American Culinary Dominance

 

I remember Chung King making it to our table on a regular basis growing-up.  It's not as good as real Chinese food served in a restaurant; nevertheless, it was fast and easy fare and added variety to the family dinner ritual.  

My recollection is that mom fried bite-size pieces of fresh chicken added the vegetables and sauce from the can and served it up with boiled minute rice and a side of crunchy Chinese rice noodles.  Yum.

As good as it was in my childhood memories I wouldn't do it today; unless, it was disaster food consumed in a bunker.  If I'm making Chinese for me and the missus the only thing out of a can is baby corn, water chestnuts and crispy, crunchy Chinese rice noodles.  Everything else if fresh, from scratch. 

Remarkably, it was an Italian-American guy named Jeno Paulucci who founded the Chung King brand when he borrowed $2500 to grow bean sprouts in Minnesota which he canned with chopped celery and sauce as a convenience food for post-WWII American families.  Paulucci was innovative in solving the mushy vegetable challenge.  He packaged the meat and sauce in one can and the veggies in a second, taped them together allowing the consumer to combine them later. 

From a purely cultural perspective it was entrepreneurs like Paulucci who popularized Westernized Chinese-American food like egg rolls, chow mein, chop suey and soy sauce; all of which left a huge imprint on the taste-palate of American consumers.  Who doesn't like Chinese food?  Heck, there is a Chinese buffet in nearby Sturgeon Bay. 

Fast Fact: Wisconsin is home to the highest-producing and largest naturally-brewed soy sauce facility in the entire world.  Take that, China!  

Anyway, Paulucci sold the Chung King brand to tobacco conglomerate R.J. Reynolds in 1966 for $63 million.  He later went on to found Jeno's Pizza Rolls, which later became Totino's Pizza Rolls. 

After changing hands a couple of times, Chung King was sold to Singaporean Yeo Hiap Seng in 1989 and eventually acquired by ConAgra's Hunt-Wesson in 1995.  ConAgra already owned Chung King's chief competitor La Choy and consequently shut-down production immediately.  By 1996 Chung King had disappeared from supermarket shelves  leaving La Choy as the sole survivor of the era of Chinese-American grocery items. 

The missus and I have a fondness for Chinese stir fry and make almost once a month on principle.  If you type "stir fry" in the search tool in the upper left hand corner of the blog's home page you will be redirected to several tutorial posts on the subject.

Meanwhile, if you like the subject of ethnic food in American popular culture the documentary - The Search for General Tso is a delightful tale about the origins and ubiquity of Chinese American food through sweet and spicy chicken.  You can find it on Netflix.  And don't forget the fortune cookies....

Survival of the Fittest

Several houses ago Jill and I purchased a beautiful, older Italianate house in Wauwatosa with cut stone, clay tile roof, spectacular plaster work, windows, hardware and a tasteful contemporary family room addition.  It was a prominent family who owned the large hardware store in town that built this house.  It featured the best stuff around at the time.  and many of its design elements were incorporated in the house we built to live in now.

Anyway, heat was provided by a boiler and distributed throughout the house to radiators.  And naturally all the pipes were insulated with the best stuff around; asbestos.  As you likely know asbestos has a sketchy reputation if you mess with it.  

Fortunately, piping within the walls is safe from disturbance; but exposed piping in the basement featured asbestos insulation at risk for disturbance and/or friability.  Disturbed insulation can release airborne fibers that, when inhaled, expose people and their pets to risk of asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. The best guidance back then, and now, is not to disturb it.  Leave it in place and make it safe by encapsulating it.  Just like a cast on your leg or arm.  Asbestos professionally stabilized in-place is generally considered benign.

Which leads me to this.

I came across this advertisement on the web and swear we had this stuff between the attic joists of the house I grew-up in.  The ad is from October 1958  pitching Zonolite vermiculite attic insulation as 100% fireproof, rodent proof and guaranteed for the life of your home.  

This fits near-perfectly my childhood timeline.  

Zonolite is expanded vermiculite which happens to be a naturally-occurring mineral that is lightweight gray/gold/brown pebbles and flakes poured loose in attics.  In and of itself vermiculite is benign.  Heck, my dad always had a layer under the charcoal briquettes of his Structo grill to soak-up grease.  He claimed it made for easy clean-up.

