Phoenixville Firebird Burning Bright

 Phoenixville burns with creativity.  I have been a fan of my little town since I moved here; and it just keeps getting better and better.  You gotta’ love a town that every year builds a wooden structure in an open town space for all to gather ‘round as they set it on fire (the fire department is out in force just in case).  I would wager other communities have something similar, but around here, there is nothing like it.  Tonight, the firebird burned brightly and brought the masses out in the cold winter weather.

My first festival involved only a few hundred people, a wobbly wooden structure, and was many years ago when I first moved to Phoenixville. Tonight:  Thousands of people showed and that bird was SOLID.  Three stories tall, it held a glowing ball in its beak in the waning light and the crowd was massive.  I’ve never seen so many people in Phoenixville.  Chants began about 30 minutes before the lighting:  Burn the Bird – Burn the Bird.  The excitement was contagious.

With Vega resting behind the bird, the flame arrived from its march through town and the bird was ceremoniously set on fire.  I was right up close there with the best of them and once that thing started throwing flames, we were no longer cold - in fact, it was HOT.  Heat radiated from the beast and ash and embers began to fall on the crowd.  No one seemed to mind and I was happy to have my hat on so I could concentrate on the fire instead of protecting my brain from burning debris.

 

As the bird fell in pieces and toppled inwardly, the crowd cheered and drums sounded.  It was a very primal experience in the middle of a town in Eastern Pennsylvania.  Great job Phoenixville!  Way to ring in the season of light.

Balls

The stockings are hung by the chimney with care.  Well, it is a fake fireplace festooned with randy cherubs messing with barrels of grapes and unfortunate goats, but the festiveness and the stockings are real.  The cherubs are another story entirely.  In that vein, however, I’m going full-out balls this year.  You get the idea…..

 Lights shine and sparkle on convex ornaments of all size.  The tree is alive with scent and reflectivity and my living room is cozier and more real for it.  My house was feeling empty after the bustle of Thanksgiving, but shining sparkly lights and ornaments help to perk up the space and the mood -- the Gabby cat actively paws the low lying balls which helps, as well.  We’ve had some casualties already, but she is amusing me and why would I mind? 

And as for the weather?  Well, while it snowed two days before Halloween, It is currently 60 F out and not terribly emblematic of Winter.  We are expecting several inches of rain, but somehow, despite the weather wackiness this year, it is starting to feel like the holiday season.  I think the hot chocolate with Bailey’s is helping, too.  What I wouldn’t give for a solid snowfall instead of butterfly bushes and roses still blooming in the hedge.  Alas…  I’ll have to settle for it dark at 4 and use my imagination for a while.  Fresh cookies from the oven should help with that.  

Like it or not, the holiday season is here.  I like it.

 

Deep Frying Fun

The turkey fryer again came out to play this Thanksgiving, and it provided great entertainment, and some, let me say with emphasis: Very Tasty Dishes. It has been quite some time since my last posting as time just zooms by indiscriminately, and here I am already at the end of November...  Thanksgiving provides a much needed excuse to slow down and to sit down and to be reminded of the many things for which I am thankful.  Not the least of these: the turkey fryer and the awesome man who yields it.

I had a couple of southern-raised folks at dinner this year and one of them suggested deep fried bacon wrapped Brussels sprouts.  Before this phrase had finished being uttered, I was in.  The turkeys (yes, we cooked two of them for only 9 people) were prepped and brined and injected and the fryer was lit.  Game on.  S cooked the first turkey (in about 40 minutes) to a golden perfection and did some experimentation with a few bacon-wrapped gems.  We learned much, and while the second turkey cooked, H and T wrapped the rest of the sprouts.  In they went, were cooked to perfection, and were deliciously nutty and sweet and salty all at the same time.  I highly recommend them.



 Here is the skinny:

Bacon Wrapped Brussels Sprouts

Clean and wrap each large sprout with a whole piece of bacon and fasten the bacon with toothpicks on two opposite sides of the sprout.  Smaller ones could probably use less bacon, but generally, the rule should be to not skimp on the bacon.


