule. Please, oh please, don’t get a pet (except, once again, aquarium fish) unless you’re prepared to spend every moment you’re at home with them. Please remember that your pet loves and depends on you. Whether it’s an iguana, a bunny, or a Weimeraner, your pets need you (or your spouse/partner/kids). If you enjoy spending time with animals, great, I thnk you’re a natural pet owner. If you have more important things to do, please, resist the urge to get a pet for yourself or your kids.
6. Train your pet. This is an essential part of being a responsible pet owner. It’s obviously most critical with dogs, but cats, bunnies, parrots and the like can all benefit from training and socialization. Cats and bunnies can be litterbox-trained and trained not to wreck furniture, carpets, upholstery, wiring, and etc. Parrots can be trained to be quiet and to leave and return to their cages on command; our Plutarch trained himself to return to his cage when he needed a bathroom break. (Thanks, Plu!) Training is a matter of teaching yourself before you teach your pet, and of devoting the amount of time it takes to teach your pet. I took our first golden retriever, Annie, to obedience classes, not because she wasn’t obedient—she’d already qualified for Canine Good Citizen status from the AKC before we got her—but because I was clueless about commands and the like and needed to learn myself in order to help her. (We consistently graduated at the top of our class, but that was thanks to Annie and her previous owner, not me.)
7. Be kind to your pet. This should be obvious, but real life tragically tells us it isn’t. Spending time with your pet, loving your pet, enjoying your pet, tolerating your pet’s misbehaviors while calmly and patiently working to correct them, socializing your pet, making sure your pet has plenty of space, a healthy diet, stimulation, plenty of love: These are the basics for any pet-family interaction. If you’re not willing to provide all of them, please don’t get a pet. Invest your time and money in something that’s better suited to your interests and lifestyle.
8. Give your pet the right food. Unless you’re the sort of person who sees “Supersize Me” as a life goal, our friend Ben prefers to think that you don’t sustain life for yourself and your family by eating food exclusively picked up from McDonald’s, KFC, Dunkin’ Donuts, and the like. So why would you give your pets the cheapest or most additive-laden food? Okay, maybe a raw-foods diet is extreme. Maybe you can’t afford exclusive pet-store brands. But that’s no reason to fatten up your pet with loathesome foods that spend their money on advertising that makes you feel great since you’re purchasing “gourmet” foods for your pet, with names that sound like recipes your own family loves. Sound nutrition in a dry food like IAMS, Eukanuba, or Science Diet is perfect for your dog or cat, supplemented by fresh fruits, veggies, yogurt, bits of cheese, eggs, and whole-grain bread.
9. Keep your pet safe. Just as you wouldn’t let your toddler run into the road, you should make your pet’s safety a priority. Keep your dog on-leash and well in hand anytime you take her outside. If you let him run free, make sure your yard is securely fenced or he’s trained to an invisible fence, and he has shade, shelter and water outside. Secure fencing is no substitute for companionship, so don’t abandon your dog outside all day. Making sure your dog has an ID tag, up-to-date dog tag, and tattoo or ID chip will make it easier to recover her in case she does lose her way. Keeping cats indoors and up-to-date on vaccinations, and making sure your dog has his heartworm medication and both dogs and cats have monthly flea and tick preventives, are all also part of keeping them safe. Ditto for monitoring your gas stove if you have birds, which are sensitive to gas leaks, or keeping your bunny away from electric cords, or keeping your pet away from antifreeze, chocolate, and other toxic substances. Where safety’s concerned, having a pet really is like having a child. And those innocent beings are depending on you to protect them. If you can’t be bothered, forget about pets and stick to video games.
10. Love your pet. This is surely the simplest and most obvious rule of all. Your pet will love you, you need to love him. Simple as that. If the idea of loving an animal embarrasses you—if you think that loving a pet is beneath you—if you can’t imagine showing affection to a pet in public—please, don’t buy one. Do an innocent creature who’d try her best to love you despite your defects a favor. Love is a continuum, stretching from our affection for animals to our love for our fellow humans. If you can’t find it in your heart to love a being who loves you unreservedly, who can you love? Our friend Ben says, God have pity on you.
For the rest of us who have no trouble loving pets, enjoy your furred, feathered, or finned friends and love them as they deserve. And happy birthday Shiloh dear! Our friend Ben and Silence love you so.
Souper bowl Sunday. February 7, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in homesteading, recipes, wit and wisdom.Tags: cream of mushroom soup, homemade mushroom soup, mushroom soup
1 comment so far
Silence Dogood here. Like many of you, our friend Ben and I got hit by the major snowstorm sweeping up the East Coast, accumulating deep drifts and dropping temps down to, as I write, a balmy 18 degrees F. outside. Things don’t feel much warmer inside our delightful 56-degree cottage, either. Looking outside makes me feel cold. Being inside makes me feel cold. What to do? Make some lovely hot soup, of course! But what sort of soup to make?