This is the precise model - Web Photo

Don't get me started on the primitive state of charcoal-grilled meat in the early 1960s before the introduction of the Weber-Stephens Kettle Grill technology.  A vast wasteland of burnt and ash-covered chicken frequently undercooked at the bone and hockey puck hamburgers.  And in my situation, there was vermiculite.

Back to possibly my exposure to another environmental hazard during my feral youth. 

The problem with Zonolite was not the mineral but the source; a single, solitary mine near Libby, Montana.  Seems this mine also had naturally-occurring asbestos and between 1919 and 1990 it is estimated that 70% of the vermiculite sold in the United States came from this mine.  And you cannot tell by looking at it, if your vermiculite is the safe 30%, or the contaminated 70%.

Asbestos associated with the Libby vermiculite is a highly friable form and inhalation of the airborne fibers are associated with the diseases listed in the third paragraph above.  These diseases have latency periods that are measured in decades after exposure. 

If you have an older home and suspect you have this stuff, per the EPA, whatever you do, leave it alone.  Don't store stuff in the attic, don't let the children play in the attic and for the love of God and all that is holy, don't shovel it out on your own as a weekend project.  If you are performing any remodeling that might disturb vermiculite insulation in your attic or walls have a licensed contractor remediate it. 

The good news is there persists a Zonolite Attic Insulation Trust that will reimburse qualifying homeowners with cost-sharing funds for remediation; even if you've already completed the project.

It is a miracle any of us boomer children born in the 1950s and came of age in the 1960s and 70s ever survived to adulthood much less old age.  Vermiculite insulation, lead paint and we even drank from the garden hose. 

Fast Fact:  In 1958 Zonolite was still an independent company and wasn't acquired by W.R. Grace until 1963.  The mine was closed in 1990 and is a Superfund Site. 

Game Day

After exercising the dog we swung into Packer football.

Whew!

Now it’s LAX v. MKE @ NLCS

And with plenty of venison taco meat, the last of the frijoles and all the remaining toppings... 

 ...we’re fortifying ourselves with Custom Nachos…

                                                

Bachelor Party

Yesterday morning the Red Rocket and I ran the trail camera trapline as part of our routine chores.  

 It would seem, on account of the digital evidence, that there might just be some dandy buckaroos roaming about the joint.

For your Sunday morning coffee relaxing viewing there is this...

 

 

 In the last photo can you spot the second whitetail? 

Better yet.

Want to hunt here? 

Hired Hands

A couple of weeks ago my tree guy called me while we were out to dinner with friends on a Sunday evening.  

"I can come tomorrow around 9 AM and we'll take care of those trees we talked about."

I texted him back that Monday morning would work fine but that I had a class in Sturgeon Bay and would be out of pocket.  I'd leave detailed instructions with Jill reiterating what trees and where.

Basically, a couple of dead ash adjacent to the yard, a white cedar encroaching on the granary, a handful of dead trees on the north side of the county highway and three widow-makers.  A giant cottonwood fallen across the trail on the north side of Silver Creek and two large big tooth popples, toppled and leaning across the trail on our side of the west property line.

He performed work for us before and is exceedingly efficient, meets performance expectations, doesn't require supervision and is fast. 

Less than one morning, done; $1680.

Small work of a big job if you know what you're doing and have the equipment.

If you need one; I gotta guy.

Look me-up.  

 

Friday Music

Composed by Paul Simon this song was first released August 1965 in the UK as the opening track of his album, The Paul Simon Songbook.  It was rerecorded by Simon and Art Garfunkel in December of that year and included  as the final track of their album, Sounds of Silence.  

This is a really terrific cover performed by the Everly Brothers.

I Am A Rock.... 

On This Day In History

On this day in history there were a couple of devastating fires. One in Chicago and another where I live.

The Chicago fire was an economic and infrastructural catastrophe that left a massive urban population homeless but had a relatively low death toll. Conversely, the northeastern Wisconsin firestorm was a human tragedy of staggering scale, wiping out entire families, towns, and records in less than two hours.

