Best of the week at PRA, May 31-June 6 June 7, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.Tags: best blog posts, blog posts, Poor Richard's Almanac blog
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Here at Poor Richard’s Almanac, we’ve taken to picking our own favorite posts from the past week and listing them here, so if you’ve missed something intriguing, it will be easy for you to find it by scrolling down or simply entering the post’s title in our search bar at upper right. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them!
This week’s picks:
Rabid for radishes: Silence Dogood shares some great links to radish recipes and encourages everyone to try pickled radishes.
In praise of privet: Our friend Ben tells everyone why you should love this humble and abused shrub.
Persimmon surprise: OFB sees beautiful persimmon blooms for the first time.
Vegetarian cookbook roundup: Silence shares three of the latest additions to her cookbook collection and tells why you might want to add them to your own cookbook shelf.
Which monarchs do you love to hate? Richard Saunders responds to a reader query with a list of the all-time worst, and invites you to add your own favorite baddies.
Which monarchs do you love to hate? June 6, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.Tags: Attila the Hun, evil rulers, Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, kings, monarchs, Vlad the Impaler
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It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, here today to respond to a reader’s search phrase that arrived over the virtual transom. The reader wondered who was the most hated monarch. I thought that was a really interesting question and decided to do a bit of surfing myself to see if there was a consensus.
Mind you, the reader asked about monarchs, so easy answers like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Torquemada, and the Duvaliers (Papa Doc and Baby Doc) don’t count for the purposes of our discussion. Only kings, emperors and other rulers who were considered to reign by divine right (typically by right of birth), as opposed to dictators, qualify for our list. I’m also excluding rulers who were hated because of their incompetence, like poor Louis XVI or Richard II, or because, like William the Conqueror, they came to power over a populace that hated them for simply existing.
For me, the “most hated” category should be reserved for rulers who were genuinely cruel, evil, twisted people. Unfortunately, my knowledge of history is too limited to include many worthy candidates—I’m sure, for example, that there were Chinese, Ancient Egyptian, Maya, and Aztec emperors and kings who should be on the list—so I’m hoping you’ll help me out here by adding your own recommendations.
Here are the rulers who spring to my mind when “most hated” is the category:
Vlad the Impaler: Vlad Tepes came by his nickname, “the Impaler,” honestly. The sadistic Romanian ruler enjoyed torturing people, preferably by impaling them alive on stakes shoved up their bottoms. And we’re talking about thousands of people, not just one or two. Moreover, he didn’t just leave it to his torturers to do their dirty work in secret. His greatest pleasure was enjoying the sight of hundreds of impaled victims screaming, writhing, and rotting in front of his eyes as he forced his court to dine on tables set out before his fields of victims. But he didn’t limit himself to impaling. He also devised a unique solution to the ever-pressing problem of poverty and misfortune: He invited all his country’s poor and destitute to a grand banquet. How generous! Then, he barricaded the doors of the enormous banquet hall and burned them all alive. Some of the monsters on our list practiced brutality as a form of intimidation, but Vlad did it just for pleasure.
Genghis Khan: The future Khan of Khans, Temudgin, was almost defrauded of his inheritance when his father was poisoned when Temudgin was a young boy. But the kid had greatness in his genes and battled his way to the top, uniting the Mongol tribes into what became known—and feared worldwide—as the Mongol Horde. Unfortunately, his ascent to and retention of power involved brutally murdering anyone who stood in his way, including women and children, sometimes 20,000 at a time.
Attila the Hun: Attila, who leant his name to Hungary, was another magnificent strategist. But like Genghis Khan, his strategies also involved inspiring terror and compliance through mass murder. Throughout Europe, he was viewed as the most ferocious conqueror who had ever set foot on foreign soil. Perhaps fittingly, he drowned in his own blood on his wedding night.
Caligula: Caligula is renowned for his depravity, insensitivity, and enjoyment of torture, such as murdering his pregnant sister after subjecting her to unspeakable acts and throwing Christians to the lions for the enjoyment of the Roman populace. But frankly, he was only following a long line of horror that began with the very first Roman Emperor, Augustus, who systematically murdered everyone he viewed as a threat, including his own heirs. Under Augustus’s successor, Tiberius, and subsequent Emperors, thousands upon thousands were crucified and subjected to other unspeakable tortures like the “blood eagle.” Tiberius’s most famous victim was, of course, Jesus Christ Himself. Caligula wasn’t even the worst of the line; his successors were so sadistic and depraved they made him look like a teddy bear. It’s amazing to me that Rome didn’t rise up in revolt and toss these perverts from the get-go.
