[William]
Frey was interesting, Tolstoy wrote teasingly to his sister-in-law
Tanya, because of his absolute refusal to recognize ‘Anke Cake’,
which was his ultimate symbol of bourgeois self-satisfaction and
unearned privilege. Anke Cake was served on special occasions at
Yasnaya Polyana … In her recipe book, Sonya does not provide
instructions, merely a list of ingredients:
Anke
Cake
1
pound of flour
1/2
pound of butter
1/4
pound of caster sugar
3
egg yolks
1
glass of water
The
butter should come straight from the cellar,
it
needs to be on the cold side.
Filling
Melt
a quarter of a pound of butter, then mix in two eggs, half a pound of
caster sugar, the grated rind of two lemons and the juice of three
lemons.
Heat
until it is as thick as honey.
There
was also a sour cream version, which involved mixing ten eggs with
twenty dessert spoons of sour cream, a cup of sugar, and two dessert
spoons of flour, lining a tin with jam, pouring the mixture onto it
and baking it in the oven. The puritanical Frey would have considered
it immoral to partake of something so rich and indulgent, and Tolstoy
was now of the same opinion.
[TOYSTOY:
A RUSSIAN LIFE]
==========
Turned
up the Juniperus repens on
Conantum yesterday with my foot, which above had a reddish and rusty
look; beneath it was of an unexpectedly fine glaucous tinge with a
bright green inmixed. Like many things, it looks best in the rain. …
April
22.
I
observe the Parmelia saxatilis in
many places, now turned a pinkish. The yellow lily leaves appear no
more advanced than when I first observed them. A strange dog
accompanied us to-day, a hunting dog, gyrating about us at a great
distance, beating every bush and barking at the birds, with a great
speed …
At
10 PM
the northern lights
are flashing, like some grain sown broadcast in the sky. I hear the
hylas peep on the meadow as I stand at the door.
[Thoreau,
JOURNAL]
==========
DWARF
DECIDUOUS FRUIT TREES were brought to Theophrastus by Alexander the
Great’s troops; Roman orchardists grew them … in the early
decades of the 20th century, the multitudinous types of dwarf
rootstocks were organized and standardized by the folks at East
Malling, in Kent …
‘While
they do exert a decided dwarfing effect, rootstocks like the EM
series have one great drawback: their root spread is small and thus
inadequate to hold the tree securely, necessitating staking or some
other kind of support. So it is that fruit trees sometimes are
‘double-worked’, or grafted in two places. In such instances, the
rootstock will be that of a normal, amply-rooted tree; to it will be
grafted a short segment of a dwarfing stock – known as an interstem
– and then on top of that will be added the scion, or fruiting
upper story. … Thus the dwarf fruit tree that you buy at your
nursery is probably two or even three or four trees joined together’.
[GARDENING
WITH THE NEW SMALL PLANTS]
==========
Gypsophila
paniculata is one of those
indispensable plants whose role is to enhance others – a favourite
in flower arrangements … In all there are some 125 species of
Gypsophila, native
mainly to Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the USSR. As the name
implies, from the Greek gypsos, gypsum,
and phylos, friendship,
they are lime-loving plants and tend to inhabit arid mountains in the
wild.
G.
paniculata is popularly known as
chalk plant and baby’s breath. It hails from Siberia and eastern
Europe and was introduced in 1759. It is a perennial which dies right
down in winter and in late spring quickly burgeons into a bushy dome
about 3 to 4 feet high and as wide … From the end of June to August
it is covered in a haze of tiny, grey-white flowers, with a slight
but warm scent. After this it becomes rather unsightly … ‘Bristol
Fairy’ … is an improvement on … G. paniculata. It
is more robust and has a stronger constitution, and bears much larger
panicles of pure-white double flowers. The height of the plant is
about 4 feet … Another breakthrough came in 1938 with ‘Flamingo’
…
Although
‘Bristol Fairy’ and … ‘Flamingo’ were fairly standard items
in catalogues until the 1960s, they are now offered by only a few
nurseries. Unless they continue to be made available and grown, they
could be in danger of disappearing from the garden scene for ever.
[THE
VANISHING GARDEN]
==========
I
have often admired the beautiful pink or white flowers of the musk
mallow (Malva moschata)
as I drove through New York and New England or even southeastern
Canada. Although I know that all species of Malva are
more or less edible, and none poisonous, I had never experimented
with this plant for food, as it doesn’t grow around my area of
Pennsylvania. The plants reach one to two feet high, and the flowers
resemble small hollyhocks or hibiscus blossoms, about two inches
across. The leaves of those around Ithaca are dissected into five
lobes, which are further dissected inot more lobes bearing still
other lobes, giving the entire rounded leaf a lacy effect. The
flowers are followed by calyx-covered, wheel-like fruits resembling
undersized hollyhock buttons. These with the calyx peeled away are
eaten by children and are called ‘Doll’s cheeses’.
These
little cheeses, only about a half-inch in diameter, are so mild in
flavor that some of our nature walkers thought them tasteless. But
boiled for about thirty minutes until tender – green calyces and
all – then seasoned with salt and butter, they were very good,
still slightly crunchy, with a mucilaginous texture that made them
slide down easily. Musk mallow is a quite passable food that I
suspect is quite nourishing, though its food value has never been
explored.
[Euell
Gibbons]
==========
… Terpander
and
Pindar
were right in connecting poetry with bravery. The former speaks
thus
of the Lacedaemonians:
"Where
the youths are bold with the spear,
And
the voice of the muse is clear,
And
justice to all is dear."