Usually, if I’m in the mood for soup, I make my locally famous black bean soup, or my luscious Curried Pumpkin Soup, or my homemade cream of tomato soup, or my spicy and warming Ginger Snap Soup. (You can find all these recipes by searching our blog using the search bar on the right, and I promise they’re all really good.) But today, I want to invent a new soup. A souper bowl soup.
To get inspiration, I of course turned to my cookbook collection. But yikes, where to begin? With over a hundred cookbooks, it’s easy to get overwhelmed (gee, what a horrible problem). So I decided to go for the executive decision solution and just grab three that seemed promising: Anna Thomas’s The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two (I love her unabashed decadence), Jack Czarnecki’s Joe’s Book of Mushroom Cookery (from the famous restaurant in nearby Reading, PA; mushroom soup certainly sounds appealing); and Brother Victoire-Antoine d’Avila-Latourette’s Twelve Months of Monastery Soups (hey, this cookbook is actually about soup!).
Checking them out, I was disappointed to see that Anna Thomas didn’t list a mushroom soup among the delicious soup recipes she offers. But she did have something I find almost as intriguing: What appears to be a vegetarian French onion soup. Hers is called Beer and Onion Soup, and she suggests topping it with hot paprika or toasted croutons and grated Parmesan rather than the traditional slice of baguette and lusciously gooey melted cheese, but still. I can’t help but think that this might be the salvation of vegetarians like me who still miss French onion soup after lo these many years. Cream, dark beer or stout, egg yolks, and butter add body, and the spicing looks perfect. It’s definitely on my to-make list, but not today. I’m still on a quest for perfect mushroom soup.
Joe’s doesn’t disappoint. The restaurant, famous for generations for its wild mushrooms and game, has a number of delicious-looking mushroom soups, including Wild Mushroom Vichyssoise. I have to try this sometime, but I’ll eat it hot: I enjoy chilled soups, but there’s something about potatoes and mushrooms that makes me have to heat them. For me, the winning recipe here is Domestic Cream of Mushroom Soup. (“Domestic” because, for once, they’re not using wild mushrooms, rather than because the soup has been domesticated to the point of tedium.)
Unlike canned cream of tomato soup, which can actually be good if it doesn’t taste metallic and if you add lots of milk, butter, and salt, I’ve never been able to stand canned cream of mushroom soup. I suspect it’s because of the thickening agents, which affect both flavor and texture, so I was nervous to see 6 tablespoons of flour listed as the first ingredient in Joe’s recipe. The absence of any kind of stock, broth, or even water (except for 2 tablespoons of water to keep the onions and mushrooms from sticking to the pan) also seemed a little odd, and I couldn’t quite see the combination of dried savory and soy sauce as flavorings. Someday, I will make this and see how it is. Maybe it’s fabulous and my concerns are unwarranted; at any rate, a homemade cream of mushroom soup has to be a vast improvement over canned soup.
Moving on to the monastery, I see that the months of December, January, February, March and April all feature mushroom soups: Mushroom Soup, Mushroom Soup a la Marie-Louise, Country Mushroom and Sour Cream Soup, Saint Lioba Beer and Mushroom Soup, and Cream of Mushroom Soup a la Romaine. So many choices, and they all look worth trying, but none is the mushroom soup I have in mind for this bitterly cold, snowy day.
However, at least now I’m inspired. So, forthwith, here is what I’ll be making today:
Silence’s Soupreme Mushroom Soup
1 16-ounce carton button mushrooms, minced
1 8-ounce carton baby ‘bellas, minced
dried shiitake and/or porcini mushrooms for deeper flavor, optional, or fresh shiitakes, minced
1 large sweet onion (WallaWalla, Vidalia, Candy, or 1015 type), diced
1 stick salted butter
6 large leaves fresh minced basil or 1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon fenugreek powder
1 pint light cream
1 carton veggie stock (in my experience, all brands are good)
Marsala or Madeira wine
bourbon
Trocomare (hot herbed salt) and/or salt (we like Real Salt)
hot sauce (we like Pickapeppa or Tabasco Chipotle)
Melt butter in a heavy stock pot or Dutch oven (I love my LeCreuset Dutch ovens). Add onions and cook until translucent. Add Trocomare and/or salt to taste, a splash of hot sauce, fenugreek, and minced basil. Add mushrooms. Cook over low heat until mushrooms have released their liquid, stirring and adding veggie stock as needed to prevent sticking. When the mushrooms have cooked down, add the remainder of the carton of veggie stock and the cream, stirring well to blend. When the soup is hot, pour a circle of Madeira or Marsala around the edge of the pot, add a splash of bourbon, and stir. Give the soup 5 minutes, then taste and adjust seasonings. Let it cook slowly to the desired thickness and serve; eat very hot. You may choose to serve this soup over rice (we always suggest basmati rice) or with sides of rice, baked sweet potatoes, mixed green and yellow wax beans, and a salad. It should serve four for single portions, or two if one of you is the ever-ravenous OFB and you want seconds (and possibly thirds).