Ivan the Terrible: The first Tsar of All the Russias, like our friend Vlad, earned his moniker. Not only did he kill and torture thousands of political opponents, he restricted the advancement and freedom of expression of all artists in his realm. He butchered 60,000 of the inhabitants of the great city of Novgorod. And he managed to cause the death of his son and heir and the miscarriage of his daughter-in-law by beating them, in his son’s case with a rod. What a guy!
Henry VIII: Henry didn’t limit his insane paranoia and cruelty to his wives, courtiers, and advisors, systematically torturing and executing everyone from the love of his life, Anne Boleyn, to his trusted advisors Cardinal Wolsey (who actually died en route to being executed after handing over everything he owned to Henry), St. Thomas More, and Thomas Cromwell. He managed to execute over 72,000 people during his reign, and torture, including the rack and burning at the stake, was one of his favorite ways of doing it. His final wife, Katherine Parr, another blameless woman, was spared only because he died before he could command her death. His daughter, Bloody Mary, was clearly a chip off the old block.
Leopold II of Belgium: Leopold didn’t wreak havoc on his own country. Instead, he inflicted it elsewhere. In the African Congo, he murdered and tortured the native population in order to reap financial gains from rubber and ivory. Cutting off the hands of children was an especially popular technique during his reign, to force the remainder of the family to slave to produce rubber for him without protest, but numerous other tortures were commonplace. His horrific practices resulted in the death of 3 million Congolese and eventually roused the outrage of the world, since his reign extended into the 20th Century, and his horrors were brought to a halt. Too bad his own hands weren’t cut off!
Khufu: The Pharoah who was responsible for building the Great Pyramid of Giza. Khufu, also known as Cheops, is not known for much beyond his magnificent architectural achievement. But the other thing for which he was noted was his extreme cruelty. It’s now thought that Egyptian citizens rather than slaves built the pyramids, but apparently everyone was subject to Khufu/Cheops’s unpredictable cruelty.
Yongle: This Chinese Emperor built the Forbidden City, the largest palace in the world. Then he slaughtered almost 3,000 helpless women, children and eunuchs, to make sure he wouldn’t be disgraced before foreign dignitaries. But he also slaughtered anyone else who appeared to oppose him, over 10,000 in all. No criticism of the Emperor and his nightmarish ways was allowed.
So, there are my 9 worst monarchs of all time. Can you add a tenth? Native American, European, African, Middle Eastern, Asian, Polar, you name it? Which monarchs do you love to hate?
Your friend,
Richard Saunders
Vegetarian cookbook roundup. June 5, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in recipes, wit and wisdom.Tags: Alicia Silverstone, Deborah Madison, seasonal cooking, seasonal vegetarian cooking, vegan cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks, vegetarian cooking
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Silence Dogood here. Recently, I’ve been reading three new (to me, anyway) vegetarian cookbooks. (I love reading cookbooks for inspiration and to relax before bed.) One is from our local library, and the other two mysteriously turned up at my door last week in an Amazon box. (“Now, how did that happen?” I innocently asked an apoplectic—“MORE cookbooks?!!”—our friend Ben.) Let’s take a look at them:
A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen: Easy Seasonal Dishes for Family and Friends by Jack Bishop, Executive Editor of Cook’s Illustrated magazine (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, $35). I’m a sucker for seasonal cookbooks, and a vegetarian seasonal cookbook was a must-buy. Jack Bishop’s philosophy is “shop local and cook global, but keep it real.” That works for me!
Recipes are, of course, arranged seasonally, but there’s also a section of “Everyday Basics” like Greener Pesto, Creamy Polenta, Mashed Potatoes, Lighter Refried Beans, Simplest Rice Pilaf, Basic Pizza Dough, and Vegetable Stock. There’s also a chapter of Bishop’s favorite seasonal menus, and you can tell from looking at them that he really loves them and serves them, not that some editor said “You need to include some menus in this book.”
