what about the plastic animals?

Nut Goodies!

Is there anything better than arriving home to a mysterious package only to find that mysterious package contains Pearson's Nut Goodies and Nut Rolls?  Maybe one or two things would be better but this rates pretty high on the list.

Sea Caves

Jumping back to the Wisconsin diversion of the Minnesota trip...  As we were driving along the northern tip of Wisconsin Jeff saw a sign indicating a lake access point and turned off the highway.  At the end of the road was Meyers Beach.  According to a sign there were sea caves a couple miles in, so we took a hike.  The Apostle Island sea caves are well known but I wasn't aware of the ones on the mainland. 

Even though you can't really tell from my photos the caves were quite amazing.  Some cut inland a couple hundred feet.  That's a lot of wave action!

LOLJANETS

This is Janet.  She likes pink.  It doesn't matter what is pink.  Clothing, food, drink, tents, wrapping paper, or mixers contained within, as long as it is pink she likes it.  She finished her Ph.D. and moved to Washington last week. If you are in DC and want to befriend her, offer her a piece of bubble gum, a swig of Pepto-Bismol or a pair of these leg warmers, and she will be nice to you.  Janet is a good friend, occasional anonymous, good-natured, foil in the posts here, and I'll miss her.

The Steps of Hanna Hall

In the summer the steps of Hanna Hall made for a good lunch spot.  I'd bring some work or the paper, eat my lunch, and watch Bowling Green go by.  Most days the campus mail courier would go up the steps on her delivery rounds.  We'd normally exchange greetings.  One day I brought way too many grapes with me so I offered her some.  Instead of eating a couple she scarfed them all down in about two seconds.  Slyly asking some questions over the next few days I was able to piece together that she was a near-destitute student semi-estranged from her family who was skipping meals to save money for the fall semester.  I had to get inventive with my excuses for why I always brought too much to eat for lunch, but I don't think she ever caught on that I more or less fed her for a couple of months.

Anyway, it was nice to see that the university finally repaired the steps, even if they did a crappy job in doing so.

Making Bagels

If you ever wanted to know how many people it takes to add toppings to bagels, the answer is six.

A few friends came over on Saturday for a bagel making brunch.  I made the dough and all of us formed the bagels and added toppings (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, caraway seeds, onions, and salt).  Adding toppings seemed to be an especially engrossing task for my guests.  It was also the only chance I had to take a picture.  Luckily, the bagels turned out well and we all proceeded to eat way too much. 

There was much discussion of gluten and its role in good bagel making.  if you want to see hot gluten action check out the Exploratorium's Explore Gluten animated tutorial or try their Goodness Gracious! Great Balls of Gluten! experiment yourself. 

I bought way too much cream cheese.  There was, and still is, garlic cream cheese and a roquefort and parsley cream cheese from Zabar's along with plain and veggie cream cheese from Fairway.  I am going to be eating cream cheese all week.  That and orange-fennel salad, which was not a big hit amongst the guests.  Good thing I like it.

Update:  The ever-inquisitive Bagel in Harlem took notes and weighs in with photos and her take on bagel-making.

Extra Update:  Tien also weighs in on the bagels.

Carhenge

Carhenge

Carhenge close-up

The Fourd Seasons -representing the four seasons of wheat.

Dino and Spawning Salmon.  Both are made of car parts.

One of the sights I wanted to see on this trip was Carhenge, just outside Alliance, Nebraska.  Coincidentally, my friends Jeff and Ann had just bought an RV and wanted to give it a shakedown cruise before going on a longer trip this summer.  We agreed to meet in Alliance at the Sunset Motel and RV Park.

Carhenge is a replica of Stonehenge, only built of cars not stones.  The gray cars in the first two photos are of the original sculpture installed in 1987.  The other works of art were added later.

More iron and steel sculpture from elsewhere in Nebraska and Kansas, but first it is on to the Sandhills.

Gothamist/Slice Pizza Party

Last night was the Gothamist/Slice pizza party at Fornino in Williamsburg.  There was good company, beer, wine, a plethora of delicious pizza, including black truffle pizza, and spumoni.  Above, chef/owner Michael Ayoub is showing us how to make mozzarella.   Mmmm, fresh mozzarella.  All in all an excellent evening.  Thanks Fornino, Slice and Gothamist!

More on the Slice/Gothamist pizza party from Gothamist, Slice, Youngna, and Tien.

Soktoberfest Booty

Saturday night was Soktoberfest at Tien and Shannan's.  That is not Tien or Shannan above.  Aside from my boring white athletic socks a wide variety of footwear was on display (see the photos). 

As the crow flies it is only 5.2 miles from my apartment to Tien's.  Via the subway and walking the distance looks to be 8.5 miles.  The subway runs less frequently late at night.  With two transfers it took me 1.5 hours to get home, which works out to 5.7 mph.

Like socks?  Wikipedia has a lot more information.

Mushroom Hunting in Connecticut

Putnam State Park, Connecticut.

"Wildman" Steve Brill identifying a mushroom.

Don't eat these!  The big orange mushroom glows in the dark.

The edible bounty.

Getting sauteed.

Ramps.

On Sunday I joined several friends for a wild mushroom hunt in Connecticut.  The foraging was led by "Wildman" Steve Brill, who is more famous for his Central Park foraging tours.  After all the rain we've been having you'd think that there would be lots of mushrooms but there weren't.  Between six of us we found enough mushrooms for dinner but not the bounty we had anticipated.  We did gather lots of ramps, a wild and pungent relative of the leek and onion.

The ramps were used in a ramp-potato soup.  The alpha chef sauteed the mushrooms separately from all the other food so we could better taste them.  They tasted like mushrooms with a bitter, soapy aftertaste.  The hunt was mildly fun, but in the future I'll stick to store bought.

Friday Night, Saturday Night

American Mfg. Co., makers of rope and twine, Greenpoint, Brooklyn

After viewing the very entertaining Found Footage Festival on the lawn of Automotive High in Williamsburg Friday night I broke away from the crowd and went for a walk among the old warehouses and factories in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.  All was quiet except for a couple of guys who made several high-speed trips in a Budget rental truck between this corner and the old CFI warehouse a couple of blocks north on West St.

See, I can make something other than sugar- and fat-laden desserts.  Heirloom tomatoes from the Union Square Greenmarket (Stokes Farms), mozzarella from Joe's Dairy (Sullivan St.) and fresh basil from Shelley's garden (Stamford).  Heirloom tomatoes are more expensive than the tomato varieties usually found in grocery stores but for eating fresh there is no comparison.