Try it, and let me know what you think! And have a very happy, warm, and well-fed S(o)uper Bowl Sunday.
‘Til next time,
Silence
Now We Are Two February 5, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: blog trivia, blogiversary, our friend Ben, Poor Richard's Almanac blog
6 comments
Today, February 5th, our blog Poor Richard’s Almanac celebrates its second birthday. Our blog contributors—our friend Ben, Silence Dogood, and Richard Saunders—have had a lot of fun with PRA, and are both humbled and grateful to our readers for enjoying (or at least putting up with) our posts. Thanks for reading and for checking in! We love hearing from you. Let’s do some thumbnail stats, then have a little fun, courtesy of our hero and blog mentor, Benjamin Franklin, to celebrate our entry into the Terrible Twos.
Stats (courtesy of our blog host, WordPress): Last time we looked, we had 153,603 total views; 958 posts; 4,259 comments; and 9,402 pieces of spam (mercifully caught and deleted by Akismet).
As you can surmise from those 958 posts, we have quite a lot to say for ourselves, on topics ranging from gardening and homesteading to American history, coin and marble collecting, cooking, Christmas, chickens, pirates, backyard birdwatching, and pretty much anything else we damn well feel like. Our most popular posts, such as Silence’s classics on Amish friendship bread and her epic battles with the evil stinkbugs, not to mention the ever-popular “Why don’t cats have brown eyes?” and piratical posts, routinely get over 3,000 views, with no end in sight. (It still amazes us that our posts continue to be discovered and read even years after we wrote them.) Even special-interest posts, like “Pluots in bloom,” “Grow your own popcorn,” and “Can you grow olive trees from seed?” have regularly passed the thousand-view mark.
We love it when readers appreciate our humor or are touched by something we’ve written, but are always gratified when educational posts seem to hit home. It makes us feel like we’re actually serving a useful purpose instead of just enjoying ourselves out here in cyberspace!
But enough about us. Let’s talk about Ben (Franklin, that is). We all know old Ben’s reputation for wisdom, inventiveness, and frugality. Here are a few fine quotes from the good Doctor, plus one from someone else. Can you identify the quote that’s not a Dr. Franklin original? We’ll reveal all at the end. But no cheating, now!
* “The bird that sits, is easily shot.” (on idleness)
* “I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.”
* “Industry, perseverance, and frugality, make fortune yield.”
* “Don’t go to the doctor with every distemper, nor to the lawyer with every quarrel, nor to the pot for every thirst.”
* “A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.” [Except in the case of fruit flies. They love vinegar, and are even fonder of wine.---Silence]
* “If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.”
Did you guess the quote that wasn’t Ben’s? It’s “I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him,” said by another towering genius and person ahead of his time, Galileo Galilei. We’re certain Ben would agree.
We’re looking forward to another year with Dr. Franklin and all of you here at Poor Richard’s Almanac. Stay tuned!
Our antique stove needs assistance. February 4, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: antique gas stoves, Caloric stoves, propane stoves
1 comment so far
Silence Dogood here. When our friend Ben and I bought Hawk’s Haven, our cottage home located in the precise middle of nowhere, PA, it came with a Caloric stove. You read that right: The brand of the huge, wonderful white enameled propane stove is Caloric. Clearly, this dates it back to the days when the word “caloric” referred to fuel, not fat, and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to discover that the brand name was discontinued in the 1960s. (I can’t imagine why.)
Even though only three of its four burners have ever worked during my tenure here, and the guy who delivered the propane for it asked me on his first post-home-purchase visit “Why don’t you just get rid of that old stove?!”, I fell in love with it right away. You see, the Caloric does what the modern gas stoves I’ve encountered in friends’ homes don’t do: It lets you turn the flame down to virtually nothing, so you can simmer food practically forever without burning it. And, as noted, it’s big, with plenty of stovetop space so I can store a huge crock of utensils and my sizeable teapot between the two sets of burners, and it has capacious side and under-stove storage drawers for pots, pans, trays, and what-have-you.
I’m sure mine isn’t the earliest model of Caloric stove, since it proudly announces “Electronic Ignition” on the dial section of the top, meaning that it ignites automatically when you turn on the burner or oven rather than forcing you to light them with a match like the earliest gas stoves. (However, you still can light them with a match if the electricity goes out, a real godsend around here.) It also has an electric clock on the back, which, of course, has never worked for us, but doubtless was considered terribly modern at the time of its manufacture.
Through the years that we’ve lived here at Hawk’s Haven, our Caloric stove and I have had a very happy relationship. I’m convinced that the total temperature control has been a key factor in making my food a success. And with a rice cooker, Crock-Pot, toaster oven, and freestanding electric burner, I can compensate for the disfunctional fourth burner with no problem.
