[all via google earth]

This was such a bad idea.  I should not have looked at this.  It’s not even from the height of summer or a late spring bloom- I took this photo in NOVEMBER.  Freaking November.  Most of the country doesn’t look this good in November.  My family in New England is probably getting snowed on in November, firing up their furnaces and wrapping themselves in pelts to ride out 6 months of blizzards and that brown drippy snow/ice mix that you get in the city.  Winter is 6 months, right?  Whatever.  I moved back to Texas so I wouldn’t have to think about winter or freezing pipes or long underwear or anything except this year is killing me.  And my flowers.  Aztec sunflowers were blooming on January 1st last year- truth!  I mean maybe they were a little out of their season but I wasn’t going to ask them to stop.

Anyways, I won’t even post a current picture because it’s too depressing.  In your head, just replace this photo with a big stupid brown rectangle framed with gray concrete and speckled with my broken spirit and you’ve got a pretty solid mental image.   There’s another freeze coming this weekend, too.  So I’ll just be here under my piles of blankets, clutching a mug of tea with my icy witch claws, whining about how awful the cold is until April like the zone 11 girl that I am.

Plants grow in spirals to maximize their exposure to light, water, and other nutrients.  Though we most often notice plant spirals above ground, root spirals allow plants like carrots to respond to specific soil conditions.  The carrot plant is known for its long tapered taproot, which, like its orange color, is a product of centuries of breeding though it can also be affected by its environment.  In sandy loam soils, the taproot is long and straight, while carrots grown in heavy clay soils may be bifurcated.  Excessive nitrogen and stones or obstacles in the soil may also encourage spiral root growth.  The physiological mechanisms underlying the formation of root spirals have not been fully illuminated, although one can imagine a simple series of genetic controls allowing a plant to find its way through the darkness underground.

Unfortunately, what is good for the carrot is bad for the farmer, and until recently, bifurcated carrots were banned from sale in the EU.  Irregular carrots are still not marketable under USDA rules, although in 1986 a clever Californian invented a processing technique to turn waste carrots into a value-added product.

My husband and I have been watching this teensy bird hopping around our house for over a year now, and until today had mistakenly identified it as a white-eyed vireo. Oops. This morning I heard a commotion outside my office- the vireo ruby crowned kinglet was larking around (HAH.) in some dead ruellias along the neighbor’s fence.  According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the ruby crowned kinglet is only a winter resident of Texas, although I am almost certain I’ve seen them throughout the year.  They nest in conifers in the northern forests of the US and Canada and migrate to the South and Mexico for winter.

Oh and this is so great! The kinglet outside the office window was being chased by a slightly larger bird that I thought was a sparrow…. UNTIL I PHOTOSHOPPED THE EVIDENCE! A yellow-rumped warbler!  Cornell’s description begins, “Yellow-rumped Warblers are impressive in the sheer numbers with which they flood the continent each fall. Shrubs and trees fill with…” Right. I’ve never seen one before, so thanks, college.  The only birds my neighborhood is flooded with are grackles and parakeets.

I’m eating weird food tonight.  I don’t mean “weird” in the sense that something is exotic or strange looking, or something not generally recognized as food. Rather, weird food is idiosyncratic comfort food- a meal that you enjoy that confuses others.  When I was a child, I packed a lunch of alfalfa sprout and mustard sandwiches on rye bread every day for MONTHS.  I still say that makes a damn good sandwich.  My husband disagrees.  Recently, my favorite weird food is beans on greens.  It’s got the homey essence of  Jerri’s Hot Fruit.  Here’s how to make it:

1. Put these on a plate.

2. Add beans.

At the 1988 Iowa caucus (although this gentleman claims the quote was actually pulled from a 1986 speech; I’m not sure who’s correct), Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis advised farmers struggling with low corn prices to grow Belgian endive instead.  Dan Quayle’s people jumped on the opportunity to mock Dukakis, and at a campaign speech in South Dakota, Quayle waved an endive in front of a group of farmers and said, “Well, if you start growing these little white things, don’t count on paying off the farm.”  At another event, Quayle quipped, “His farm policy is the Belgium endive and his defense policy is the Belgium waffle.”  Of course, Quayle eventually got his own serving of agri-karma.

Growing endive at home isn’t such a bad idea.  The mature green leaves are so tough and bitter that they have no notable pests.  I, champion of green, tough, and bitter foodstuffs, tried to use them on a sandwich once- big mistake.  They volunteer happily, grow in poor soil, and according to the Belgian Endive Marketing Board, and are a cost-effective way to increase value perception of restaurant dishes.  So how can you grow this delicacy that Quayle campaign staffers once scoured the midwest to find?

Belgian endive is the culinary name for the blanched head of cultivated chicory (Chicorium intybus v. foliosum). Endive producers grow chicory in two stages. First, seeds planted in the spring reach maturity at the end of summer. Then, the whole plant is dug up, the green leaves are lopped off, and the root is packed into shallow soil and stored in a cool dark place. In about 6 weeks, the chicory root will have converted its stored energy into a cone of new leaves- tender, white, and slightly bitter. The Belgian endive.

Chicory is easy to grow in Texas, provided enough water and a little shade at the height of summer.  European growers harvest the roots at the end of summer, but we’re on a slightly different schedule.  The roots must be stored between 50 and 60 degrees to bud properly, so I waited until winter to force mine.  This is my first experiment with the endive, so I’ll write an update in 6 weeks with the results.  I’d like to simply braise one, but I’m also loving this endive salad with pancetta.

i found the teensiest spider on the most perfect miniature web in between my oakleaf lettuces!

Know what I don’t want to do right now? Write about myself for admissions committees.

Look! Here are some ships in Dhaka and they’re HONGRAY 4 CARGO. Do satellite photos qualify for Cute Overload?

I found myself at Wheatsville at the end of a long rant about the inverse relationship of price and quality of local Asian grub… remember Mars? How about Crave? Central Austin needs a Korean priced Korean restaurant. Koriente is close, but I want a Kimbap Nara! A Kimbap Cheonguk! 2 dollar lunches and interiors without design! Some decent mandu!
Mandu are Korean dumplings usually filled with ground pork or kimchi, but you can stuff them with anything you like. Back to Wheatsville… I picked up a beautiful winter squash and some extra firm tofu for Texas winter garden dumplings. Jump!

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This is a repost from Sustainable Stormwater Management