Sunset

click on image to enlarge

 
Sunsets like this are hit and miss.

There and gone in seconds.

Almost missed this.

Dodged another bullet.......

Don't Get Pranked

The history of April Fool's Day or All Fool's Day is uncertain, but the current thinking is that it began around 1582 in France with the reform of the calendar under Charles IX. The Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year's Day was moved from March 25 - April 1 (new year's week) to January 1.

Communication traveled slowly in those days and some people were only informed of the change several years later. Still others, who were more rebellious refused to acknowledge the change and continued to celebrate on the last day of the former celebration, April 1.

These people were labeled "fools" by the general populace, were subject to ridicule and sent on "fool errands," sent invitations to nonexistent parties and had other practical jokes played upon them. The butts of these pranks became known as a "poisson d'avril" or "April fish" because a young naive fish is easily caught. In addition, one common practice was to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke.

This harassment evolved over time and a custom of prank-playing continue on the first day of April. This tradition eventually spread elsewhere like to Britain and Scotland in the 18th century and was introduced to the American colonies by the English and the French. Because of this spread to other countries, April Fool's Day has taken on an international flavor with each country celebrating the holiday in its own way.

In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known, he said, as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Here's some inspiration for tomorrow.....

Liver and Onions

As a child this meal was received with more than its share of trepidation. The featured entree was always tough, dry and overdone. The only way to choke it down was to cover it in bacon and onions. Ketchup may have been involved too. Jill and I both recall a macabre preoccupation with tapeworm - the result being a well done childhood. 

Anyway, as an adult I’ve acquired a taste for this as long as it was delicately sautéed, not over done, served with bacon and onions. And in a restaurant. 

Before the lockdown I purchased a package of frozen calf liver on a whim. I was thinking - ‘this might make for a fun experiment.’ I have never prepared it myself. Ever.
As a consequence of the emergency we’ve been living off of whatever we find in the freezers and Jill suggested I make this. 

Using my Mom’s 1941 Settlement Cookbook (The Way to a Mans Heart) as a guide I knocked this out of the park. A delicate sauté (medium to medium rare) with lots of garden onion and Marchant’s smoked bacon. Of course bacon fat was involved and the spuds were done in duck fat. So this man’s heart gets two statins at bedtime. 

I would also point out that Mrs. Simon Kander specifically says in the book: ‘too long cooking makes liver tough and dry.

Raising a toast to quarantine cooking. May we all emerge on the other side of this svelte and fit.

Sunset tonite is bonus!

Friday Music Comes to Monday

In further news individuals and families have been fleeing larger urban communities in Illinois, Wisconsin and even New York to their seasonal homes on the peninsula.      Apparently they feel they will be safer sheltering in place here.

Two weeks ago Door County Emergency Management asked visitors and everyone else to stay away.  The County requested lodging entities to consider reducing the risk to our neighbors by not accepting new reservations and canceling those that exist to encourage people to temporarily not travel to the area.        

Officially, traveling to or visiting Door County is not recommended at this time due to COVID-19.  

Emergency management reminds you that visitation can be damaging to small, isolated communities like ours that have limited resources and infrastructure available to cope with a potential outbreak. 

The brutal truth is that the peninsula does not have the medical infrastructure to handle an outbreak.      

By definition 'sheltering in place' means exactly that.  Stay where you are.  No travel.  Stay put.  This is how you slow the spread of a pathogen. 
 

Maybe the peninsula should do what Rhode Island is doing.    

For the love of God and all that is holy don't make a damn personal exodus to Door County thinking it's safer here. Keep to yourself and stay home!        



Caution - Adult Language.....

 

Rustic Boule

Every day I receive a friendly email from the New York Times announcing what to cook this week.  There are soups, salads, entrees, sides and more.  This week one of the messages featured.good - and easy - stuff to bake.