This winter, however, my Caloric and I have developed issues. Specifically, oven-related issues. When I turn on the oven, it fails to heat up. It gets nice and warmish, as if the pilot light has gone on—the perfect temperature for making yogurt, drying sliced fruits and veggies, or raising bread dough—but way too low to bake or roast or actually cook anything, so low that the top of the stove remains cold. Mind you, I’ve been able to overcome this reluctance to cook—so far, anyway—by briefly turning the two front burners on and then off. This seems to send some sort of signal to the oven, which then fires up as usual. But to say the least, I’m concerned about this. I’m a loyal type, true to friends, memories, and possessions for the duration, never willingly discarding the old for this year’s model. I’m willing to play this little game with my Caloric, but what happens if the oven simply decides to take itself out of the game? If anyone knows what’s going on and what I should really be doing about it, I’d be so grateful if you’d let me know.
For all you stove historians out there, I tried to look up the origins and history of Caloric stoves via my good friend Google prior to writing this post. The data was sadly inconclusive. I discovered that the Caloric Fireless Stove Company was in existence prior to 1906, when their first cookbook was published (attempting to tell housewives how to cook with a gas range rather than a woodstove, at the time a revolutionary idea), and that, after being sold to numerous big-name brands, including Maytag and Amana, the brand was finally discontinued in either 1965 or 1967. But I completely failed to find anything on the early history of the company or where it originated. I can say, however, that when OFB and I first moved to Pennsylvania, there was still a Caloric factory in our area (we thought this was hilarious). Looking back, I realize it must have been long defunct (these were the ’80s, after all, not the ’60s), but it makes me wonder if Caloric stoves originated virtually in our adopted backyard. If anyone knows anything about these great old stoves, I’d love to hear from you!
‘Til next time,
Silence
More blog query bloopers. February 3, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: blog humor, blog queries
7 comments
With two big posts (2nd blog anniversary, Shiloh’s first birthday) coming up later in the week, our friend Ben thought a little light entertainment was in order. And, thanks to our blog host, WordPress’s, query tracking, we here at Poor Richard’s Almanac have an abundance of humorous queries to draw from. Some recent classics by which readers have been directed to our blog:
* old ladies: Let’s just say that Silence Dogood is not amused.
* irene adler’s hairdo: Beg pardon? I don’t think Sherlock Holmes ever mentioned it. But given that Irene was involved in one of Sherlock’s earlier cases, if anyone wants to try an Irene Adler hairdo for themselves, Silence suggests that they check out early Victorian hairstyles and prepare themselves for a very long, very expensive salon appointment. The beautiful mistress of a future king would have spared no expense on her appearance.
* benjamin franklin light bulb quotes: We hate to disappoint you here, but as our friend, historian, and fellow PRA blogger Richard Saunders points out, it would be over a hundred years after our revered hero and blog mentor, Benjamin Franklin, died before Mr. Edison and Mr. Tesla came up with the idea of a lightbulb. Old Ben was often far ahead of his time, and yes, he did indeed channel electricity with his kite and key, but he lit his Colonial home with candles like everyone else.
* what did ben franklin do for a hobby: We admit that we love this query. In most respects, Dr. Franklin’s whole life was a hobby. Our friend Ben supposes that some people would say that old Ben played chess as a hobby, or dabbled in music, or invented things. Others would say that his hobby was politics, or even flirtation. But with a mind like Ben’s, mankind was his hobby; the world was his hobby; pure thought was his hobby. What an interesting query.
* detracting birds from windows: That would be “distracting.”
* shoes worn by amelia warner web in the e: Uh, who dat?!!!
* fermentation M&Ms: Eeeewwwww.
* dr oz gets old: So what’s your point? Even plastic surgery can only take you so far.
* blog name abuse: As always, the name of our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, comes in for a lot of abuse. By now, we’re used to King Richard’s Almanac, Little Richard’s Almanac, Poor Ben’s Almanac, and the like. But the past couple of weeks have given us “black poor richard,” “browns allmanac,” and “ladies almanac 2010.” People, please.
* bad tomato taste: This just in. At least it wasn’t “rotten tomato taste”…
But what are they eating? February 2, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: food rules, food trends, healthy eating, Jane Brody, Michael Pollan
3 comments
Silence Dogood here. I was scrolling through the headlines in today’s New York Times when I came on one about what we all should be eating. And, of course, how horrendous the reviled “American diet” is for our waistlines and our health, which, of course, are always linked in these articles, as though the thinner one is, the healthier one must therefore be. Hellooo, anorexia! Hellooo, Jim Fixx, Steve Jobs!
Moderation appears to be as unknown to today’s health writers as it is to today’s political factions, while extremism is their stock-in-trade. (This is actually a gross exaggeration. The article that led me to the food piece was a very balanced examination of the benefits of vitamin D supplementation. But still, it strikes me that on topics like diet and politics, people have an awfully hard time seeing the middle path.)