We plunked them into the oil after the turkeys were removed.  They float and bubble in the 350 F oil for 3-4 minutes or until the bacon is golden and cooked to your liking.  Remove them from the oil with a spider spoon - or any slotted spoon or sieve.  The sprouts get all nicely caramelized on the outside and it is good to let them cool down a bit and continue to cook internally.   They were Delish.  


If you do not have a deep fryer, roasting would work just as well, but will take about 8x longer as you would need to keep the sprouts in the oven until the bacon was cooked and the sprouts were caramelized a bit on the outside.

Another requested recipe was for what I call Baked Pumpkin Cheesy Goodness which is a highly modified spin on Ruth Reichl's recipe shared with us in the Gourmet cookbook and on the Gourmet website.  Ruth's is more of a 'fondue' while mine tends to be more of a stick a knife in it and spread it on a cracker with a hot pepper kind of concoction.   Here is mine:

Baked Pumpkin Cheesy Goodness

2 ½ - 3 C grated cheese

(mix of manchego and cheddar is yummy!)

1 smallish pumpkin de-seeded and cleaned out

1 C chicken broth

1 C coconut milk (or regular milk)

½ tsp. salt

Freshly ground pepper

½ tsp. freshly chopped rosemary

½ baguette cubed and toasted

Preheat oven to 400° F.  Rinse and oil outside of pumpkin including the cap.  Mix together chicken broth, coconut milk or regular milk, salt/pepper, and rosemary (or whatever herbs you might think you would like).   Alternating the toasted baguette cubes, layer of cheese, and a portion of liquid, repeat this layering ending with a topping of cheese until the pumpkin is full.  Place the cap back onto the pumpkin and slide it into the oven in a walled baking dish (pumpkin may or may not leak a little bit).  Cook until bubbly and pumpkin meat is soft (this will take probably about an hour and a half depending on the size of the pumpkin).  Serve with crackers or bread and other snick snacks.  Bits of pumpkin can be scraped out along with the cheesy yum as you go along.   Enjoy. 

Beware:  This last time, I am pretty sure I cooked my pumpkin a little too long and it sprung holes when I tried to transfer it to a serving dish....  I can vouch that the pumpkin cheesy goodness is hot!  It was a bit slumpy, but it was still exceedingly tasty.

I sincerely hope you all had as good a Thanksgiving as I had.  Thanks to all who came and cooked at ate and helped celebrate the day with me.




 

Smoldering Earth

 
Meanook still smells of smoke from the fire that decimated the lab building.  Rubble is piled high and bits and pieces of our past field work poke out of the ash and blackened bits of twisted debris.  Cinder blocks are scattered around the periphery and if you look closely, you can still find decapitated scales, melted volumetrics, and sample bottles filled with tainted bog water.  Burned and dented freezers, drying ovens, and water systems are sunk like monoliths in the pile of deranged metal.   Many items are still identifiable and yet completely ruined and that just makes it worse.  It is not just a pile of burned unidentifiable mess of destruction.  It is Our mess of destruction and it is sad to see.

After about 30 minutes of poking around, I needed to find something of beauty to hold onto and if you look closely, beauty is there hiding in color and texture...  

It turns out that there was a reason it still smells of smoke: the berm of earth between the debris and the woods remained silently secretly smoldering now for two weeks post fire.  The electric company came today to restore our power, and in putting in a new pole, found smoking earth when they dug their hole.  Katy and I became temporary fire-fighters with a small hose and an enthusiasm for fire containment.  The Colinton volunteer fire department soon relieved us and took a shovel and hose to the hillside to finished her off.  Hopefully, we are now fully fire-free and smoke-free and with electricity as an added bonus.  It is nice to be rid of the constant yell of the generator reminding us of the piles in the parking lot.

Hopefully, they will rebuild, and in the spring, we will have a new space in which to work, but for now... the piles of depressing rubble remain.