No-Knead Bread

 Yield 1 big loaf

Time 45 minutes, plus 4 1/2 hours' rising

The original recipe for no-knead bread, which Mark Bittman learned from the baker Jim Lahey, was immediately and wildly popular. How many novices it attracted to bread baking is anyone’s guess. But certainly there were plenty of existing bread bakers who excitedly tried it, liked it and immediately set about trying to improve it. This is an attempt to cut the start-to-finish time down to a few hours, rather than the original 14 to 20 hours' rising time. The solution is simple: use more yeast.

Ingredients

    3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

    1 packet instant yeast

    1 ½ teaspoons salt

    Oil as needed

Preparation

Step 1 - Combine flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest about 4 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

Step 2 - Lightly oil a work surface and place dough on it; fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest 30 minutes more.

Step 3 - At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6-to-8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under dough and put it into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

Step 4 - Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

The result is a very nice rustic Boule.  Easy-peasy too....

Sky Dance

In his classic:  A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold called the courtship display of the male American woodcock the “sky dance.”  

Knowing the place and the hour, you seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watching against the sunset for the woodcock’s arrival. He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart, and sounding much like the summer call of the nighthawk.             

Suddenly the peenting ceases and the bird flutters skyward in a series of wide spirals, emitting a musical twitter. Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky. Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy. At a few feet from the ground he levels off and returns to his peenting ground, usually to the exact spot where the performance began, and there resumes his peenting.    

– Aldo Leopold              

Meet Scolopax minor – The American Woodcock – colloquially known as the timberdoodle.   Superbly camouflaged this chunky bird - unlike its shore-dwelling relatives - spends much of its life on the forest floor probing with its long bill for insects and earthworms.    

A woodcock’s eyes are positioned high and near the back of their skull. A unique adaptation that allows them to keep watch for danger in the sky while they have their heads down poking around in the soil for food.  This diminutive bird's coloration also makes it difficult to find except during flight at dawn or dusk or when the dogs flush one.  On occasion when you are innocuously walking to or from a deer stand in the dark - with no advance warning - the sudden explosion in the darkness that originates from the immediate vicinity of your feet will most certainly have come from a doodle bird.  After the championship adrenaline rush has ebbed you resume your walk. Tiptoeing gingerly.  But I digress.  

Witnessing woodcock display is truthfully more a patient exercise in listening rather than seeing.  As the sky begins to darken or the dawn begins to glow if you are attentive this time of year you will hear the nasal BZEEP.           

The male will perform his plaintive beeping call on the ground followed by launching into a spiraling flight of 200 to 300 feet.  Like a barnstorming acrobat he then tips into a twisting descent.   The air rushing thru specialized wing feathers whistles to the accompaniment of bubbling vocalizations.   

photo - Thomas Gaertner

Upon landing the male fans his tail much like a gobbler or ruffed grouse with the hopes that his dance has attracted a lady charmed by his advances.  In case you care to know - the boys are promiscuous and will mate with any and all females attracted to their affections.
      

Woodcock displays can last for several hours between dusk and dawn from early-March through early May.  The following video was taken early yesterday morning in the rain.  Turn-up the volume and listen carefully for the peents followed by twittering flight.  Can you identify the other birds calling in the background?        

Spring has officially sprung....

You Break it - You Bought it

I am done with Trump’s apologists.   

Seriously people get a grip.  This man is a joke. 

And I am sincere when I suggest that deep in your hearts you know I am spot-on with this observation.  

It is perfectly OK to shed your pride and come clean about the realization that Donald Trump is in over his head.  He should be shuffled-aside and the reins of government handed over to Mike Pence.      

Despite months and months of warning Donald Trump’s lying, willful blindness and bungling has led to disastrous economic harm and lives lost.   

Let that sink in for a moment.  Lives and fortunes lost.

Trump denies science, bashes government and has placed a higher value upon loyalty over professional competence.  Now we are all reaping the whirlwind.  This individual is solely responsible for failing to take this pandemic seriously and mismanaging the response.   

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell postulated a theory about this that remains constant.  It is termed the Pottery Barn Rule.   

You break it – you bought it.