Poultry Fowl

Yep, "Poultry Fowl' is intended to be a pun on "party foul" but it doesn't really make sense.  It's the alternative title because I was afraid that the original, "Eating Birds" has some sexual connotation that I'm too naive to know about.

Turducken

During bird year, I have eaten chicken, cornish game hens, quail, goose, duck, pheasant, and turkey at home.  Almost all of these have been roasted by The Mister, who is both a great cook and a great companion.

Cranberry walnut, pumpkin, chocolate pecan and mincemeat

Here's the turducken breast he roasted in New Mexico for our "we're going to be away so we should keep it simple" four-pie Thanksgiving meal (A traditional (??) turducken is a whole chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey. We bought a product labeled as "turducken breast" which included lots of bacon in addition to meat from the three birds.
 Also pictured are the beer can duck being roasted (after having been dried for two days) on its way to becoming Peking Duck with little Mandarin pancakes and three new radishes I bought at the Asian grocer in Denver.

Peeking at the Peking Duck

Korean radish, Chinese daikon and Yuan radish, I believe.
The middle one was pithy but the other two types excellent

Learning what it means to be our family.

I've already mentioned that we travel to give our sons a better sense of what it means to be an American (even if being an American family in Western Canada means the privilege of collectively cheering for Cameroon, Ecuador, Italy, and Germany barely registers as odd). We also travel because it teaches the boys what it means to be a member of our family.*

Inquisitive learners with life size falcon and eagle wings.
The Peregrine Fund, Raptor Center, Boise

I'd like to think that it is in their genes to be inquisitive learners who love to eat, but there are somethings that must be learned.  It may be in their roots to appreciate mountains, growing things, and all forms of transportation, but why would we leave that to chance?  Better to let the boys ride "the mule" and the water taxis with grandparents, work in a garden at every stop, and view all kinds of mountains from all kinds of angles.

It took me years to learn that not everybody who travels travels the way we do. What if my sons expect vacationing to be lazing around on a beach for a week**?  Preventative measures were taking.  My sons are learning what it is to be one of us.

Water Taxi, Vancouver

VanDusen Botanical Garden
Apparently visiting botanical gardens on vacation is a norm for us.

Lake Louise Ski Area, Banff, right before we saw
the grizzles in the earlier post

Frozen treat and Glacier National Park

Eating in mountains is kind of what we do

Badlands.  Green.  I just can't get over that.

*Disclaimer: I should be clear; we mostly travel because the Mister and I enjoy it, and also because our town can be miserably stifling in the summer and because I will get asked to work (and not get paid for it) if I hang around too much in the summer.  

**As it was, we still got asked "are we going to do anything fun today?" after visiting Devil's Tower, eating pie and ice cream mid-afternoon, taking a cave tour, and discussing pizza for dinner.

Name Yam and Cauliflower Hash: More Roots Including This Classic Combination

Despite not having my grading done, I am heading back to class tomorrow less frustrated with myself than I usually am after spring break.  Dianthus and Aster went to Branson, MO for a few days (with The Mister's parents) and the Mister and I had time to sleep late (past 7 for five days in a row!), read, garden, watch movies, and eat vegetables.
We ate lotus root in vegetable stir fries twice, and, although it does look really cool, I was not convinced I needed to buy it again.  Stir-fried lotus is a lot of "chomp" and reminded me of water chestnuts.

I also bought a Name Yam (with a long Vietnamese looking name that I didn't record and can't find in any of my cookbooks*) and ended up making a yam, cauliflower, potato hash and serving it with poached eggs, asparagus and a little balsamic truffle cream.  The skin was brown and much thicker than that of a sweet potato and the inside was white and ridiculously slippery (although it didn't look particularly mucilaginous).  It was wetter and crisper than I expected, with a texture reminiscent of jicima.  The hash was great.  The Mister had walked by and commented that "cauliflower and yam" was obviously a classic combination, but otherwise contributed to, rather than shying away from, the experimental cooking frenzy of the week.

Unfortunately, I charred his golden beets this evening, just as KU was losing. Otherwise, a good week eating good food with a good man.  I'm pretty lucky.




