Urban Ornithology

OK, I need some help here.

While biking home from work yesterday, I noticed some green birds hopping around in a couple trees eating hard, orange-red berries.  I have never seen anything like them in the US - before I noticed that there were 5-6 of them, I thought the first might be a petstore fugitive.

This is a pretty poor quality cellphone picture, but hopefully you can get a sense of what they look like.  They have a strong, curved beak and were all green, with no distinctive markings to speak of.

As I said, there were a number of birds in these two trees, and they were going at the berries pretty enthusiastically.  Naturally, they were making some clacking noise, etc.  But while I was trying to get some pictures of them I kept hearing a louder, sort of gobbly racket coming from the ground on the other side of the fence.  (This was on the perimeter of a hospital parking lot).

I figured it was just a few of the green birds doing their thing on the ground, but when I went around to get a better position to photograph them, lo and behold, there was a turkey-like bird hopping around.  He wasn't too flighty, although he did retreat from my advance when I got closer than eight feet or so.

 

 

Unfortunately, the pictures aren't great, but you can see what he looks like.

Who has an idea of what these birds are? 

All that the rain promises and more...

Is the title of David Arora's "hip pocket guide to Western mushrooms," a title which proved portentous for my copy, destroyed by flood two months ago.  No matter, King Boletus lives on, and fall's bounty has arrived.

We have had a dry spell here in Chicago, but the wily Hen of the Woods is springing from its oaky home nonetheless.  Throw in an odd giant puffball and you have a pretty good hunt.

The puffball's skin is really convenient.

  

Here's  a small maitake aka Hen of the Woods in prime condition.  This one would probably have continued to grow for some time.  It was just under a pound as it was.  We found two more mushrooms that were larger but somewhat past their prime for a total of over 5 pounds of maitakes.

I sliced the puffball up, dredged in flour, egg and bread crumbs and fried in olive oil.  It has a good, mild flavor with a hint of an almost minty taste that I can't quite place.  The texture is really cool.

I sauteed some of the maitakes with shallots and red wine.  Ate it on some rye toast with melted cheddar cheese.  They need to be cooked for a while, but are wonderfully chewy and delicious.  I will try to do something more exciting with the other 4 odd pounds later this week.

The Upper Peninsula

Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a spit of land that divides two of the biggest lakes in the world, Superior to the north and Michigan to the south.  There was a lot of logging up there when all the forests were being cut down to build up the prairie and Great Plains.  In fact, there is an old log slide down an enormous dune in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore where I visited.  Apparently the dune is even bigger and steeper now than when they used it to load ships with lumber. Meanwhile, the trees have grown back, mostly.

I don't know what the Yoopers do these days, but the coastline of Lake Superior is spectacular, with white sand beaches, cliffs and rock formations,

enormous dunes,

shoals and sunsets,

streams full of minerals,

forests, and of course, mushrooms.

We had roasted weenies with homemade sauerkraut and fire-roasted peppers and zucchini for dinner.

Pasties are a specialty food up there.  They are a Cornish pie filled with potato, rutabaga, onion and meat.  Apparently they were the preferred lunch food of Cornish tin miners.  The pies supposedly retained heat well enough that the miners held them against their bodies to ward off drafts and were strong enough to survive a fall down a mine shaft.  They were also extremely convenient for miners who needed to eat with filthy, even toxic hands.  The miner would hold one side of the folded crust.  Once he had finished the rest of the pie he discarded the soiled end as an offering to the knockers, resident spirits upon whose goodwill survival in the dangerous mines depended.

Also they were tasty. Yum.

The pickings were actually pretty slim for mushrooms, unfortunately, at least the weekend we were there.  Amanita muscaria, commonly known as Fly Agaric, was growing in some abundance among the numerous birches, however.  I wasn't sure at first whether this is what the large yellow mushrooms below were, since I thought Fly Agarics were red, but a quick consultation informed me that they also come in this orange-yellow tone.  Fly Agarics are pretty interesting mushrooms with a very long history stretching back to the misty prehistory of the Central Asian steppe.  Some even claim that it represents the Soma described in the Rigveda, one of the central texts of the Hindu tradition.