Thanksgiving Canada-Style: Boreal Center and Field Work

This post was written on Thanksgiving, but due to lack of internet and then a modicum of work, I have delayed my posting and it is now 2 days After Thanksgiving, but you get the idea!  Back at Meanook, there are more stories to tell after this....

October 10, 2011.  I am basking in the most unexpected sort of happiness.  After a long day in a burned bog, repeatedly trudging back and forth with 4 gallons of water strapped to each of our backs, field work is done for the day, and we have arrived at the Boreal Center for Bird Conservation on the north-eastern shore of Lesser Slave Lake.  It hit 25 F on our truck thermometer this morning, but thankfully warmed up to the mid-50’s by the time we left the site.  Heavy frost gave the appearance of snow before the sun rose to warm it.  It was a great day for field work and we made the best of it - foraying to contented productivity with sooty faces and sore muscles.  The sun is shining, the aspens are strikingly golden against the blue sky, the breeze is brisk, and it is the best fall can offer.  The three of us have ‘The Nest’ to ourselves and it is beautiful here.

The Nest at the BCBC

The Boreal Center is located just north of the town of Slave Lake and it is a quick walk to a sandy, rocky beach along a grassy path.  Dark clouds are on the horizon, but for now, the sun shines and the leaves dance in the trees, reflect the low angled sun, and spill out that unique fall smell that I wish someone would figure out how to bottle.  Freshly fallen leaves and a crispness in the air make me long for slow cooked stews and fresh bread from the oven.  Today is Thanksgiving in Canada and we plan to have Thai in town – but we certainly give thanks for the beautiful day we had and the awesome accommodations in which we currently reside.

Lesser Slave Lake (nothing Lesser about it)

The common space in the Nest consists of a large open room with windows facing the lake and woods.  A fireplace is the nexus, and is built of smooth light colored lake-rolled igneous stones and an earthy tan mortar.  It is flanked by windows a floor and a half high.  Everything is clean and fresh and inviting and each of us has found a quiet happy spot of our own to relax into.  The kitchen is open to this Great Room, looks out to the fireplace and to the windows and a view of the lake through the trees, and hugs the bathrooms that join the two arms of bedrooms that extend out from the hub.  It is a very friendly space.  A fire and wine will be had tonight as the inclement weather blows in from the west.

We are here on our last trip of the year to Utikuma bog, and it is recovering rapidly from the fire.  Mosses are returning and thriving.  Cranberries populate the hummocks.  Labrador tea and Leather Leaf shade low-lying cloudberries and lichens.  Life returns, and it is terribly good to see.  After so much fire destruction this summer and fall, to be reminded that life does go on and new beginnings sprout with tenacity, is a very good thing, indeed. 

We are more than happy to be spending Thanksgiving, in any fashion, here at the Boreal Center in such a fall.  It truly is something to appreciate.

An XL Post

 My last flight north took me first over green near PHL, then mottled round MSP, then fully brown and gold and ripe over YEG.  Oats, canola, wheat, buckwheat all radiating the fall color pallet dominate the pocked surface north and west of here.  It occurred to me at an altitude of 30,000 feet, in a CRJ 900, that another year had nearly passed -  a summer so filled and yet so fleeting, it still leaves me spinning. 

It has been some time since my last post.  Months, even, and I was on a frivolous bent. While I struggle with time management issues, this particular urge to write is inspired by something that is important to me.



Typically, these fall field research trips to Alberta are my favorites.  I love the temperatures, lack of bugs, blazing yellow leaves against strikingly blue skies.  The field station is quiet and it is ours.  This trip, the spidery images of oil pads and roads dotting and fracturing the landscape across Saskatchewan and Alberta bump me out of my happy autumn field work thoughts and into, instead, thoughts of oil sands, corruption, and pollution.  I find no way to avoid it.  In Alberta, even though we wander through beautiful wetlands when not driving around in our F150, we marinade in bigger thoughts of environmental destruction as we contend with road construction, pollution, massive constructs being pushed and pulled up 63, stench, haze, and blatant destruction.  We are out in the middle of 'nowhere' and yet are accosted.  Sadly, I've seen the direct and indirect effects of the oil sands industry, and in all reality, no one can deny the catastrophe in Alberta, already.