*This is probably Dioscorea trifida also known as the cushcush yam. Diana Morgan, in Roots, lists it as ~name with a enye.  In any case, it is a true yam, as opposed to a sweet potato, some of which are called yams.  It is difficult to look up because "name" isn't a good google word and I've found three different specific epithets related to "cushcush".

Underground Parts Eaten

I did succeed in eating a greater variety of roots (and other underground parts) during roots year than I previously imagined.  I did not open the jar of pickled kachai whole in brine (roots purchased back in acid year), but I did eat all of these.  Asterisks denote items that I cooked with for the first time.  Of these, I think only burdock and black radish were entirely new to me.

Roots
Carrots (orange, red, purple and yellow)     Parsnips     Turnips
Daikon     Red Radishes
Black Radishes*

Roots from my cousin's first serious garden, Summer 2014

Rutabagas     Red Beets     Golden Beets
Burdock Root*
Jicama         Celery Root/Celariac*
Horseradish and Wasabi (although I didn't process either myself)

Root Tubers
Sweet Potatoes (orange, white and red)
Purple Sweet Potatoes (or were they true yams?)
True yams (although very little)
Yuca/Manioc/Cassava*

Stem Tubers
Potatoes (of many varieties)

Corms
Taro*

Rhizomes
Ginger    Galangal*    Turmeric

Bulbs
Onions    Garlic    Shallots    Leeks
Fennel (although arguably above-ground)

I did, thus meet goal #1 from the original list of root resolutions, along with #3, #4, and #14.

Religious Roots: "We're all Catholics and Atheists Now"

When I think of "my roots" I think of food.  I'm sure my ancestors did things other than eat, but what they passed down to me, be it genetically or environmentally, was a preference for certain foods and a love of food overall.
If pressed, I could come up with some other cultural roots: my people are farmers and gardeners (food again), we are Midwestern Americans who speak with a Rockford dialect (as evidenced by several attempts on the New York Times Quiz*), we take road trips, we are geographically savvy, we value education, we vote, we root for the Cubs, most of us are workaholics with a healthy dose of Protestant Work Ethic and, as such, we are Protestants.

So it was a little shocking when my maternal grandfather, a year or two before he died, commented, "Well, it seems as if the family is half Catholic and half atheists now."  The statement is decidedly inaccurate: there are more Catholics in the family now than in his generation (a few men marrying Catholic women had a great impact on the religious practices of my cousins and nieces), but there are still many church-going Protestants, and there are no avowed atheists.  I didn't argue with him at the time: one doesn't tell one's grandfather that his daughter quit attending church because of disagreements with Newt Gingrich, not God.  And I certainly couldn't describe the scientist, empiricist, skeptic, Jesus-following, it's a good idea to serve the church, views, that are seemingly held by many of us  Who could?  My roots are that we don't talk about religion.

Maybe it was Grandpa's statement that rankled.  Maybe it was contrasting my family (becoming more Catholic) with the Mister's (becoming less).  Maybe it was realizing that my (paternal) Irish Catholic great grandmother, whose son married my Italian Catholic grandmother was actually an Ulster Protestant.  Maybe it's the Pope.  But I have been thinking a lot about Catholicism.  Watching video of my brother's family in full length frog costumes cheering as they stood for hours watching a Rosenmontag parade on Monday felt so foreign.  Days off for Fastnacht/Mardi Gras/Carnival is not something we do.

As my Roots Year officially ended last night, I had Lenten ashes on my forehead for the first time.  Even though I received them from my Presbyterian/United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ church, receiving ashes felt like an out-of-place Catholic thing to do.  My religious roots don't involve Ash Wednesday ashes.  The actual words of the ceremony, however, stunned me with their aptness: "From dust you are made and to dust you shall return."

I know where my roots are.  My roots are in the ground.  And to the ground I shall return.

That's as good a place as any to end roots.  Today we are roots become ashes.  Tomorrow we glow.


*The must recent attempt, in which I picked "crawdad" over "crayfish" (I use them both, as well as "crawfish", in different contexts) and "truck" over "semi" landed me with a Wichita/Kansas City/Overland Park accent!  I speak like a suburban Kansan?