One thing that no one advocating for or against the consumption of this mushroom mentioned that it is a high-quality edible - large, firm, sweet and mushroomy.  Not as good as the birch bolete at the bottom of the cutting board, which was really delicious, but still quite good in an omelet.  And still interesting a few hours later.

Pork Schnitzel with Chanterelle Mushrooms

Long-delayed post of what I did with most of the chanterelles I found over a month ago.  I pickled the rest with sherry vinegar, shallots, mustard and olive oil, but there weren't very many left.  I threw some of the pickled ones in with some other sauteed mushrooms though, a couple weeks ago, and despite their small quantity, their flavor came through nicely.

Anyway, for the bulk of them, I followed this recipe, with shallots substituted for onion and a little less bacon.  Everything tasted good, but I thought the mushroom element was a bit muddy and not my preferred use of chanterelles, which already have a lot going on in terms of flavor.  I was pretty excited to see how the bacon, mustard and capers would play into those flavors, but it didn't do that much for me in the end.  It's just kind of hard to compete with bacon and cream I think.

Scotland

So a few weeks ago I was in Scotland with the parents - Glasgow, St. Andrews, Edinburgh and some surrounding countryside. Very nice, indeed. The food was incredible. Some of the best seafood I have ever had. I only took a few pictures of the food.

They make a lot of awesome smoked fish in Scotland, this is a smoked haddock and clam chowder that was bomb.

Haggis with Neeps (Swede) and Tatties (Potatoes)

Haggis is also great.

Anstruther is a small fishing village on the North Sea between Edinburgh and St. Andrews. It is notorious for having the U.K.'s best fish and chip shop. We went there. I have yet to go to every chippy in Great Britain but  it was damn good. 

If only it came with hot sauce.

Proof

Bonus: We actually did not eat any of this, but it was a good picture from Edinburgh. 

Pork and veal hot dog on a pretzel roll with sauerkraut and mustard

Here's my sauerkraut in action, with a pork and veal hot dog from Gene's sausage shop, a toasted pretzel roll from the same, and some Maille whole grain mustard.  Worthy of five pictures.

Baked Eggs

I love baked eggs.  They are really simple to make.  And they are a particularly good option when you have half a gallon of cream.  The basic ingredients are eggs, butter, cream, a bain-marie and ramekins.  Plus anything else you want to throw in and if you don't have ramekins, like me, then some other appropriate vessel.

For the first round of eggs, about two weeks ago, I used a pyrex bowl, which worked satisfactorily, but failed to cook the eggs evenly.  This weekend, I used a muffin tin, which actually worked quite well.

The first time I made use of some picnic leftovers: namely, chorizo and Big Ed's cheese, a firm, washed-rind, raw cow's milk cheese from Wisconsin.  I also threw in some basil and parmesan, in addition to the requisite butter and cream.

To make:

You need 4 eggs, 6 tablespoons of cream, a small knob of butter, some sliced chorizo, Big Ed's or substitute cheese, basil, parmesan, salt and pepper.

Smear butter around the bottom and sides of the cooking vessel.
Grate parmesan over it.
Throw in some chorizo and basil.  I used whole slices of chorizo, but I would probably cut them up more next time.
Pour in about 3 tablespoons of heavy cream.
Break in four eggs.

Add grated cheese.

Add salt and pepper to taste and more parmesan and basil.

Add the remaining cream.

Cook in a bain-marie in a 350 degree oven.

I used a larger pyrex bowl for the bain-marie.

Served with crusty bread and lettuce dressed with a mustard vinaigrette.

The chorizo eggs were pretty delicious, but it took about half an hour in the oven, one of the yolks was slightly overcooked, and the center was a little runny.  I would really like to get some ramekins, but in the meantime, I figured that a muffin tin would serve my purpose.

These eggs were made with bacon and a homemade pesto.

I didn't measure things out, but the procedure is basically the same: smear butter, grate parmesan, add pesto and some bacon, add cream, add egg, add salt, more bacon, parmesan and cream.  Bake in a bain-marie at 350 degrees.

 These guys were ready in about 11-12 minutes I think. 

 Beautiful.  You can see the pesto underneath and a supplementary dollop on top.  I just wish I had had some crusty bread.  I had to settle for fried potatoes.