3.3 square miles burned in Chicago while 2,400 square miles burned here.  Ignited under the same extreme drought conditions.  Chicago dominated national headlines while the Wisconsin wildfire was vastly more lethal.

300 lives were lost in Chicago while 1,200 to 2,500 people died here. The total loss of life will never be known because entire communities were obliterated.

The firestorm here, remembered as “The Tornado”, was the deadliest fire in U.S. history. 

The Garden Chronicles

 

Doggo and I just picked raspberries from our ratty-looking briar patch. 

 

That there is a heaping pint and a half of those juicy beauties.  Likely north of $8 at a grocery store. 

 

Ka’ching!

 

And yes - dogs love these.

 

Ruby gets all the low-hanging fruit... 

  

October Night Skies

The Draconid meteor shower is comparatively a short-lived event in the general ranking of meteor showers.  The Draconids occur when the orbit of the earth bisects the orbital path of Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner.

When the dust and icy debris of the comet collide with the upper atmosphere of the earth it burns-up as the Draconid meteor shower.  

This comet is named after its discoverer when Michel Giacobini first observed it on December 20, 1900.  A subsequent observation by Ernst Zinner in 1913 added him to the name - thusly 21P/Giacobini-Zinner.

Radiating from the constellation Draco - the dragon - this constellation found in our northern hemisphere can be spotted near the bright star, Vega. This year the meteor shower is expected to peak around midnight October 8 and 9. A great opportunity to observe shooting stars and a waning crescent moon won't interfere. 

Follow this chart facing north.  Locate the Big Dipper low in the northwest. Traced backwards the Draconid meteors radiate from the head of the constellation Draco the Dragon.  It is helpful to know that it is very easy to locate Draco - yet be assured that meteors can appear anywhere in the night sky.   

Pro Tip - The Draconids are notoriously unreliable as to activity.  Most of the time it is minor meteor shower.  Other years it exceeds the Geminids and Perseids.  In 2011 astronomers documented more than 600 meteors per hour at its peak!

Parasites

We recently went hiking at a newer acquisition to the Door County Land Trust - Bear Creek Nature Preserve.  While there our guide explained for us a couple of common parasites that make use of all of the Canada Goldenrod that is feeding the bumble bees this time of year.  The following photos were from our walk here on Saturday.

The structure at the top of the stalk is a goldenrod bunch gall or goldenrod rosette gall. It is caused by a tiny insect called the goldenrod bunch gall midge - Rhopalomyia solidaginis.

In early to mid-summer a female midge lays an egg in the top (terminal) leaf bud of the plant stem.  As the larva hatches and feeds, chemical secretions interfere with the normal growth signals of the plant.  Instead of the stem growing taller it arrests the plant growth and produces a dense, rose-like cluster of short leaves.  

The midge pupa overwinters in its chamber deep within the rosette, pupates the following spring and emerges as an adult.  The midge gets free shelter, protection from predators, hijacks the plants resources for food and prevents it from flowering and producing seeds like a healthy plant.

You've likely spotted this before; it is called a goldenrod ball gall or stem gall.  It is caused by the goldenrod gall fly - Eurosta solidaginis.  It is another parasite.

In late spring a female gall fly lays a single egg inside the growing stem of the goldenrod.  After it hatches, chemical compounds secreted by the maggot's saliva mimic the plant's growth hormones.  This triggers the plant to grow a dense, corky ball of nutrient-rich tissue surrounding the insect. The larva chews an escape tunnel before snowfall, overwinters inside the sphere and by springtime the pupated adult fly escapes.  Most of the time.

Further evidence that only the strong survive and weak are killed an eaten; the parasitic gall fly is the target of another parasite. 

A small wasp - Eurytoma gigantea uses its ovipositor (egg-laying tube) to lay an egg with the fly larva.  Upon hatching, the wasp larva consumes the fly larva, takes over the gall for the winter and emerges as an adult the following spring.  Take that!

It's not over yet.  Overwintering chickadees and woodpeckers easily locate these round spheres and will peck into them to feast on the fat, protein-rich larva inside.

It's a rough world in nature and a fascinating food web.

Getting Ready

Doggo and I have plans to take a road trip.

Yup, we're going west to chase pheasants in South Dakota along with some of our pals.  This will be her third trip and who knows what it is for me.  Three dogs later I've lost track.