Tapioca Root?

We purchased this on a January trip to the Asian grocer, and by the time I remembered to chop it up, it was soft and brown inside.  It was labeled as "Tapioca Root" but looked significantly different than the yuca/manioc/cassava roots for sale at the same store.  The internet tells me that tapioca is from cassava roots, so it is no help in this case.
Are any of you? Can you tell me what this was and, should I encounter and buy another, what I should do with it?

Galangal

The chicken soup I made using this galangal (Apinia galanga) rhizome, Tom Kha Gai, following (mostly) the recipe in Diane Morgan's Roots, was really quite fabulous.  A fish curry with similar spicing was also tasty.

Galangal is in the Zingiberaceae, the ginger family, and, as the edible part is a rhizome, it resembles ginger visually (well, about as much as an iris looks like ginger).  The smell and the flavor are not ginger-like,  It does have warmth, but not heat, and has very definite citrus notes.  We will be buying it again.

Sometimes we melt

And then the roots fall off our faces.

Not so deep

Image to accompany earlier posts on hills and fog.  Nov. 2014

When I planned Roots Year, I knew I was going to be seeing my cousins and aunts and uncles over the summer and the Mister's paternal connections at multiple points.  Shortly thereafter we were invited to the Mister's maternal family reunion and made the decision to spend Thanksgiving with his aunt and cousins rather than driving to see a large hall full of third and fourth cousins.

At each family occasion, and then again with the three funerals I attended in the last two months and the current holidays, I felt certain I would leave with something profound to say about roots here. I'd investigate who I am and then write thoughtful analogies between familial roots and botanical roots.  Perhaps I still will.  Someday.  I do want to. 

Disproportionate bases?

In the meantime, I watched the movie Wild with the Mister on Monday.  I think the Mister was disappointed, but the movie struck many hiking-related cords with me.  I was reminded of my Outward Bound experience, 23 days without a toilet in 1991, and the lessons I learned from it.  The big lesson, much like Cheryl Strayed's Wild lesson, was "I don't ever have to do this again."  Which seems flippant but was totally profound.

So, my thoughts from family gatherings are not deep: they mostly involve food, noses, and eyebrows, but perhaps that is not a problem.  Lots of roots are shallow.

Break out the beaters

Pie time is almost upon us.  I have been working on several blog posts about books, gardening, and metaphorical roots, and none of them is coming together well.  Still, I'm thinking about pies.  Like everyone else from the middle of the U.S,A,, pie baking is in my roots, and Thanksgiving, in particular, is the time to connect to these roots, via baking and eating pies.

Well, almost everyone else from the middle of the U.S.A.  Except most of my students.  And the Mister's extended family, some of whom seem to think that chocolate cherry cake is acceptable Thanksgiving food.  And my (competent adult) cousin who has never whipped cream.  And my grandmother on the other side and . . . well.  Anyway, I think that I am rooted in Thanksgiving pie culture, and I'm looking forward to baking something that looks like these on Wednesday.

Pumpkin and Mincemeat Nov. 2012

Pumpkin and Cranberry Walnut Nov. 2013

I don't have photos of the guests (my parents or the Mister's parents) at either of these Thanksgiving dinners, but I guess that doesn't surprise me as much as the fact that I could only find photographs of the most recent four Thanksgiving pies in a quick search.

Note to cousin K: Buy some cream.  Chill a bowl and some beaters.  You can do it!

Kings, Kites, and Cauliflowers

The monarch butterflies seem to be migrating through town today.  It feels early, but I don't know if it is.

The Mississippi Kites are, by and large, are gone.  They've mostly been gone for a week.  It's much harder to note their emigration than immigration, but around the first day of school (August 20), they were actively congregating, and when we visited the park on Thursday (for it was not over 100 degrees, as it had been every previous day this week), we did not experience any eerie diving attacks.