I find that most of these “what and how we should eat” stories boil down to the same advice nutritionists and (sane) diet gurus have preached for years: don’t overeat; avoid lots of fat and all unhealthy fats; avoid refined carbs like white flour, pasta, and rice; avoid all sweeteners; avoid alcohol, or limit yourself to the occasional glass of red wine with supper; avoid all highly processed foods, including sodas, and concentrate on eating a wide variety of whole foods; watch your meat intake; forget about salt; use lots of herbs and spices to make up for the absence of fat and salt; drink horrific amounts of plain water; eat lots of fiber. Latter-day food rulers have added two more rules to the list: choose organic whenever possible, and make an effort to eat foods that are in season where you live, bought locally if possible.
Far be it from me to decry the good sense of this advice. I’m convinced that it’s a wonderful approach to eating, if you can manage to do it, and wish you the very best of luck. Even I am a rabidly pro-organic vegetarian who seldom eats sweets of any kind and makes a huge effort to eat seasonally and buy locally. But don’t tell me to switch my tea for plain water or give up butter, cheese, and salt, or my pasta and rice! Yes, it may be healthier, but damned if I’m depriving myself of pleasure to satisfy the health police. But I digress.
Mind you, you’ll still have to choose from the endless conflicting advice about when and how often to eat. Some gurus suggest many small meals a day, aka grazing; some advocate a large breakfast, a larger lunch, and a light supper; many say you shouldn’t eat anything after 6 (or 7, or 8, or 9); a fair number recommend small, healthy snacks between meals to keep your metabolism going; others say you should never snack between meals; and still others insist that it doesn’t matter when or how often you eat, that the only things that matter are total calories consumed versus calories expended and making sure your food choices provide adequate or optimal nutrition.
My own philosophy of food is much more straightforward. I believe that you should only eat when you’re hungry (but eat whenever you’re hungry), eat exactly what you want to, and stop eating the second you’ve had enough, even if that means you stop with a fork of food halfway to your mouth. (You can always have the leftovers another time, you’re not going to die if you don’t clean your plate, nor do you need to waste food.)
In my own case, that means having a small meal around 10 a.m., perhaps a piece of fruit and a handful of nuts or some crudites around 4 p.m., and supper anywhere from 7 to 9 p.m. But that just happens to be when I find myself hungry, so that’s when I eat. (Fortunately, our friend Ben is happy with a late supper as well, so this schedule works for us.) I take great pleasure from abundance, so I tend to pile my plate with as much of the delicious, fragrant food I’ve made as I (think I) want. Then I proceed to eat my three forkfuls of this and that and save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch, or give my plate to the ever-ravenous OFB to polish off. I never feel deprived, because I’ve both taken and eaten as much food as I want. No Nouvelle Cuisine-like tablespoon of food on a vast, empty plate for me, even if in the end a tablespoon is all I eat. To me, just because it’s there doesn’t mean you have to eat it, but there’s a lot of comfort in knowing that it’s there in case you should want to eat it.
Gee, think maybe it’s time I returned to the point of this post? Oh, right, that. Despite the almost certain denouement—that I’d go over the edge about whatever the NYTimes article said—of course I couldn’t resist reading it anyway, since it was written by Jane Brody and was about Michael Pollan.
Skating away on another rant, I mean, tangent, let me just say that OFB and I, horticulturists that we are, are no strangers to Michael Pollan’s writing, since the horticultural world fell all over him after the publication of The Botany of Desire. It’s a curious truth that horticulturists and passionate gardeners, at least in the English-speaking world, seldom embrace their own with the fervor they reserve for people whom one might describe as “accidental gardeners,” those who choose to write about their gardening adventures but who actually “do something else” in real life. It’s as though their lack of professional horticultural credentials gives them added cachet. In the U.S., Henry Mitchell and Allen Lacy preceded Michael Pollan in this respect, but the tradition goes back to Thomas Jefferson and the country’s founding. I’d like to think of this as a tribute to the writers’ unquestionable literary skills, but have the uneasy feeling that it’s reverse snobbishness. Shame!!! Then again, my favorite food writers are Julia Child, Helen Nearing, and Tasha Tudor, hardly professional chefs.
Returning once more to the subject of this post, Jane Brody was rhapsodizing about Michael Pollan’s latest book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, which apparently provides its audience with a modest 64 principles for eating. (Come on, Michael: Whatever stopped you from hitting 100?) Ms. Brody quotes Mr. Pollan’s trenchant and sensible advice: “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.” Ms. Brody herself contributes an equally pertinent comment, for any of you who’ve been plotting to kill all French women since the infamous publication of French Women Don’t Get Fat: “There is no French Paradox, by the way: The French who stay slim eat smaller portions, leisurely meals and no snacks.” Go Jane go! But you forgot to mention that the French also tend to walk or cycle everywhere they go, which also helps burn those croissant-and-cheese calories off. (Note: Feel free to read the article in its entirety, which includes plenty of other great tips, at www.nytimes.com. It’s called “Rules Worth Following, for Everyone’s Sake,” by Jane E. Brody. The short piece that led me to it is “Rules to Eat By” by Tara Parker-Pope, also in the NYTimes.)