1,253 people were arrested on the stoop of the White House last month.  Protesting the XL Pipeline, their presence made news and drew support world-wide.  I can only think that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been proud of the civil protests occurring during the unveiling of his monument.  Instead of joining them and experiencing the DC criminal justice system, I supported the cause through signed petitions and letters to my representatives, senators, and Barack Obama. Not quite as dramatic, and my voice is still small in this fight, but I am joined by Greats like Desmond Tutu and 7 other Nobel Peace Prize winners.  Al Gore, Robert Redford, Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Hansen, Darryl Hannah, Margot Kidder, the NY Times,  LA Times, David Suzuki, and countless others also join the anti-XL chorus.  Time is running short, and in the shadow of fracking in my own back yard and the stench lingering in my nose from tailings ponds and stack efflux near where we work in Alberta, how can I stay silent.  

Stopping the XL pipeline will not stop the destruction in the Oil Sands Region or in any way improve the 'dirty' inefficient aspect of the crude production up there, but it is a damn fine line to draw.  For me it has become symbolic:  a symbol of our dependence, our corrupted politics, our myopia at the very least.  Overwhelming evidence indicates the pipeline is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen for more reasons than one, there is precedent, but my faith in Obama is small in this regard.  His environmental issues track-record is woefully unsatisfactory. And yet, there is always hope, even when the skies are tinged with an unnatural hue somewhere between orange and red.  The pipeline can still move forward, the oil sands can and will still be mined, but in the end, how long can we abuse the environment with our use of fossil fuels?  The world is in serious flux not just in Alberta or in the prairies in peril.  And the spiral widens.

The world needs a new paradigm.

Grilled Pizza: Bear Locker Surprise

Camping is all about the food.  Well, OK, and the relaxation and the decompression and the breathing fresh air and the listening to loons and the blah blah blah, but for me, all of that is accentuated by and/or includes eating and cooking.  I see no reason to sacrifice wine and cheese appetizers just because I’m in the woods.  If I’m inspired and have mental prep time, I try to branch out of the comfort zone of the usual potato pocket and pork loin staples and try something a little new.  This year I saw some flatbreads at Trader Joe’s:  inspiration for grilled pizzas.  Thought bubble:  what a great way to get rid of some leftovers at the end of the week….     I understand that these grilled pizzas are quite popular with the home grilling crowd – make your own dough, stick it on the grill, make delish pizzas - but I’ve never done it.  And to make your own dough out there was ridiculous and so I thought these little flatbreads could be perfect.  And let me tell you... they were even better than I had thought they could be.

All week long we made too much of everything - that is how I am - and so by Friday night, we had leftover grilled chicken, leftover grilled pork tenderloin, a salami we were eating all week with appetizers, enough onions to float a boat, and some leftover grilled pineapple we had hanging around from an earlier meal where we grilled the pineapple with a little oil and crushed thai hot pepper as a pork side.  It was all good stuff, but it had to go.  The bed of coals was laid, the fixin’s were pulled out from the bear locker, and the drinks were poured.  The sun was still up, but it was perfect weather finally and the Cedar Waxwings were buzzing their way into evening mode all around us.   Bring on the pizzas.

 

Grilled Pizza

THE STUFF:

Flatbreads (1 or 2 6” Trader Joe’s Flatbreads/person did the trick for us – tortilla and pita are not the same!)

Pizza sauce (we used pizza sauce and leftover salsa, but of course pasta sauce would be good, too)

Grated Mozzarella Cheese (or Manchego or whatever rocks your world)

Olive Oil for brushing on flatbreads

Fixin’s       (whatever you may have:    we had grilled chicken, grilled pork, onions, hot pepper, salsa, hard salami sliced thinly, grilled pineapple chunks, Pasta spices from Penzy’s, crushed dried Thai hot peppers from my garden, salt and pepper)

HOW TO:

-Arrange the grate over the coals so that you have a hot spot (lots of coals), a warm spot (on edge of coals), and a safe spot (no coals) – which means, in our case, we had a couple of rounds of making these as we could only fit about 3 on at a time safely.