Let me tantalize you with a few recipe titles: Roasted Fennel, Potatoes, and Artichokes with Fennel Gremolata; Spinach and Arugula Salad with Indian-Spiced Chickpeas and Charred Red Onions; Potato-Leek Pizza with Goat Cheese; Rigatoni with Fava Beans, Ricotta, and Lemon; Red Curry-Braised Tofu with Snow Peas, Red Pepper, and Scallions; Gazpacho with Grilled Vegetables; Spanish Omelet with Peas, Potatoes, and Saffron; Bulgur Salad with Grilled Zucchini and Onion, Middle Eastern Style; Tomato and Mango Salad with Curry-Orange Vinaigrette; Tender Lettuce and Peach Salad with Pumpkin Seeds and Sour Orange Vinaigrette; Fried Green Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese; Black Bean Chilaquiles; Mexican Citrus Salad; Frittata with Caramelized Onions; Fettucine with Mascarpone and Sage-Walnut Butter; Spinach-Onion Quesadillas with Avocado-Chipotle Salsa; Gingered Carrot Soup; Curried Red Lentils with Caramelized Onions.
There are 248 recipes in all, so I could go on (and on). But you’ll notice that there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned, and that’s dessert. There are NO dessert recipes in this book. That’s because Jack Bishop’s wife is a former pastry chef, and the division of labor in their kitchen is that he cooks the meals and she makes the desserts. I don’t view that as a drawback—I have plenty of dessert cookbooks—but just FYI. The other drawback is a lack of color photos—there’s a puny color insert showing just 16 of the 248 recipes, though admittedly the photos are gorgeous.
But there are two big bonuses that dwarf these drawbacks: First, the intro to each recipe is lively, authentic, helpful, and experience-based. No bland generalities (“This dish is warming on a cold winter night!”) here. You’ll both enjoy and appreciate them. And second, the book is simply packed with useful tips on everything from buying and using rice noodles to keeping basil from browning, how to correctly sharpen a knife, the best way to use cream, and how to develop flavor in bean soups. Jack Bishop’s experience helming Cook’s Illustrated and starring in PBS’s long-running “America’s Test Kitchen” cooking show really shine through in these invaluable tips.
Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen by Deborah Madison (Broadway Books, 2005, $19.95). If I had to point a finger, I’d say that Deborah Madison was responsible for transforming American non-vegetarians’ views of vegetarian cooking from the crunchy-granola Hippie-era enthusiasm of the original Moosewood Cookbook and Laurel’s Kitchen or the earnest striving of The Tassajara Cookbook to actual haute cuisine. (Not that others, like Anna Thomas with her wonderful Vegetarian Epicure series, didn’t try. She was just too far ahead of her time.)
As founding chef of San Francisco’s fabled Greens restaurant, Deborah Madison showed America that “vegetarian” wasn’t synonymous with brown, heavy, and tasteless, but rather that it could be colorful, flavorful, sophisticated, and cutting-edge. Her books conveyed that message to a wider audience. Even my brother, who has never eaten a vegetarian meal in his life, came up with Ms. Madison’s The Savory Way for me as a birthday present one year. Wow. And her classic Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone opened the door for books like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
In Vegetarian Suppers from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen, the word “suppers” is actually misleading. Ms. Madison provides 100 main-dish recipes with suggestions for accompaniments (including wines and desserts), but no recipes for anything but the main dishes. (She points out that recipes for the accompanying soups, salads, side dishes and desserts can be found in two of her previous cookbooks, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors.) Again, I have no problem with this, but wish the book had been called Vegetarian Main Dishes from Deborah Madison’s Kitchen instead to avoid confusion.
Within the category of main dishes, chapters cover a wealth of options: savory pies and gratins; vegetable stews and braises; pasta with vegetables; crepes and fritters; tofu and tempeh; eggs; hearty cool-weather dishes; light meals for warm weather; and supper sandwiches. There is also a section called “Pantry Foods” with Ms. Madison’s no-nonsense take on what staples to keep in your pantry and what to avoid. And there’s a fantastic chapter of basic recipes for condiments and sauces (from guacamole and tomato sauce to harissa and tapenade); polenta, rice, and beans; and stocks and seasonings (mushroom stock, porcini powder, and stock for stir-fries).