Okay, fine, so what’s my point? This is the thing that set me off and made me write this post: the inescapable suggestion/directive/rule/whatever to eat your food slowly. Sloooowwwwlyyyy. Take your time. Put your fork down between bites. Talk for five minutes or so between mouthfuls. (Not, please, during mouthfuls.) Chew every bite like a cow with its cud, 50 or 100 chews before swallowing each mouthful.
I’ve read this advice a thousand times, and you probably have, too. If you’re like me, you probably ask yourself, what exactly are these people eating?! Popcorn, so you can watch as it gets cold and the butter congeals on it? Cheese, so you can sit by as the exposed parts harden and discolor? Apples or pears, so you can admire the exposed flesh as it turns brown? A salad, as the cut edges brown and the lettuce wilts into the dressing? Ice cream, as it puddles in your bowl or on your cone? Yogurt, as the whey separates out to form a watery mass? Coffee or tea as it cools and the milk curdles, carbonated beverages as they heat up and go flat, drinks with ice as they become watery and disgusting, pasta as it sticks together, meat as its fat congeals, soup as a layer of grease forms on its now-cold surface? Bread as it gets stale? Sodden cereal, limp bacon, cold pancakes? Scrambled (shudder) eggs or omelettes as they become cold and scary?
I could go on and on (and on). Long-time readers know that I’m texture-sensitive when it comes to food (nothing slippery or mealy), taste-sensitive when it comes to bitter (bitter chocolate being an exception), and doneness-sensitive for all dishes (please, please don’t give me undercooked, still-hard potatoes, broccoli, carrots, green beans, and the like; it’s one thing to serve raw veggies as such, but quite another to serve quasi-raw veggies and pretend that you’re serving cooked food).
But far more than these, I’m temperature-sensitive. I want to eat each dish at the exact perfect temperature for it. Let it cool, warm, or dilute past that moment, and I’m so over it. Being served lukewarm or cold veggie side dishes makes me want to cry. I’m not proud of eating food at light speed to make sure I can enjoy it at the appropriate temperature, even though I don’t overeat. But until some inspired inventor develops a system for serving and keeping food at its perfect temperature at each diner’s place, allowing me to eat in a leisurely fashion, damned if I’m going to let it get cold (or hot) by eating slowly. I’d so much rather eat three bites quickly at the ideal temperature than eat 30 slowly at an undesirable temperature.
I guess there are benefits here: One, I’m never tempted to overeat. And two, after I’ve had my three bites and the food no longer appeals, I’m free to entertain the rest of the table with talk while they take their time over their own meals. Still, I’d be so pleased to have a little more. If any inventors are reading this, won’t you think about it?
‘Til next time,
Silence
The dog interpreter. February 1, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in pets, wit and wisdom.Tags: avoiding aggressive dogs, dog shows, dog training, dogs, German shepherds, interpreting dog behavior, Shiloh
4 comments
Silence Dogood here. Our friend Ben and I couldn’t resist heading over to the local dog show (formally known as “LV Kennel Club Canine Learning Experience”) this past weekend with some good friends. It had been years since OFB and I had been to the local show, and we were in hopes of seeing the Schutzhund competition and trying to find some good toys for our black German shepherd puppy, Shiloh. (Due to our friends’ schedule, we arrived too late for the Schutzhunds, but found great pterodactyl and tyrannosaurus squeak toys for Shiloh. She hasn’t managed to destroy them yet!)
Of course, OFB and I rushed directly to the German shepherd booth to check out the dogs and see if we could pick up any literature. (They had lots of literature, and, for that matter, lots of dogs relaxing calmly in the booth.) Our favorite, of course, was a black female like our Shiloh. After visiting with the dogs and picking up everything we could about GSDs (enthusiasts always add the word “dogs” after “German shepherd,” presumably to avoid giving offense to actual human sheep herders who hail from Deutschland, but this is a bit much for us), we cruised around the rest of the floor.
Naturally, we were thrilled to find the booth with the big and tough but colorful and adorable dino squeak toys (canvas, not plush, which Shiloh can eviscerate in a matter of minutes). But we were also delighted to find a lot of useful (and free) information on training, hip dysplasia, nutrition, local dog laws, and poison hazards that applied to all dogs. We also found a great info sheet, courtesy of the PA Department of Agriculture, that we want to share with all of you.
Even if you don’t own a dog, you and/or your kids will doubtless encounter dogs in the course of walks, park visits, and visiting households with resident dogs. It’s important to be aware of what dogs are trying to tell you, and since they can’t talk (though Shiloh tries valiantly), they often use body language to express themselves. If you know dogs, you’re probably a good dog body language interpreter, but even for you, a brush-up’s a good idea. If you don’t own dogs, knowing how to read their body language—and making sure your kids know, too—can be the surest way to enjoy dogs and avoid injury.