Beet Down at DIA Root Down

The Mister is in charge of fruit and vegetable orders through Bountiful Baskets and frequently orders something beyond the regular fruit and vegetable basket.  Two weeks ago we received a case of cauliflower.  We had thirteen heads of cauliflower and I am pleased to report that, prior to picking up today's baskets, we were down to one head.  Having eaten twelve heads of cauliflower in fourteen days for the first time in my life, I can now authoritatively say that I love cauliflower, particularly the way the Mister fixes it with Indian spices, and I am actually happy to have picked up two more heads today.  It's the four bunches of celery and the fourteen prickly pear fruits for which I don't have a plan.  Suggestions?

Here's a picture of a Beet Down, by the way.

No, there is no point or theme here in this post.  School is underway; I am already behind; youth soccer may or may not start next week; my son's are in grades 0 and -2 according to the official paperwork; the Mister, Dianthus and Aster are in Kansas attending a rodeo tomorrow while I organize documents documenting how well I profess (and pick up vegetables).

One of my students reported that watermelon is her favorite vegetable.  She can do this because watermelon is the official state vegetable of Oklahoma.  Really.  This bothers me far more than it should.

Some roots down

A small pun to signify:
1) I have presented my talk about prairie turnips (one conference obligation down, three to go).
2) I reported in said talk that observed prairie turnips are down 83% from 2004 (I welcome suggestions about causes and next steps, either writing or counting-wise).
3) I drank a "Beet Down" cocktail at Root Down at the airport yesterday and the Mister tried a Ginger Chialata (one root restaurant and two more root drinks down, many more to go?).

Where I'm Rooted

My roots are in Colorado.

Prairie Dog likes it here, too.

My family is from the Midwest for several generations and from Europe before that.  I was born in (horrors!) Southern California.  I live in Oklahoma.
But this (Colorado Rockies and suburban Denver) is home.  I have roots here.

Set down your roots where you may.
In the meantime, The Mister and I are off on a vacation from our vacation and checking out Boise.

Two nights camping in tent older than any of us, all still smiling.

 

Manioc-Cassava-Tapioca-Yuca Four Ways in Four Days

I ate a raw piece of Manihot esculenta Friday night and so far it hasn't killed me.

Which is good.  I didn't really expect it to, but I always wondered if it just might, as the roots contain cyanogenic glucosides to some degree.  I first learned of manioc (as manioc) in a wonderful Nutritional Anthropology class at C.U..  While I was fascinated by my professor's research into the plant (how sustainable swidden agriculture can be in the upper Amazon basin, why people would select plants that have more cyanide rather than less, how drought exacerbates cyanide poisoning among the manioc-dependent) but I was scared when she told me that it was on sale at ethnic grocery stores in town.  A personal point of pride (since about 6th grade) was that I could always identify what not to eat in my surroundings, and here she was suggesting that something in a produce bin might harm me if I took it home and stuck it into a stir fry.

So, in college I was fascinated with the plant, buy never ate any.

In graduate school, I was somewhat disappointed to learn that the yuca added as a side dish to the great veggie enchiladas at La Parilla was not actually the roots of the yucca we see around (Yucca glauca) but somehow didn't put it together that I was eating manioc.

Tapioca pudding reminds me of my grandparents, unless it is weird, warm coconut milk pudding with fruit and odd tapioca shapes at a Thai buffet, and then it just reminds me of my sons at Thai buffets.

 When I moved to Oklahoma, I was shocked to find big ball tapioca on the shelf at the local grocery store. I excitedly pointed it out to my mother, "Bubble tea is big in Western Oklahoma?!"  She thought I was joking, but I had never had large pearl tapioca in anything other than bubble tea, first with her in Nanjing, China, and later at our favorite tea spot in Lawrence.  I had never heard of "Frog Eye Salad" the Mister still thinks I'm making it up when I tell him that Frog Eye Salad is why they sell big ball tapioca in my small town.

All of these products are from the same plant.  Manihot esculenta is known as manioc, cassava, and yuca (typically pronounced so it alliterates with ukulele: YOU-ke rather than spiny YUCK-a yucca), and from its starch, tapioca is derived.  The plant is in the Euphorbiaceae (the spurge family), and is the only edible crop from that giant family*.  Manioc is a major player on the world food scene.  The factoid given varies, but it a staple food for at least 500,000,000 people and ranks just behind rice and maize for food importance in the tropics.  It comes in bitter (higher cyanogenic glucosides) and sweet (lover cyanogenic glucosides) forms and my Roots cookbook assures me that the fat waxed root I bought at the Mexican Supermercado in Norman, or the thinner root I found at the local grocery store, are sweet.