The book’s presentation is great, with plenty of color photos of both finished dishes and “mood shots” scattered throughout. And the recipes! Green Rice with Roasted Green Chiles and Leeks; Polenta Squares with Gorgonzola Cream, Braised Greens, and Cannellini Beans; Frittata with Sauteed Artichokes; Spicy Tofu with Thai Basil and Coconut Rice Cakes; Lemony Risotto Croquettes with Slivered Snow Peas, Asparagus, and Leeks; Winter Squash Lasagne with Sage, Walnuts, and Black Kale; Dried Porcini and Fresh Mushroom Tart; Sweet Potato Gratin with Onions and Sage; Neelam’s Festive Rice Pilaf; Wine-Braised Lentils over Toast with Spinach and Red Pearl Onions; Yellow Peppers Stuffed with Quinoa, Corn, and Feta Cheese.Yum!!!!
The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet by Alicia Silverstone (Rodale, 2009, $29.99). This one’s the library book, and it’s easy to see from reading it why it’s a New York Times Bestseller. Alicia’s still as adorable as she was in “Clueless,” and her passion for animals and for saving the planet shine through. Unlike the others, this book presents a passionate argument for becoming vegan. The opening chapters present three eating plans to entice readers to make the change: Flirting, Vegan, and Superhero (macrobiotic). They’re followed by hefty sections of vegan and macrobiotic recipes. Atmospheric color photos of the food, ingredients, adorable animals, and Alicia and her husband Christopher cooking and eating add even more to the presentation.
I’ve really enjoyed reading The Kind Diet, but I doubt that I’ll add it to my bookshelf. That’s because I have problems with both vegan diets, with their emphasis on super-processed meat and dairy substitutes (eeewww!!!), and macrobiotic diets, with their emphasis on heavy, tasteless “brown food” (getting right back to the Hippie health-food era) and seaweed (which takes up every pollutant in the ocean, like organ meats, which also were considered supreme health foods until our toxic lifestyles caused them to become pollutant warehouses).
Not, I hasten to add, that we don’t eat tons of beans and grains here at Hawk’s Haven. But we do add spices, which macrobiotics shuns. If I were going to opt for a totally foreign diet, it would definitely be Indian, Chinese, Middle Eastern/Mediterranean, or Thai, not macrobiotic. It would be easy to eat a delicious vegan diet of Chinese or Thai food, and you’d enjoy the most delicious vegetarian meals cooking Indian and/or Middle Eastern/Mediterranean. But frankly, I see no point in giving up Mexican, Southern, Southwestern, and European food, not to mention food from everywhere else on the planet, as long as it’s vegetarian. “Buy locally, cook globally” works for me and for our local economy.
But: I still recommend reading Alicia’s book if you’re a vegetarian or are interested in becoming one, and especially if you’re drawn to a vegan lifestyle. The writing is fun and inspiring, and I’ve picked up some new foods to try (like Earth Balance vegan “butter”) from flipping through. The hefty recipe chapters include treats like Radicchio Pizza with Truffle Oil; Moroccan Couscous with Saffron; Crispy Tofu Slices with Orange Dipping Sauce; Eggplant Chana Masala; Sweet Potato-Lentil Stew; Sugar Snap Peas, Radishes, and Edamame with Lemon Butter; Summertime Succotash; and Alicia’s Sexy Inspired Salad.
Unlike the other books, Alicia’s has plenty of desserts, including Quick Chocolate Ganache Strawberries; Coffee Fudge Brownies; Chocolate-Apricot Coins; Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups; Lemon-Poppyseed Poundcake; Peanut Butter Pie; My Favorite Cupcakes; Mixed Berry Cheesecake; and Peach Crumble. Decadent as they sound (and probably taste), all these desserts are vegan.
So there’s today’s roundup! Check ‘em out and let me know what you think. And if you have your own favorite vegetarian cookbooks, please share them with us and let us know why you love them!
‘Til next time,
Silence
Persimmon surprise. June 4, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: American persimmon, Meader persimmon, persimmons
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No, this isn’t one of Silence Dogood’s recipes. It’s a shock our friend Ben received earlier this week while inspecting our ‘Meader’ American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana ‘Meader’).
