Daylily Buds

A good day foraging on the way out to town and on the way back. Daylily buds and cattail shoots, some purslane and water-cress. I had some very good chicken livers I'd bought at the farmer's market, firm and lovely, and I'd read a recipe for a salad that involved bacon and chicken livers. Dark pumpkin-seed oil is one of the best kept secrets in history. A few drops of this, in any given stew, results in people huddled around a bowl, baring elbows; but I make a wonderful dressing with it, for salads like this. I soak the livers in a wine vinegar mix, with mango nectar, roll them in crumbs, and fry them for two minutes a side in bacon fat. Slaughter-house chicken livers have a bloody amorphous quality about them, not like they're a specific organ. I like liver, generally, it has a texture, and I'll use slaughter-house chicken livers in a pate, because I'm mostly interested in just a taste, but having warm, perfectly fried chicken livers, with a goat cheese rolled in ashes, and the wild greens, is a perfect meal. A phone call (The Mycelium Network) alerts me that the first Chanterelles have been spotted. I went out right away because I have an early Chanterelle patch, for whatever reason, in the rather park-like area to the west of the graveyard. Found a wonderful huge King Bolete, half a pound, that I'll dip in light soy sauce and dry for a winter soup, and do find a few Chanterelles, enough for an omelet. I was thinking about crab cakes, because D mentioned them, and I thought about the times my family would go crabbing. We loved having a crab-boil in the backyard, the neighbors over, a few dozen large Blue-Tips, a picnic table covered in layers of newspaper. The weapon of choice, for cracking shell, was the handle of a table knife. Dainty but efficient, a crab isn't a lobster, oh, wait a minute, of course it is. I shell a crawdad with my fingers, I break out sweet meat from a Blue Crab with the sharp rap of a dinner knife, I sometimes use a nutcracker on the claws of a lobster. I spend the day, after the rains started, reading a book that Joel had sent, American Terroir, about specific micro-environments that produce certain crops, a great chapter on foraging, another on oysters, and I had bought another dozen oysters. I steamed these open, in a skillet with shallots and a white wine, then reduced the liquid, with lemon zest and a few drops of very good balsamic. When I fry them, and I love fried oysters, I roll them in seasoned bread crumbs then fry them in peanut oil. I strain this oil, afterwards, and use it to fry potatoes. Used oil is much better than new oil, the browning is better, and the taste is much richer. I often get up in the middle of the night, and make French Fries, that I eat dipped in aioli, with sweet pickles and black olives. Anytime I've ever made French Fries there were never any left. Three in the morning, after a late party, heating and filtering the oil (I might add some walnut). I don't have time for nuance, soaking in cold salt-water, cooking twice, so I just put a sliced potato in, as the oil heats up, and cook it until it's brown. I'm not a good witness, I'll eat anything, but other people have said these are very good potatoes. When the oil gets old, throw in a handful of herbs. Then throw it on the compost heap. Then imagine a small black bear getting wind of this. Loren calls, and he can't make it, the rain and a flat, and I knew that was coming, that fucking bear and the pack of dogs, I need to read more fiction. What actually happens is usually fairly mundane, one settles into the woodwork, "Tom A Bedlam", or that women's prison, outside of London, Birdwell? Wasn't that a woman's prison, outside of London? Two days of intense storms, the power was out a good bit of the time, so I couldn't use Black Dell. Loren finally got out for dinner. I had enough pre-prepared that we were able to eat in the dark when the power went off again, then talked for a couple of hours. I got to town today, stood in line and paid my land taxes, had a lovely bowl of chicken gumbo at the pub. Minor storm damage everywhere, the streets in town, TR said, had all been flooded. On the way in, there were branches and trees down everywhere; one, on Mackletree, leaning heavily on a phone-line pole, two had fallen on the road, but they were both cleared away and stacked in someone's woodshed by now. I've never lived anywhere where so many people carry a chain-saw in their truck. I finished cooking the Chorizo dish this morning, Loren and I had dined on caramelized peppers and onions, on a nice rice and pasta bed; and this morning I had a portion of the completely dish with beautifully scrambled eggs. I do love Chorizo, and I make a great version myself, I love to stuff things with it, apples and tomatoes, acorn squash, and squid, or scrambled with eggs. One of the crew at the pub, Devon is I think her name, though I'm unsure of the spelling, engaged me in light banter. It was cool, she's quick. Loren was quick, last night. Michael calls, and says the modem should be in tomorrow. Michael is always quick. I think of this period, now, a file of text... no, wait, somewhat more than that, a record of being not-there. Being off line has created a block of text in my mind, that I refer to as Off Line, which I think of as a novella, which it isn't. Which, I suppose it could be, if I could only consider myself a fiction. That could be a better course, but I wake in the morning in this pound of flesh and make an espresso, dissect a pink grapefruit, make toast over an open fire, and roast some marrow bones. I don't have a definitive handle on exactly what anything is, I don't care, actually. Watching a flock of turkeys, a rage of crows, a single falcon with an eye to the future, I'm usually left with a single question.