Pine Needle Tea and a Hasty Flight

While hiking I noticed the surrounding pine trees had started to sprout new needles which gave occasion for spontaneous wildcrafting. I had planned to eat the baby pine needles with oak honey as I had seen in the El Bulli documentary but the needles turned out to be too fibrous but good for tea. 

Lemony with a citric tartness that's full of vitamin C, pine needle tea is a fun diversion but not a tea I would ply regularly.  

Today I bought a ticket to go to South Africa to fly tomorrow. I have on many occasions been prompted to travel thus for work. One day notice gives a traveler little room to figure out what tea if any to take. I of course packed red ginseng for the fortitude I will need.

Freer and the Fake Scotch

When I return to the East Coast, I am ever hopeful to squeeze in a visit to the nation's museums.  Besides the obligatory stop at the excellent National Gallery, the Freer is my sentimental favorite.  Housing gems of Asian art bequeathed by yet another art amassing industrialist Charles Lang Freer who was also a principal patron of Whistler, the Freer houses Whistler's Peacock Room.  The gold leaf is borderline gaudy and exquisite at the same time; the back paint is actually green in the light which you can see only when the shutters open once a week. 

I am not a great appreciator of Asian art and I go to the Freer not for the treasures of China, Japan and Korea but really in hopes of seeing pages of the Freer Jami- the most splendid illustrated book produced by humankind.  I was sorely disappointed again. They rarely have it on display and I need to make a special appointment.

The Freer also houses oddities such as these Chinese philospher's stones which I sadly did not get to stroke as they were safely trapped behind glass.  I have a very small rock collection filched from hiking mostly in the shape of hearts but never have I come across such charismatic unencumbered pieces of stone. Instead of a tea pet, I think such a stone might make good company for a tea session.

After a long day of museum trotting, I spied this bottle of Johnny Walker Swing casually hanging out on my mother's kitchen counter. I dribbled some scotch on the rocks to relax and was taken aback by a completely unexpected taste. I was confused because it didn't come in that tapering trapezoid bottle. I gushed, "This is the fruitiest smoothest scotch I've ever had."

My mother giggled and said "I fooled you."  She had refilled the bottle with a home fermented ume syrup she mixed with soju.  I don't like JW too much(not because I'm some single malt snob) so I was entirely happy to be fooled.  So sipping my fake scotch, I contemplate museums that I wish I can wander around once again before I die:

• Museum of Cairo - Crammed with dusty antiquities floor to ceiling, one can feast one's eyes on choice stone sarcophagi to pharaonic underwear, the Cairo museum has the added charm of inside smog and endless honking directly wafted in from Tahrir Square. 
• Chester Beatty in Dublin 
• Ulster Folk and Transport Museum 
• Rock Collection - The Natural History Museum, London 
• Larco Museum, Lima
• Musee du Cluny, Paris

I've dutifully trudged through the Louvre, the Vatican Museum, Uffizi, the Met, British Museum, Victoria and Albert, and so many of the great museums - but somehow those above really captured my heart and imagination. My only regret was that there was not an equally toothsome food venue anywhere near them.

Experiments in Vinegar

Behold- the mother of vinegar.  I went away for a week and now some of the experiments have come to fruition.  The white suspicious looking gloopy layer - the mother- is a mat of acetobacter converting the alcohol to vinegar. I had just a little square inch of it from a store-bought raw apricot vinegar and from that inch, these discs grew.

I started multiple batches three weeks ago and now they have transformed to proper mouth puckering vinegar.  You can see below the mother separated in two layers- this was when I disturbed her too much. Apparently one can eat the mother as it's purportedly good for your digestive health. Or better you can share to get someone else started on the craft of vinegar making. 

Was it worth the trouble?  Actually it's no trouble at all- I just made a sweet rum wash and hid it in a dark warm corner.   Seeing as tiny thimblefuls of gourmet vinegars go for $10+ dollars,  home-made is definitely worth your while.   The tangy taste of this particular set has a deeper richness and complexity due to the carob syrup. Now that I've done one batch, my mind is spinning on other vinegars I can dream up.  Actually once my husband finishes the attic, I was planning to setup a mini-solera balsamico style.

Chococarrier

When one goes away on a trip, one really needs a good way to carry one's tasting chocolates.  Recently I've scoured Daiso,  a Japanese $1.50 chain.  Among budget gems such as a jump rope with an analog counter, I found these brown sacs seemingly custom made for chocolate conveyance.  

Now that I don't drink much puerh, my palate has to get on from elsewhere.  The caffeine content in chocolate is such that I never do more than an ounce.

My vinegar experiments are taking their sweet old time. I have high hopes for my carob syrup and rum concoction more than the raisin and rum vinegar. 

Propinquity Effect

"There is an old Chinese proverb that says parents must give their children two things, roots and wings," Max says. "I have the roots. Now I want the wings."

Max is an over indulged dog with big dreams from Maira Kalman's Max Makes a Million- a slightly ridiculous and charming book meant for adults more than kids.  When I read that page so long ago, it made me so wistful. My parents only gave me wings as we moved more than thirty times.  I really wanted roots then but didn't know how to go about it.

It turned out to be quite simple- I bought a house and throughout a decade started to put serious taproots down in West Berkeley.   There is a simple pleasure living on a street where you know most of the neighbors and the best of their culinary repertoire.  I was fortunate to land on a neighborhood chock full of individuals who create their own path.  We have a good mix of artists, jazz musicians, writers, a poet, and of course hard working spouses who hold down steady jobs for healthcare.

My neighbor- the indomitable Jackie Krentzman just a few years ago decided she wanted to produce documentaries. I was definitely an unexpected beneficiary of her last documentary which involved a roasted suckling pig as a prop and I and a friend became the most lucky recipient of a deliciously tender shank and head.  She just started a kickstarter campaign for her latest documentary - The Outcast of Beauregard Parish which follows a Pentecostal preacher turned atheist deep in the Bible Belt.  How many of us are willing to brave a persecuted life on account of their beliefs?

(This exquisite combination of azure, cobalt, and lavender is the creation of my neighbor Chance and is more eye-poppingly lovely in life than a mere photo can convey.  )