So here’s a quick guide to reading a dog’s body language:
Dog Is Happy
*Dog is relaxed
* Ears are standing up straight [if breed's ears can stand up straight, like a German shepherd's; if ears are floppy like a golden retriever's, ears are relaxed and forward, not pinned back]
* Tail is wagging or relaxed
[Note from Silence: Dog may also be smiling or laughing, tongue is typically hanging out, often from the side of the laughing mouth.]
Dog Wants to Play
* Dog is “bowing” [front crouches towards ground with rump and tail in the air, also called "play bowing;" this is an invitation to join the game]
* Ears are up [same comment as for happy dog]
* Tail is up and wagging
[Note from Silence: Puppies and especially exuberant dogs may be so excited that they find it hard to hold still, much less maintain a play-bow, when they want to engage you in play. They may shake, jump around, wriggle, dance in place or around you, wave their front paws at you, or try to jump up on you and/or let out a series of typically short, soft barks to engage your attention. But whatever the case, if play's on their mind, their expression is very happy and their eyes are bright. They may be excited but they're relaxed, not stiff or tense, and again, the smile, laugh, and/or hanging-out tongue is typical.]
Dog Is Afraid
* Head is down
* Ears are back [pinned back to head or, in the case of floppy-eared dogs, down and flattened, held as close to the body as possible, instead of up and a bit away from the head in the manner of a happy Lab, retriever, or spaniel]
* Nose is wrinkled
* Tail is down and tucked under body
* Hair on back is standing up
[Note from Silence: Fearful dogs also often cast their eyes down or give slanting, terrified glances up to see what you're about to do. They also tend to crouch, pulling their whole bodies in and paws under them. Notice the difference between this posture---they look like they're about to be beaten---and the happy posture of the play-bow, where the front of the body is lowered but the front legs and paws are extended, the rump is up in the air, the head and ears are up, the tail is wagging merrily, the mouth is smiling or open and laughing with the dangling tongue, and the eyes are bright and alert. This is very important because, often, the worst injuries are inflicted by fear-biters. Most people, to the youngest child, know to keep away from a ferocious, growling, barking, aggressive dog. But a fearful, pitiful dog arouses sympathy, and a child or adult might approach them and extend an arm to pet the obviously frightened animal to make him feel better. The already-terrified dog may see the (to him) huge hand and arm descending from on high and lash out in a desperate attempt to defend himself, often resulting in devastating and permanent injury to the well-meaning human. The best way to respond to a fearful dog is to speak reassuringly and softly while calmly but very deliberately removing yourself from his space.]
Dog Is Angry
*Posture is stiff
* Ears are forward
* Tail is straight up
* Nose is wrinkled
* Dog may growl
[Note from Silence: The hair on the back of an aggressive dog who's ready to attack may also rise, and the tail bush out. The dog may show his teeth. The posture is poised to launch forward in an attack. One very misleading sign may be a twitching tail. A dog poised for attack is not wagging his tail, it's twitching to show his readiness and impatience to charge. A fenced aggressive dog will pace or even race along the front of the fence, sometimes barking, growling, and generally indicating that if he could just get out, you'd be hamburger. Quietly and calmly remove yourself from his vicinity before he feels compelled to make good on his threats.]
Dogs may be compact compared to us, but they’re very powerful for their size. Their sharp, strong teeth and powerful jaws can inflict unimaginable injuries. The cases that make the national news are usually focused on exotic pets—chimps, tigers, bears—that only idiots would consider taking into their homes or approaching. But the number of avoidable tragedies involving dogs far outstrips them. Learning dog body language can help you and your children avoid mishaps.
One last thought: If the dog is your pet, it should never exhibit fear or aggression responses to people. [Many dogs, especially as they get older, become afraid of gunshots, thunder, fireworks, and other loud, unexpected, explosive noises. I can only sympathize. This is quite a different matter from exhibiting fear towards people or fear-biting.] If your dog exhibits dominance-aggression, find a good trainer immediately. If he exhibits generalized aggression or fear towards people, you may need to give him to someone who’s experienced in overcoming these problems, at least for a time, then have the person show you how to manage the dog once they’ve finished the basic socialization.
Never, ever, risk your personal safety or the safety of another person. Learn to recognize your dog’s (or any dog’s) body language and respond accordingly.
One last tip: To see what petting looks like from a dog’s eye view, get down on your hands and knees, then look up as someone else slams their hand down towards your eyes. Instead, reach down and stroke the side of the dog’s face and under the chin, avoiding the eyes, calming and soothing her gently until you can bring your hand up from beneath her head and slide it to the top of her head. Then, and only then, stroke the top of her head and down the back of her neck, gently run your hand over her ears, rub your fingers over her brows and between her eyes, and stroke over her snout, repeating all these motions very softly as she relaxes. A direct slam-dunk towards the face is very scary to a dog. The indirect approach creates a strong trust and bond.
Dogs are so great. Enjoy them, please. But take a couple of minutes to learn (and teach your kids) how to read them. Safety first!!!
