Engaged Engaged Engaged

So, the other weekend, on a bike ride, during lunch, Joshua asked if I would marry him!

And I said "Holy crap!"

But no, he was serious, and I said, "But we've never lived in the same city."

He admitted this was true but that it didn't have any bearing on his wanting to marry me, and also that he would move to Baltimore in May, if I was so set on us living in the same place, jeez louise.

I thought about this for a little while. Until dinnertime, actually, when we discussed the logistics of the whole thing some more, and also some non-logistical things.

And then said yes. :)

New bed

Even before I had finished laying it down, Kima curled up on the new bedroom rug and was all, jeez it took you long enough to get me another bed upstairs, jeez!

From Kima

Help Adam make an album in Mali!

Wascally Wabbit

The egg dudes at the Sunday market said they had rabbit, so I got one. Biked it home in a bag of ice cubes in the Peugeot's front wire basket, how very Frooonncchhhe of me.
Nick and Johanna came over to help eat it. Cutting it up wasn't very hard at all, its little shoulder blades were easy to find, belly and ribs were self-explanatory, there was hardly an ounce of fat on it to confuse things. Following Julia Child's instructions for cutting, and Jamie Oliver's instructions for grilling, it turned out quite well.

From Food

Marinate in olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary, thyme, garlic, honey as grill heats. Here you can see the rib pieces (bottom left), skewered belly with bacon, kidneys, and the two pieces of saddle or loin (cut perpendicular to the backbone) at the top right.

Start the back legs first:

From Food

Despite soaking, skewers catch on fire:

From Food

Baste with thyme sprigs on a skewer, because HOT:

From Food

Flame flame flame:

From Food

Garnish:

From Food

Beautiful tomato salad!

From Food

It was super delicious, props to Jamie, we ate the whole thing along with N&J's potato salad and some peach cobbler.

Walking around Philadelphia

Bartram's Garden:

From Ratners visit Philly

Morris Arboretum!

From Ratners visit Philly

From Ratners visit Philly

Japanese Threadleaf Maple:

From Ratners visit Philly

Outside the Fernery:

From Ratners visit Philly

In the Stumpery:

From Ratners visit Philly

"Out on a Limb" exhibit:

From Ratners visit Philly

From Ratners visit Philly

Stumpery

Excellent weekend of botanical adventures! Here is one answer from Wikipedia about one of the curious features of the Morris Arboretum that we enjoyed:

A stumpery is a garden feature similar to a rockery but made from parts of dead trees. This can take the form of whole stumps, logs, pieces of bark or even worked timber such as railway sleepers or floorboards. The pieces are arranged artistically and plants, typically ferns, mosses and lichens are encouraged to grow around or on them. They provide a feature for the garden and a habitat for several types of wildlife. The first stumpery was built in 1856 at Biddulph Grange and they remained popular in Victorian Britain.

A stumpery traditionally consists of tree stumps arranged upside-down or on their sides to show the root structure but logs, driftwood or large pieces of bark can also be used.[1] The stumps can be used individually or attached together to form a structure such as a wall or arch. Stumperies can vary in size from a handful of logs to large displays containing dozens of full tree stumps.[2] The use of storm-damaged or diseased trees is not uncommon and can save the landowner the cost of their removal.[3][1] Where tree stumps are unavailable a more modern, angular look can be achieved by using railway sleepers or old oak floorboards and some companies sell waste timber or driftwood specifically for the purpose of constructing stumperies.[2] Plants such as ferns, mosses and lichens are often encouraged to grow around and on the stumpery.[2] Stumperies provide a home for wildlife and have been known to host stag beetles, toads and small mammals.[4][5]

Stumperies have been described as "Victorian horticultural oddities" and were popular features of 19th century gardens.[4] The reasons for their popularity vary but it may be a result of the Romantic Movement which emphasised the beauty of nature.[6] Their popularity may also be attributed to the increasing popularity of ferns as garden plants at the time. Ferns were very fashionable and hundreds of new species were introduced to Britain from around the world. The stumpery made an ideal habitat for these shade-loving plants.[2] Additionally stumperies may have been used in place of rockeries in areas where suitable rocks were in short supply.[7] Their popularity is once again on the rise.[3]

The first stumpery to be built, at Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire, in 1856, was designed by the artist and gardener Edward William Cooke for the estate's owner James Bateman.[1] The stumpery at Biddulph Grange consists of stumps placed into a 10 feet (3.0 m) wall either side of a garden path and used as a scaffold for the growth of ferns.[1][6] A famous modern stumpery is that at Highgrove House, Gloucestershire, the home of Prince Charles, which is considered to be the largest stumpery in Britain.[8] The Prince built the stumpery from sweet chestnut roots, held in place by steel bars, when he first purchased the estate in 1980, and it now provides a home for organically grown ferns, hellebores and hostas.[7][5] The largest stumpery in the United States is at Vashon Island in Washington.[6] It rivals the Highgrove stumpery in size, measuring 9,000 square feet (840 m2) and including around 95 separate tree stumps.[6] Stumperies can sometimes be mistaken for garden rubbish; indeed, when Prince Philip first saw his son's stumpery, he remarked: "When are you going to set fire to this lot?".[5]

Eddie Izzard, in Legos

Secret Garden

Sherwood Gardens is an ex-private park taken over by a neighborhood society up the road from my house (quite a bit up the road, a good jogging route actually). It's planted full of flowerbeds and is in bloom spring through summer - a great place for picnics!