Most days our walk now includes a shell vest for me and Mr. Browning accompanies us.  You just might have an opportunity to shoot something for dinner.  

For the dog it's mostly about the routine.  She knows that as soon as I go for my boots the pacing begins. Donning a shell vest the pacing intensifies. Strapping-on the e-collar is further confirmation.  Grabbing Mr. Browning from the bench leads to a rush for the door.  

Wisconsin's pheasant opener is in a couple of weeks.  Between now and then there is a possibility of kicking up a grouse, doodle bird or wing shooting some doves. 

Which is why The Frau calls it hunting.  If it was easy it would be called shopping.   

Meanwhile, from Friday's walk there was this.

I'm not sure if Ruby is laughing or grinning... 
 

 

True Or False?

If you had a dollar for every trans woman playing college sports you would not be able to afford a gallon of diesel.

True or false? 

Ask any three AI agents I have bookmarked and you'll find general agreement with something like this...

The Garden Chronicles

Raised bed gardening this season was exceptionally successful. 

 

Just enough fresh produce on a regular basis for two adults. 

 

 

This was possibly the 5th sowing of radishes for the season. Geopolitically-speaking those are German beer radishes on the left and French breakfast radishes in the colander. 

 

Spinach started coming on line this week.

 

Feeling lucky I planted an addition row of all three.  Cool weather crops you know... 

Recipe Of The Day

This recipe has become a household favorite and as the days grow shorter and the temperatures drop this will warm you from top to toes.  If you have garden tomatoes and fresh basil put them to use.

 ________________________________________________________

  

Autumn Shrimp, Sausage and Tomato Stew

This is the time of year that tomatoes are really coming on-line and if you’re like me you’re eating fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes multiple times every day. If you have an abundance of tomatoes from your garden or the farm market here’s a terrific recipe that is an easy-peasy meal to enjoy in a bowl by the wood stove accompanied by a chewy baguette.

Ingredients

4 cloves of garlic – finely chopped

1 pound smoked sausage of your choice (andouille, venison, chorizo, etc.) – cut into pieces.  I used smoked Conecuh from Alabama.

Olive oil

½ t fennel seeds

2 - 15 oz cans of garbanzos – drained and rinsed

4 C of garden tomatoes cut in chunks 

1 C dry white wine

24 jumbo shrimp (peeled and de-veined)

½ cup fresh basil leaves - chiffonade 

Fresh-cracked sea salt and black pepper to taste

Crusty baguette

Crushed red pepper (optional)

 

Instructions

 

In a stock pot brown your sausage in olive oil until it is brown and beginning to crisp. Add the garlic and fennel seeds and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant.

 

Add the garbanzo beans, tomatoes, wine and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat and cook (covered) until the tomatoes begin to break-down. 

 

Uncover, add the shrimp to the pot and cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir-in the basil.

 

Serve with slices of baguette and that bottle of dry white wine. Fireside is best.

It’s acceptable to dunk your bread in the stew.

 

Recipe serves four. 

Oktoberfest

I pulled-out all the stops for the festivities here.

German beer radishes from the garden and a frosty lager from the Fatherland...

Friday Music

Berthold Heinrich Kämpfert -  Bert Kaempfert - was a German orchestra leader, instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and composer.  His music figured significantly in our household when I was a child.  

Bert made easy listening and jazz-oriented records and wrote the music for a number of well-known songs, including Strangers in the Night and Moon Over Naples, Danke Schoen, Blue Midnight, We Can Make it Girl, Sweet Maria, Sweet Caroline, Wooden Heart, That Happy Feeling and many more.  

Long before it was popularized by other latter-day artists the LP entitled A Swingin' Safari was heavily influenced by South African kwela style music containing versions of Zambesi, Wimoweh, Skokiaan, and Afrikaan Beat, as well as the title track. -Wikki

Take A Hike

From yesterday. 

By 10 am the rain stopped and skies cleared.

Bumble bees galore gorging on golden rod.

Great day for a hike.

Door County Land Trust: Bear Creek Nature Preserve   

 

Tourism Slide

 

U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Geoff Freeman shared some illuminating tourism stats. 