First, a bit of backstory: Our friend Ben grew up with a huge American persimmon tree in the front yard of our Nashville home. That tree must have been 80 feet tall. Every year, it produced an abundance of persimmons, which typically fell to the ground and fermented, doubtless to the joy of local wildlife and wasps. My parents didn’t consider persimmons edible—citing their sour, astringent flavor—and would always sing us a song about a ‘possum and raccoon eating them. I grew up thinking that persimmons were good for wildlife but useless as far as people were concerned, though I loved looking at the fruit with its matte blue-purple blush over the orange skin and flesh, a color combination unlike any I’d ever seen.
Our friend Ben would probably have continued assuming that American persimmons weren’t fit to eat (I knew by adulthood that Japanese persimmons, Diospyros kaki, were supposed to live up to their generic epithet, Diospyros, which means “food of the gods”), were it not for two things: the gift of a batch of homemade persimmon cookies, and a visit to Lennilea Farm Nursery in nearby Huff’s Church, PA during persimmon season.
The cookies were delicious. And when I arrived at Lennilea, Bob Seip, its knowledgeable and amiable proprietor, was gathering fallen American persimmons from under his row of persimmon trees. “Here, try these,” he said, offering a handful. Well, even our friend Ben wasn’t going to scream “Eeeewww, no, you’re not supposed to eat those!!!” when Bob Seip was eating them in front of my eyes. (And besides, I remembered those cookies.) So, trying not to look too appalled, I bit into one, expecting a mouth-puckering astringency to hit my tongue at any second. But no, it was juicy and delicious. Shock surprise, in the immortal words of Ruby Ann Boxcar.
After that, I was damned and determined to grow an American persimmon of my own here at Hawk’s Haven. And the best on the market appeared to be ‘Meader’, a selection by the famed fruit specialist Dr. Meader of New Hampshire. If it was good enough for the famed professor, it was certainly good enough for our friend Ben.
I ordered my first ‘Meader’ persimmon. It died. I ordered my next ‘Meader’ persimmon. It died. I ordered a third ‘Meader’ persimmon. (Our friend Ben is nothing if not determined, and besides, I couldn’t say for sure if it hadn’t been my haphazard watering that had killed off the first two.) This one, too, appeared to have died when the puny little thing failed to leaf out the following spring. But I didn’t have the heart to pull the pitiful stick out of the ground. And one day, long after I’d lost all hope, I saw that it had actually leafed out. Mirabile dictu! Still, the tiny tree struggled mightily over our third drought season in a row. It barely grew at all before dormancy set in.
Sure enough, the next spring, I thought it had died again. But eventually it bore leaves, though the main trunk had died back about 6 inches, causing a wealth of side branches to come out (fortunately, above the graft, so I knew they were still ‘Meader’ stock). That was last spring, and we had a lot of rain all year. Still, it seemed like poor ‘Meader’ was barely clinging to life.
This spring, I held my breath as I watched the still-puny plant refuse to leaf out yet again. I had to warn the neighbors not to mow down the seemingly lifeless stick by mistake. But eventually, it did leaf out, and this time, it leafed out with enthusiasm. To say that it looked like a tree would be a ludicrous exaggeration, since it still doesn’t come up to my waist. A luxurious shrub would be more like it.
Finally, let’s get on to the point of this post: A few days ago, our friend Ben was wandering over to say a few words of encouragement to little ‘Meader’ when I saw something that took my breath away: flowers. My ‘Meader’ persimmon was literally covered with flowers! I’d never thought to see a persimmon flower in my life, since the diminutive greenish flowers would hardly be visible if you were staring up into the canopy of a 60- to 80-foot tree. But thanks to the struggles of my hapless plant, I was staring down. And those flowers were just amazing.
At first, our friend Ben thought that the pendant green lantern-like structures I was seeing were the flowers. But a couple of days later, I saw that pale yellow bell-shaped flowers had emerged beneath the green shell, which I realized was a calyx. Small but simply beautiful! And what a gift to be able to see them up close.
Rushing to Google “American persimmon” to see if I could find a better description of the flowers for you all, I stumbled on some fascinating and some alarming information. First, the fascinating: Did you know that ebony is a species of persimmon? Who’da thunk? Next, the alarming: Wikipedia assured me that you needed both male and female trees to get fruit set. Yikes!