‘Til next time,
Silence
Oh, shiitake. January 29, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: growing your own mushrooms, mushroom growing kits, mushroom log kits, mushrooms, shiitake mushroom kits
3 comments
Please forgive our friend Ben the uncharacteristic vulgarity, I just couldn’t resist. Exciting times have come to Hawk’s Haven, the rural cottage our friend Ben and Silence Dogood share in the precise middle of nowhere, PA: We just received a package with two inoculated shiitake mushroom logs.
Silence and I have always wanted to grow our own mushrooms, but have frankly found the cost of mushroom-growing kits prohibitive. But this year, after an especially generous Christmas gift from Silence’s beloved family patriarch, Mr. Hays, we felt that it was safe to indulge. We were discussing making our mushrooming dreams come true when Daily Candy, an e-mail service Silence gets that reports on retail trends, featured a shiitake mushroom farm, Lost Creek Mushroom Farm in Perkins, Oklahoma, that specializes in shiitake mushroom logs. (Owners Sondra and Doug Williams insist that the name of these mushrooms is pronounced “she-TAH-kee,” not “she-ih-TAH-keh,” as our friend Ben has long thought.) Check them out for yourselves at www.shiitakemushroomlog.com.
Clicking the link, we found that you could get a special deal on two inoculated logs with soaking trays (these look like plastic terracotta-colored window boxes), so you could alternate their fruiting cycles, bringing one into mushroom production while the other one rested. By alternating the logs, you could have a crop of homegrown shiitakes every month for four years! Suddenly, the price didn’t seem that exhorbitant.
Log care is simple: You keep it hydrated, alternate the temperature (it needs a cold “shock” to fruit after the initial cycle), give it alternating light and dark cycles, and maintain comparatively cool temperatures (the ideal is 50 degree F. nights and moist 70 degree F. days).
In addition to extremely complete instructions, our logs arrived with a complimentary recipe booklet. Silence of course also ordered Janet Bratkovich’s Shiitake Sampler, also available from Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, which includes many more recipes, from Shiitake Turnovers and Shiitake and Barley Soup to Timbale Shiitake, Shish Kebab Shiitake, and Shiitake Pilaf.
Silence and I are eagerly anticipating harvesting mushrooms in about two months, and from then on monthly for years to come. We love the flavor and meaty texture of shiitakes, and enjoy including them in Silence’s signature Mushrooms and Sweet Onions in Madeira Wine Sauce with Rice as well as in Chinese and Indian dishes. Oh, shiitake! We’re so looking forward to you.
To label is human, to shut up, divine. January 28, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: flexitarians, fruitarians, locavores, omnivores, piscatarians, vaguetarians, vegans, vegetarians
9 comments
Silence Dogood here. I just read a blog post about “vaguetarians,” and of course it set me off. Maybe it’s because I had to work so hard and give up so much to become a vegetarian. But maybe it’s because I just don’t see the point.
We already have vegetarians, folks who don’t eat meat, fish, fertile eggs, gelatin, lard, caviar, etc. Then we have vegans, folks who don’t eat any of the above or any type of dairy product, egg, yeast bread, or honey. At the farthest extreme, there are fruitarians, who only eat fruits, berries, grains, rose hips, and other produce that would naturally fall off the plant, as opposed to killing plants in order to harvest them. (A fruitarian would eat squash or rice, but not lettuce or onions.) There are also locavores, folks who make a great effort to eat food produced locally, usually on small family-owned organic farms. (You can cross over here and be a vegetarian, vegan, or fruitarian locavore, if you enjoy amassing as many labels as possible.)
Then there are the folks who call themselves vegetarians but eat fish. Last time I checked, fish were in fact animals. Why these people would call themselves vegetarians is beyond me. I myself refer to them as “piscatarians” (as in Pisces).
But beyond the piscatarians, there’s a wide world of people screaming to be labeled. “I’m a vegetarian because I eat mostly vegetables.” (This is an actual quote.) “I’m a vegetarian; I only eat chicken and fish, no red meat or pork.” “I’m a vegetarian except when I eat hot dogs and hamburgers.” I’ve heard all these, many times over. This strikes me as akin to saying “I’m a teetotaler, except I drink beer and the occasional Scotch.” And now we have flexitarians, who’re vegetarians except when they’re not, and vaguetarians, who would sorta kinda like to be vegetarian, or at least have other people think of them in those terms, no matter what they’re eating.
By the time we reach this point, I have to ask, why?!! Why seek out a label for yourself when you basically eat anything and/or everything, just at graduated intervals? Why not skip the label and just eat?
Simply have to have that label? Not a problem, we already have one for you. It’s the oldest and most inherent label around, the eating style that enabled us (and monkeys, parrots, pigs, chickens, dogs, bears, and many others) to survive and thrive, wherever we found ourselves. It’s been raised to an art form by celebrity chefs, and celebrated in local cuisines the world over. So if you must have a label, wear it with pride. When someone asks, “Are you a vegetarian/vegan/locavore/whatever?”, smile and say, “No, I’m an omnivore. I enjoy it all.”
‘Til next time,
Silence