Easy white bean salad

I made this in about 10 seconds last night after a run, when I was starving. It's from the new Splendid Kitchen supper book. This made supper and lunch for me, but I would definitely double it if a hungry boy (or girl) is joining you for supper.

one piece or half a piece of whole-grain bread
2 oz parmesan/romano
pepper/salt

1 can white/cannelini beans
2 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped roughly
a small handful of rosemary leaves (about 10?), chopped up
1/8 c olive oil
handful of greens
salt

Food process your bread into breadcrumbs. Toast it at med-high heat in a skillet or saute pan till it's toasty. Set aside in a small bowl and when cool, add the grated parm and some pepper and salt. While it's cooling, put your olive oil in the skillet and set at low heat, let the olive oil calm down a bit before adding your garlic, otherwise it might burn (since your skillet was just med-high). Slowly cook the garlic for a few minutes till it softens, then add your rosemary for a minute, then your beans. Fold in gently so as not to smash them. Heat beans for three minutes, then add a handful of greens and wilt to your liking (if using lettuce, may not be necessary, but it was nice to throw it around in there to get the oil/garlic).

Serve up the beans/greens and top with the breadcrumb/parm, add more salt if you like and some pepper.

The book warns you to only use white beans for this, not tougher kidney/black beans, since the flavors won't be absorbed through their thick skins. Fine by me! This was great.

Cellphone-based microscopy

A new article in PLOS describes setting up a cameraphone with a magnifier in order to read slides, enabling those with cellphones but without microscopes to read say, malaria or sickle-cell slides. It can also be used with fluorescent stains and lighting for diseases like TB.



The slides - you can see some blood cells with gametocytes in A and B, and some sickle cells in C:


Seems pretty neat, if the system can be done cheaply, and the clinic has access to a 3.2 megapixel cameraphone.

UberNerd

Not only did I put a stem riser on my bike this weekend (which totally dumbfounded the Joe's Bike Shop kids yesterday when I took it in for a tiny problem), but I spent a long time playing with/setting up Sente yesterday! Did not know it was possible to have a crush on bibliographic software. I imported all the malaria journal articles and other gray lit I'd been saving all these years. Awesome!

Fallingwater

The check engine light came on during our trip home, somewhere along the PA turnpike, so we turned off the road to check things out. There was a sign that said "Fallingwater, 20 miles", and so upon determining our problem was probably not serious, we headed down the road. Byways are pretty and this was a good one. Once there, we squeezed into the last shady parking space, left Kima in the car, and headed down for a tour of the house. No photos allowed inside, unfortunately, but I was particularly taken with the beveled edge windows, which formed a clear corner, and in one part of the house, a three story corner column of windows each opened up. Joshua liked the Japanese prints, including a few by the guy who did the Big Wave print. Throughout you heard the waterfall the house was built on, and boulders jutted in near the fireplace and the walkway to the servants' house and guest house. The detour really added time to our journey that day, but it was well worth it!

 

 

 

Kima Kills

Poor little squirrelio.

 

 

Farm Dinner

Mom and Dad took us to a Whole Hog dinner at the Prairie Fruits Farm outside of Urbana last Saturday. Chicago suburban chef of Vie, Somebody Somebody, did the menu, which had pork all the way through until the cheese and dessert courses. We started with a headcheese torte, basically slow-cooked meat from the cheeks and head of the pig with some aromatics, wrapped up in a puff pastry dough that I could have eaten all night, and some mortadella (from the shoulder), and some red iced sugary tea which tasted like hibiscus/dableni/oseille from my Peace Corps days (but in fact probably was more berry-based, as they have lots of berry bushes).

 

Here's the smoker/oven they used for the porchetta and the roasted tomatoes:

 

And the barn where we ate inside, as it was threatening rain (we didn't end up getting any).

 

The farm has fruit trees and goats. Here's the goat milking operation, including Farmboy. They sell their cheeses at the local farmer's market but also to fancypants Chicago restaurants.

 

Their lovely herb garden:

From Farm Dinner

The porchetta. I was disappointed in my fellow eaters as most of them left the pork fat on the plate. The kale, beans n ham and tomatoes were pretty good, but the pork fat was the best part. I really wanted to ask my neighbor if I could have the fat she wasn't going to eat.

From Farm Dinner

Mom and Pop.

From Farm Dinner

Cheese Plate - including homemade preserves (one each strawberry and gooseberry), and their newest first harvest of honey(comb).

From Farm Dinner

And a nice sunset, too:

From Farm Dinner

Canoeing!

On Friday we went canoeing on the Middle Fork, in Kickapoo State Park. Water level was low, but the meandering river was still full of dead tree obstacles, patches of swiftly moving current, and many bottom-scraping rocks. Not to mention the blue herons that led us downstream, who, in the quiet of the woods, seemed more like apparitions from beyond the grave, guiding us a little further along the river of time.

Tonight - piggy dinner at a local goatcheese farm, and I will post pictures of Kima's latest best trick - nabbing squirrels in the backyard. Yes, dear readers, my dog is a patient and focused killer.

 

 

More Chicago

Still getting the hang of this Picasa thing. More pics from Millenium Park, including the really super Gehry stage, where we heard Breuckner's Fourth being rehearsed, and the Lurie Gardens, and a Chinese statue.

 

 

 

In Chicago

 

 

 

 

Of course we got no pics of Eleanor and Ofer, soon to be parents. Shoot! But here's Millenium Park, and the Bean.

Fig Tree Three Weeks On

From Garden

From Garden

From Garden

And now the backyard, right after the rain:

From Garden

Teeny tomatoes:

From Garden

Clematis:

From Garden

Problems with too-short stakes - sorry, Tomato!

From Garden

Artemisinin

From Garden

And hops:

From Garden

Kima ate my lemongrass.

From Garden