Our friend Ben should have remembered that prolific tree in my parent’s yard, but I panicked instead. Searching again, this time for ‘Meader’ persimmon, I saw to my relief that it’s supposed to be self-fruitful, so I shouldn’t need a male tree after all. (There was a good deal of controversy about this on the web, with some claiming that it was only self-fruitful in the pacific Northwest, and others stoutly asserting that their ‘Meaders’ were bearing fruit without benefit of male pollination in the Mid-Atlantic area.) Fingers crossed!
What about all that astringency stuff? The accepted lore is to let American persimmons stay on the tree until a frost hits and sweetens them, but I’ve been reliably informed that by the time the fruits are ripe enough to drop off the tree (or be shaken off), they’ll be just as sweet. Certainly that was the case with Bob Seip’s trees! If you’re worried about astringency, you could always freeze your persimmons, then eat them frozen as a delicious treat or thaw them and add them to puddings, pies, sweet breads, or, of course, cookies!
Needless to say, our friend Ben has been enthusiastically drawing Silence’s attention to the flowers and hinting about persimmon cookies. (I try not to mention them more than four or five times a day.) If you need an attractive shade tree for your yard that will also bear fruit, I recommend an American persimmon. Unlike my micro-’Meader’, yours should grow tall and strong. So you may not ever have the chance to see the wonderful flowers, but you should get a wealth of delicious persimmons year after year. Eat and enjoy, but please leave a few for our wild friends, too!
In praise of privet. June 3, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in critters, gardening, homesteading, wit and wisdom.Tags: hedgerows, Ligustrum vulgare, privet, privet hedges
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The air at Hawk’s Haven, the cottage home our friend Ben and Silence Dogood share in the precise middle of nowhere, PA, has been perfumed for the past two weeks with a subtle but heavenly scent: The privets are in bloom.
If you’re only familiar with privet (Ligustrum vulgare) as an ugly, squared-off hedge, you probably can’t begin to imagine why Silence and I are so enamored of it. But here at Hawk’s Haven, we grow our privets as specimen shrubs in our huge front island bed, and they are a treat.
Growing to 15 feet tall, the shrubs arch over gracefully, forming a pleasing fountain shape. At this time of year, they’re covered with clusters of small white, tubular flowers that spread their distinctive soft, sweet scent on the early summer air. It’s one of our favorite fragrances. The flowers are followed by clusters of decorative black berries that add another feature of interest to the shrub. And then in fall, the foliage turns a reddish-purple, adding welcome color to the autumn landscape. Three seasons of landscape interest isn’t bad for such a humble shrub! Privet thrives in USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5-8, doing best in partial shade (as a shrub) to full sun (as a hedge) and moist soil.
Overlooked, overused, and abused as it is, it’s actually our favorite shrub. We can’t imagine why it occurred to someone to turn such a graceful shrub into a horrid boxed hedge, but then, we’ve never understood that about forsythia, or, for that matter, anything else, either. We say, bring back the hedgerow!!! Like hedges, hedgerows provide privacy, but also feature a wide assortment of shrubs and small trees that are allowed to grow in their natural shapes. They provide diversity, shelter, nesting sites, flowers, and fruit for a variety of wildlife (and their owners), as well as far more interest to human observers than a boring hedge.
Privet is cheap and readily available. We’d love to tell you to buy one—just one—plant it, let it grow as it was meant to do, and enjoy its natural beauty. But we can’t.
Why? Because privet has joined the endless list of plants that are considered invasive in the U.S. We don’t doubt the reports—how could we?—but they’re not borne out by our own experience. We have plenty of plants here at Hawk’s Haven that, like our privets, we inherited with the property. And we’d consider a number of them to qualify as invasive, from trumpetvine to rose-of-Sharon, the hated Norway maples, honeylocust, and, yes, forsythia (just because it creeps, though; mercifully, unlike the others, it doesn’t seem to seed in) . Even Eastern red cedar, black cherry, black walnut, shagbark hickory, and butternut seedlings come up all over the place each year and have to be pulled up. But never in all the years we’ve been here have we seen even one privet seedling. Not one.