I made some tapioca pudding using minute tapioca.  Then I fried some chips.  Then I fried some yuca fries.  Then I made a breakfast pudding out of long-soak tapioca, young coconut chunks, grated yuca, and quinoa, among other things, and the boys and I assembled berry-pudding breakfast parfaits**.  Today I fried the rest of the root.

The pudding and the chips were great-- for a home fryer, yuca is preferable to potatoes because with the lower water content yuca chips crisp up better. None the less, I won't be buying manioc/yuca/cassava roots again any time soon.  Although who knows, I should probably look up a recipe for frog eye salad.

*Quiz, how is manioc like pineapple and vanilla?

**Asked the Mister, "Are you following any sort of a recipe?"  Well, not really, unless you count the pudding recipe on the tapioca package, a vague recollection of over-night non-oatmeal oatmeal using quinoa, a recipe for a Thai coconut tapioca custard in hand, and my desire to somehow replicate, but make higher protein and more breakfast worthy, the Thai buffet pudding.  I had all sorts of recipes.  They just weren't for quite what I was making.

My roots in Missouri?

Tuesday the Mister and I hiked through the oak woods near Branson, Missouri in the rain.  We came upon a glade (a.k.a. "a bald" or "a barren") and there, among the echinacea (including yellow Echinacea paradoxa, a first for me), milkweeds and sedges was a little prairie turnip, right at the Mister's toe.  I was not expecting one of my roots there at the edge of the wet forest, but if it was a snake it would have bit us.
Speaking of snakes that would have bit us, this morning the Mister's Mother found a prairie rattler in her garden as she was weeding.  It wasn't big rattle snake, but it was a rattle snake RIGHT THERE in the garden by the door.  In other wildlife news, the Mister and I saw the smallest frog we've ever seen (tropical tree frogs included) along the path in the Ozarks, and a Plains Leopard Frog on the road here in Central Kansas this morning.
Images sooner or later.

Still Life With Radishes

The black radish from formerly-known-as-dirty-Dillon's and the red radishes from the garden on the ranch in the Smoky Hills.

Hot radish! Ooowuw!*

The Mister and I just photographed and ate the black radish from the no-longer dirty grocery store in East Lawrence. The knobby black exterior is thicker and wartier than a standard pink radish and the interior seemed whiter, more solid and less pithy, while being overall much more intense.  Heat without pith or bitterness.  It was quite something,

In a few short moments since, I have learned that there exists an award-winning children's book entitled Black Radishes that I clearly need to read, that black radishes are available in a pill form to "support internal organs", that black radishes are also known as Spanish radishes, but were most commonly grown in England and France in the 19th century, and that Oaxaca, Mexico celebrates the Night of the Radish on Dec. 23, AND SO SHOULD WE.  [Information sources: book on Amazon; pills from google search; random facts from Wikipedia (main "Radish" entry); and capitalized conclusion entirely my own.]

*This represents the sound James Brown makes following "Hot Pants!" or, more precisely, the sound that the Mister taught Aster to make following "Hot Tub!" in the style of Eddie Murphy parodying James Brown.

Not flat

I married into a family with roots deep in the Smoky Hills of Kansas. The land is stunningly beautiful, especially on a late May evening watching the swallows flit over the pond as the sun sets behind the hills.  Not smoking, definitely hills.  Perhaps I love it more because so few people will ever experience it.

Black radish at dirty Dillon's

In Lawrence, Kansas, the old neighborhood grocery store was known as dirty Dillon's in my time here. Went by today and found in the produce section: horseradish, turmeric, striped beets, taro, Hawaiian sweet potatoes, a random type of giant turnip (bo pok or something) and black radishes. The last we bought.  Report later.

Reading Roots

Thanks to the Mister and some wonderful friends, I have more chances to root around in the kitchen.