And
Pindar says of them--
"Where
the old are wise in council,
And
the young are brave in fight;
Where
song and dance are honoured
On
many a festal night."
For
they represent them as being most warlike and at the same time most
poetical.
"The
sword with song full well combines,"
as
the Laconian poet says. Even in their battles the king first
sacrificed
to the Muses, to remind them, it would appear, of their
education
and their former contests, that they may be bold in danger,
and
do deeds worthy of record in the fight.
In
time of war, too, they relaxed their strict rules and allowed
their
young men to dress their hair and ornament their shields and
costumes,
taking a pride in them such as one does in high-mettled
horses.
For this reason, although they all let their hair grow long
after
the age of puberty, yet it was especially in time of danger that
they
took pains to have it smooth and evenly parted, remembering a
saying
of Lykurgus about the hair, that it made a well-looking man look
handsomer,
and an ugly man look more ferocious.
During
a campaign they made the young men perform less severe gymnastic
exercises,
and allowed them to live a freer life in other respects, so
that,
for them alone of all mankind, war was felt as a relief from
preparation
for war. When their array was formed and the enemy were in
sight,
the king used to sacrifice a kid, and bid them all put on
garlands,
and the pipers to play the hymn to Kastor; then he himself
began
to sing the paean for the charge, so that it was a magnificent and
terrible
spectacle to see the men marching in time to the flutes, making
no
gap in their lines, with no thought of fear, but quietly and steadily
moving
to the sound of the music against the enemy. Such men were not
likely
to be either panic-stricken or over-confident, but had a cool and
cheerful
confidence, believing that the gods were with them.
[Plutarch]
==========
CLOUDBERRY
| BAKED APPLE BERRY | MOUNTAIN RASPBERRY | Rubus
chamaemorus
… Rose
Family … The fruit consists of a few small drupes borne on a flat,
broad receptacle, from which they separate when ripe. The flavor of
the ripened fruit is pleasant, being sweet and honeylike. … The
Indians in northern Quebec cook [cooked] the berries in a sugar made
from birch juice, and the dwellers in the posts of the Hudson Bay
Company make from them a jam of rare flavor.
[THE
WILD GARDEN]
__________
»KEVIN
H. WHITE, a four-term mayor of Boston who came to national prominence
for shepherding the city through years of racial violence and
economic stagnation — and for a decadelong federal investigation
into corruption in his administration — died Friday night at his
home in the Beacon Hill section of Boston. He was 82.
A
Democrat who ran as a reformer, Kevin H. White served as mayor of
Boston from 1968 to 1984.
Mr.
White had been treated for Alzheimer’s disease since 2003.
In
1982, The New York Times described Mr. White as “the last of a
class of vibrant, liberal, big-city mayors of the 1960s, personified
by John V. Lindsay of New York, who talked of civil liberties, social
justice and neighborhood needs.”
A
Democrat who ran as a reformer, Mr. White served from 1968 to 1984.
For much of this period, Boston was torn by public outrage over
court-ordered busing to desegregate its schools. Protests turned vio
…
-----
CASTOR
or CASTER SUGAR is the name of a very fine sugar in Britain, so-named
because the grains are small enough to fit through a sugar "caster"
or sprinkler. It is sold as "superfine" sugar in the United
States. Because of its fineness, it dissolves more quickly than
regular white sugar, and, so, is especially useful in meringues and
cold liquids. It is not as fine as confectioner's sugar, which has
been crushed mechanically (and mixed with a little starch to keep it
from clumping). Castor sugar can be prepared at home by grinding
granulated sugar for a couple of minutes in a food processor.
-----
THE
BEST MAN is a 1960 play by American playwright Gore Vidal. The play
premiered on Broadway at the Morosco Theatre on March 31, 1960, and
ran for 520 performances before closing on July 8, 1961.
Vidal
adapted it into a film with the same title in 1964.
Ronald
Reagan auditioned without success for the lead in the play's original
run. Vidal did not think he could play a credible president.
-----
By
MAUREEN DOWD
WHAT
is it with Barack Obama’s penchant for getting in tangles with
blond politicians on airport tarmacs?
Usually,
tarmacs are for joyous welcomes or teary goodbyes. But No Drama Obama
saves his rare tempests for the runway.
-----
Pardoned
by Haley Barbour, a 'free man' is on the run
Convicted
for killing a convenience store clerk in 1994, Joseph Ozment walked
out of the Governor's Mansion after being pardoned by Gov. Haley
Barbour on Jan. 8 and hasn't been seen since.
-----
Al
Green sales jump after Obama sings "Let's Stay Together"
Weekly
online sales of "Let's Stay Together" jumped 490% after the
President sang a few lines of the 1972 hit at a fundraiser at
Harlem's Apollo Theater last week, Billboard magazine reported.
-----
Department
Of Housing And Urban Development Issues Report Just To Keep Name Out
There
-----
NEW
YORK, NY—NBC Nightly News correspondent Richard Engel wasn’t sure
why he thanked anchorman Brian Williams at the end of his news story.
He was the one who traveled all the way to Syria for it.
-----
No
Leads Sought In Asshole's Murder
-----
Tea
… may help lower blood pressure. Scientists at The University Of
Western Australia and Unilever, state in Archives of Internal
Medicine, that drinking black tea three times a day may drastically
lower a person's systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
-----
Berlin
Goes Nuts over Rare Palm Fruit
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