It kills us to think that the common privet will continue to be unappreciated by millions, even by passionate gardeners who might come to love it, as we have, if they could just see it in its natural state. We invite you to come and enjoy ours, at least in your imagination, as that gentle, heavenly scent surrounds you, soft as a feather on the skin…
More blog search bloopers. June 2, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in Ben Franklin, wit and wisdom.Tags: blog humor, blog queries, blogs, wacky blog search phrases
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Once again, our virtual inbox here at Poor Richard’s Almanac is overflowing with (inadvertently) humorous search phrases that have somehow brought people to our blog. Here are some of the latest and greatest, with, as always, the search phrase in bold, our comments following. Enjoy!
books old ladies like: At a guess, 1,000 Ways to Torture Rude, Impertinent Whippersnappers Who Use Search Phrases Like This.
charm for a good garden: Don’t we all wish we had one of these! Four that spring to mind are the ever-popular four-leaf clover, especially appropriate in a garden setting; a gazing ball, originally designed to divert the Evil Eye from your garden; and a scarab beetle or ladybug (the scarab, aka dung beetle, because it assists in turning dung into garden fertilizer, and the ladybug because she eats garden pests like aphids and whiteflies). Not a charm per se but a harbinger of peace and garden prosperity would be a statue of St. Francis or St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners.
grannies naked in their gardens: What grannies do in their gardens is no business of ours, or yours either, you little pervert. As long as we don’t see them, anyway. Otherwise, we’re going for the “good fences make good neighbors” approach.
clothes to wear for Benjamin Franklin: Where Ben is now, we understand that dazzling white robes are all the mode.
mediums of poor richard: Hey, get your own Ouija board.
growing manzano pepper jelly: And here we thought you had to cook it.
if elephant eats coconut: No doubt there’s a proverb (or at least a cliche) lurking here somewhere. “If elephant eats coconut, no pina coladas”?
what happened to ben and jerry when they: Frankly, we don’t want to know.
celebrate birthday in different face: Now, there’s a thought! This year, we’d like to celebrate our birthdays as Thulsa Doom or Darth Vader, or maybe Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle (our friend Ben); Galadriel or Nefertiti or Mma Ramotswe (Silence Dogood); and George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt or Jim Chee (Richard Saunders). Just think, you’d never have to worry about anyone telling you how “great” you were looking this particular birthday again!
what to feed your dig: We’re really hoping that would be “dog.”
There are plenty more where these came from, but that’s enough for now. Some of our most bizarre queries, such as “rhubarb pregnancy” and “where can i view pictures of antique see,” actually end up making sense, once we’ve worked through them and figured out what’s missing. Sure enough, they really are looking for one of our posts! But queries like the ones we’ve featured in this post are not just baffling, they make us wonder what’s happening to our collective IQ. First the dinosaurs, then us, then the cockroaches…
Rabid for radishes. June 1, 2010
Posted by ourfriendben in gardening, homesteading, recipes, wit and wisdom.Tags: radish pickles, radish recipes, radishes
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Silence Dogood here. It’s radish season, at least here in Zone 6, as I was reminded when Entangled of Tangled Branches: Cultivated (http://tangledbranches.com/) linked to our blog, Poor Richard’s Almanac, the other day. Our friend Ben and I live in scenic Pennsylvania, and Entangled lives in Virginia, but we share Zone 6 and her radishes are also coming in fast and furious. When that happens, it’s all about the timing—trying to wait until the radishes are big enough but not wait until they get woody or split. Ack!
Anyway, Entangled wrote a post called “Reddish Radish Relish” sharing an original recipe that looks delicious. I’d never thought of making a radish relish, but hers is in my recipe file now, along with her recipe for “Indianish Radish Relish,” which looks simply fabulous. Yum! Speaking of which, Entangled linked in her post to a number of other delicious ways to use radishes. I especially loved GiniAnn of Salt and Pepper’s recipe for Radish Pachadi, which strikes me as an especially elaborate and flavorful raita. Sounds like a great excuse to make an Indian feast this week!
Basically, GiniAnn sautees onion, chilies, ginger, radishes, and shredded radish leaves in oil with black mustardseeds and salt, tops it off with fresh cilantro leaves, lets the mixture cool, and stirs it into plain yogurt. (I’ll let you explore her wonderful blog to find exact proportions, if you need them, for yourselves; remember, the link is in the “Reddish Radish Relish” post.)