Despite hosting the World Cup, the U.S. saw a decline in overseas travel this summer.

America's on pace for overseas visitors to drop by 2 million from last year — down 20% from the '19 peak.

"We're the only major country in the world losing visitation," Freeman says. "It's mind-boggling."

Travel from longtime allies has cratered — including from Canada (down 23% over two years), Germany (down 16% year to date) and France (down 15% year to date).

Two big winners from the U.S. tourism slide:

China, which has expanded visa-free entry.

Japan, where a cheap yen and rising reputation as a prime destination have driven a long-term inbound resurgence.

Any theories?

Native Blooms

From our walk yesterday we found some Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) also known as the closed bottle gentian.  This native wildflower is characterized by its blue-to-purple blooms that never actually open.  This unusual feature serves as a barrier to keep out smaller, nectar-seeking insects.

Because the flowers remain sealed the plant relies almost exclusively on larger bumble bees for pollination.  Bumble bees are big and strong enough to force the petals apart and crawl inside.

As a reward for this herculean effort is the high sugar (40% to 45%) content nectar.  Think of it like a high-energy soft drink for the bumble bee.

An additional trait is visual signaling.  Flowers with white tips signal that nectar is available while blooms that have transitioned to pink or purple signal that a bee has already paid a call and exhausted the nectar within.

If you're interested enter the word gentian in the search box located in the upper left corner of the blog homepage.

Champion Tree

If you were to have a talk with an old timer around here they would tell you a couple of things about the 1950s-60s; namely deer were scarce, there weren't as many deer as there are nowadays.  The other thing you'd learn is that elm trees were common and in a few instances dominant.  The landscape around here includes bottomlands with a higher seasonal water table.  Like similar species elm won't tolerate year-round water; but they don't mind getting their feet wet and prefer seasonally hydric soils found along stream banks and flood plains.

Today there are more whitetails on the landscape than anyone can remember and American Elm (Ulmus americana) has just about vanished.

Dutch Elm Disease (DED) was already established in Wisconsin by the 1950s.  When plant pathologist Eugene Smalley joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1957 he noted that Wisconsin's elms were being decimated by DED.

This UW Extension Service map from 1965 specifically documents when DED was first detected in each Wisconsin county.

An article from the Door County Advocate dated April, 23, 1968 reported that Wisconsin "was rapidly losing its elm shade trees" and the state Agriculture Department's Dutch Elm Advisory Council was recommending removing diseased elms and replacing them with other species.  The implication is that by the time spring rolled-around in 1968 Dutch elm disease was a problem here.

And we know how it ended.  The elm died-off and over the next three generations various ash species filled in the gaps.  Around here, entire woodlots of ash flourished.  The nearby Black Ash Swamp takes its name from the primary tree species found there.  Until the  Emerald Ash Borer arrived on the peninsula in 2014.  Today the landscape around here is dominated by dead and dying ash trees.

It's difficult to know what will replace the ash.  Soft maple varieties such as red and silver maple and box elder come to mind; but with the deer population as large as it is and these species high on the whitetail's list of preferred browse it's difficult to believe they stand a chance.  Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I can tell you for a fact that elm still maintain a small toehold here and there.  And over the last thirty years I've maintained a mental inventory of their locations.  Because elm produce seed at a young age, before they are targeted by the elm bark beetle that spreads DED, the species has avoided extinction.    

This one is located at the edge of the old campsite on the north side of Silver Creek.  It shares its space with some swamp white oaks we planted, some willow and dead ash trees.  At this moment in time it's looking healthy and hopefully producing seed that might become it's progeny.  Fingers-crossed.

 

Initially I was not sure that this tree was absolutely, positively, an American elm.  Perhaps it was a slippery elm?  A forestry professional told me that leaf ID is unreliable and that an inspection of a bark cross section would reveal the answer.  Breaking-off a piece of bark, Slippery elm is solid red while American elm has distinctive alternating red and white layers (like an American flag). 

Fast Fact:  In 1952, an elm tree in Egg Harbor reportedly had the second-largest girth of any elm in Wisconsin. The famous Jorns Elm was recorded as being 110 feet tall and sported a girth (circumference) of 35 feet.  That's what we call a Champion Tree!