-We pre-heated our toppings a bit in beds of tinfoil over the coals and cooked the onion a little bit in its tinfoil bed over high heat (we should buy tinfoil stock when we go camping)

-Brush the flatbreads on both sides with olive oil and place directly over coals on hot spot – it will very quickly start to inflate a bit creating a bubbly topography on the top and nice grill marks and toasting on the bottom.  Turn the flatbread over and move to the cool side of the grill

-Make your pizza like you normally would by topping flatbread with sauce and cheese and toppings to your liking and tent the pizzas with tin foil and move back to ‘warm’ spot on grill to toast the bottoms and melt the tops.  For us, that meant I rotated the little jobbers after a few minutes to make sure both sides of the flatbreads got toasty.  This should take maybe 5 minutes total to get a nice brown on the bottom and melty bubbly cheese on top.

Pull them off the grill and chow!   They were crunchy and tasty and man oh man a great use of leftovers from our bear locker.  Everyone made their own combinations and it was a grand success. This whole process would be just as easy if not easier on a home grill, so I plan to make my pizzas like this forever!  You may note that I still haven’t come up with a home-made pizza crust I really like so if you have any clues on that one, let me know….  For now, the flatbread over coals method rules.

Grill on!

Lake Camping ADK Style: Forked Lake, Owls Head, Rain

I’ve had a taste of fall over the last week, and while thunderstorms ring in the air and moisture gathers on the wide-open screens still here in Philly, change is in the air.   After 9 days in the Adirondack woods, I am almost ready to embrace that change.   My dismount from the mountains is never fully smooth.  By mid-camp, the mind opens, the brain declutters, the ears hear warblers and waxwings and leaves turning in the trees, the eyes relax with the views of lake sparkles and voluminous clouds.  Mountains cascade upon themselves under the brightest blue sky and the smell of campfires resets a switch in there somewhere.  I don’t want to lose that.  And while I know that relaxed feeling is already gone,  I hope to keep the perspective a bit longer.

I picked up a notebook to jot down some notes, but it was late in the week (I had forgotten mine at home) and so unlike my usual self, I didn’t do too much journaling this trip and for that I’m a little remiss.  Hoss’s General Store in Long Lake of course had a lovely little journal and we decided on the last night to write down a few things and then bring it back the next year to keep adding to it.  A communal journal in the making.

 

This year we had old and new players, folks coming and going, new foods, new music, new fun.  A particularly challenging new thing for me was a hike up Owl’s Head mountain to the fire tower.  It overlooked everything and the 360 view was worth the hike up the scary tower.  It turns out, I don’t dig heights so much and man that tower was moving in the cold wet wind, I swear.  The rains began in earnest as we made the treacherous decent.  We thought the hike up was difficult scrambling up nearly vertical rock faces and stream beds and slick rooty rocky scrabbles.  All of that in reverse now with pouring pounding rain made for rather technical 3.2 mile hike out.   Really, it was only the part near the summit that was rough, and anything you read about Owls Head generally indicates that it is an easy to moderate hike, but I would beg to differ.  If you go, buck up and hope for non-deluge situations.

After signing out at the trail head and ringing out the pants, we stopped for a coffee on the way through town and discovered we had about an hour window before the heavy stuff came down.  We headed back to Forked Lake, kayaked out to our site, prepped all the fixins for dinner and snacks and settled in for a rainy night under the food tent.  Dinner that night was leftover pasta and what we lovingly refer to as Bear Locker Pasta Sauce (leftovers and veggies that need to be cooked – all thrown in with a few herbs and spices).  It turned out to be a great evening and dinner and lovely day under the clouds.  One of many great days all strung together with good people and good fun. 

 

I hope this new bloggy journal will hold me to next summer when new memories will be made with the call of the loons.  Music, games, stars, and of course, more food to come.  It is good to share the memories.