Entangled linked to my post “Revolutionary Radishes” because it has a recipe for an easy, delicious radish spread. It also reveals Thomas Jefferson’s favorite radishes (you can still buy seeds of his all-time favorite, ‘China Rose’, today) and rants a bit about the joys of radish sprouts. You can search the title in our search bar at upper right to find the recipe and read the post, or simply click on Entangled’s link.
But let’s get back to the point: Many of us are facing a glut of radishes right now. Fortunately, they do store well in the crisper drawer of the fridge if you cut the tops off. So you slice them in salads. You top a slice of buttered baguette with them, salt them, and enjoy them as a treat. You mince them and mix them into cream cheese or yogurt cheese with chopped scallions (green onions) or chives or diced sweet onion, then spread it on bagels or baguettes or use it as a dip for crudites or chips. Maybe you get adventurous and try Entangled’s radish relishes or GiniAnn’s Radish Pachadi. Or you just salt whole radishes and pop them in your mouth.
But still, there are radishes… and radishes. And more radishes. Now what?
Well, what about a spicy-sweet radish refrigerator pickle? It works for cukes, why not radishes? To make sweet-hot refrigerator pickles with cukes, I heat 1 cup each cider vinegar and sugar, add 2 T salt, 1 T each black mustardseed, turmeric, and whole cloves, and a dash of hot sauce. Once the solution boils and the sugar dissolves, I allow it to cool to lukewarm, then pour it over alternating layers of sliced cukes and diced sweet onion in a square or rectangular plastic container. Finally, I seal the lid on the container and refrigerate it for 3 to 5 days before beginning to eat the pickles so they take up plenty of flavor. The pickles will keep for weeks, with the flavor intensifying the longer you can resist eating them.
I don’t know why it wouldn’t work for radishes, too. So I decided to Google “radish pickle” and see what I found. Many links that came up were for Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese daikon radish pickles, but sure enough, there was one for a spicy-sweet radish refrigerator pickle by Regan Buma on Chow (www.chow.com). Here it is:
Bread-and-Butter Radishes
1 bunch (about 13) red radishes
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon yellow or brown mustardseed
1/4 teaspoon whole coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 dried bay leaf
1. Rinse radishes and trim off their leafy tops. Holding the stem end, thinly slice radishes with a mandoline or sharp knife. When you get close to the stem, stop slicing and discard the end. Place radishes in a heatproof, nonreactive bowl, and set in the refrigerator while making the brine.
2. Combine red wine vinegar, sugar, water, salt, mustardseed, coriander seed, peppercorns, and bay leaf in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved.
3. Remove from heat and let pickling brine cool for about 5 minutes. Remove radishes from the refrigerator and pour brine over them. Let cool for 20 minutes; cover and refrigerate. Use to top burgers, sandwiches, or anything else that needs tarting up.
The recipe makes 1 3/4 cups. Chow used these pickled radishes to top tea sandwiches made with butter, watercress, black pepper, and the radishes; you’ll find that recipe on their site as well. According to the site, the radish pickle will keep for up to 5 days in the fridge, but I suspect it would probably keep longer. I should note that commentors on the recipe said it tasted delicious but smelled awful, so be forewarned!
Once you’ve let your radish pickle age long enough to take up all the flavors, what else could you do with it? Well, you could use it as a relish on a hoagie. You could mix some into egg, chicken, or tuna salad or devilled eggs. Or make a roast beef rollup with radish relish and sour cream or cream cheese. You could use it in a club sandwich, a turkey or chicken sandwich, or any kind of cheese sandwich, or, again, top cream cheese with it on a bagel or slice of baguette. Or be daring and tuck it into a barbecue sandwich along with or instead of coleslaw.
Naturally, you don’t have to make radish pickles to enjoy your extra radishes. You can matchstick radishes and add them to coleslaw, shredded carrot salad, or pickled beets. You can stir-fry them with onion, green onion (scallions), egg, fresh green peas, and soy sauce or Tamari and serve the stir-fry over rice. Or add them to a spring roll. Or tuck them in a grilled cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato or a BLT. Or add them to hash browns. Or use them to add texture to a shrimp cocktail or heat to tartar sauce. The options are limited only by your imagination and your taste.
See what you come up with! And, please, enjoy “Reddish Radish Relish,” “Revolutionary Radishes,” and “Radish Pachadi.” There’s a wide world of radish recipes out there!
‘Til next time,
Silence
