The Burning of the Bird

I can’t believe I haven’t posted since Sandy.   That is much too long a silent stint , but time flies come November and it is hard to catch my breath.    Even as we speak, I have marshmallows firming up and cookies in the oven – it is a rainy day and life is good.  This holiday season started off with a bang with Thanksgiving 2012 a blockbuster blowout of gluttony and sloth in gross proportions.  We fried turkeys, we brewed beer, we laughed and drank and lived large.  We discussed everything from Al Jazeera taking over computers to arguing about bubble surface tensions to Kermit flying into lamp posts.  We covered a lot of ground.  S and I detoxed for a week after the house quieted.   

And now, the day after the Pville Firebird Festival, the Holiday Fete season has begun!  I posted a blurb last year about the firebird, but hands down, this year was even more entertaining.  Good friends came over about an hour before the burning of the bird and we had a few apps, a drink or two, and headed out with the rest of the town to partake in this most weird of town festivals.  The streets were filled with folks not only walking, but also trying in vain to find parking spots on the crowded streets.   A constant stream of people flowed from their cozy houses to join us as we walked downtown.   I’ve never seen so many people in Phoenixville.  The energy was high.  The soft evening air was full of chatter as we herded our way to cathartically watch a two story bird burn to the ground with 16,000 of our neighbors.      

 

That’s right.   SIXTEEN THOUSAND people were expected and I’d wager that was about right.  We were a sea of humans moving to the beat of the drum circle and chanting Burn the Bird.  It was a blast and boy did it burn.

 

Welcome to the Holidays, everyone.  

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.




 

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.