Food for Drama

I had a nice hike today in Redwood Regional Park, in the East Bay Hills of the San Francisco Bay area. It is the first sunny and warm day of the year, and walking through the redwoods was beautiful, and shady and cool.
I saw a lot of trillium, redwood trees (not quite as old as the ones in Muir Woods, but it was so much less crowded!), and red orchid coralroot. The orchid had just come up, and didn't bloom yet. I saw it after a steep incline, and I was too exhausted to make a picture. Maybe, I'll go back next weekend and take the opposite route, to see the orchids while walking downhill.

The California Poppy, the state flower of California, is now in full bloom.

Where I grew up, we had a rather large garden. The most annoying weed was the stinging nettle, since it was growing everywhere when my family took over the property. The amount of stinging nettle and other weeds made my parents stop their membership in the local tennis club. Ironically, it also gave my father a tennis arm, because of the pulling out of the nettles.

The stinging nettle does have desirable properties. It is great as tea because it is a natural diuretic. When soaked in water for a longer time, and used to water plants, it helps against pests in the garden. And if you can get over the fear of stings, it is delicious on pizza, a la Alice Waters.

There are obviously not many wild stinging nettles in California, so the Berkeley Hort, a garden store, actually sells these annoyances of my youth! Won't even think of buying them. I am happy, the stinging nettle is not resident in our garden! They do add a warning to handle them with gloves.

My hometown newspaper in Hameln, Germany (http://dewezet.de) published an article, bemoaning that leveling sidewalks would help bicyclists, but would be dangerous for blind people. They obviously haven't heart of the US style ADA compliant sidewalks with a differently textured area. A friend of mine who is nearly blind also appreciates the bright yellow color, which helps her find her way.

On a nice winter day in early February, the Cherry trees are blooming, a rainstorm is approaching, and the sunset put everything in a golden light. And in the background, the port cranes walk along the Bay like Alien creatures.

I love the look of Spanish moss. Lots of it can be seen in the Napa Valley area, this one at the Joseph Phelps winery.

My sister published a picture of a pumpkin a few days ago on her blog, with the note, that her daughter found it extremely ugly.
That pumpkin was actually pretty, if you want ugly, have a look at this one here!
I like it a lot in its ugliness, and am looking forward to a delicious pumpkin soup from it!

On a trip through Pleasants Valley, connecting Vacaville and Winters in Northern California, we picked up a few apricots at a small farm. When driving through the orchards to get to the farm house, we admired trees laden with French prunes, which are just starting to ripen. According to the farmer, they lost most of the peach harvest because of rainy weather earlier this year, but will have at least some starting next week. The apricots were lovely, and we are looking forward to the prunes, which hopefully will be ready next time we drive up.

I recently made a small-batch strawberry jam, by cutting up three cups of strawberries, mixing them with 1.5 cups of sugar and two teaspoons of lemon juice, and boiling the mixture for 8 min on high heat, then transferring the jam into freezer jars.

Because the method was so successful (fast, and very tasty), I tried a modified version using these apricots:
Cut up 4 cups of apricots. Boil down for 10 min in a large skillet. Remove the skins using the food mill. Return into the skillet (should be about 2 cups now), and combine with 1.5 cups of sugar and the juice of two lemons. Boil on high heat for 5-7 min, and transfer into freezer jars. Cover the freezer jars with an upsite-down saucer to cool down. Then freeze or enjoy! Makes two freezer jars.

I recently imported some pictures from trips and from the garden. Check out the Galleries link in the main menu.

The Hawaiian Electric Cookbook (A Hundred Years of Island Cooking) is a source of all kinds of interesting and retro recipes.
The seven Layer Gelatin Dessert is a particularly pretty example, which reminds me a lot of my cousin's birthdays, with as much jello as anybody wanted, in all kinds of colors. This dessert adds layers of condensed milk with gelatin, which gives the top layer a wonderfully iridescent color.