we're budding mycologists! kind of...

Meet our shitake mushroom log:

Ray gave me a mushroom log for my birthday! This photo above was taken after its initial soaking. Right after it arrived, we soaked it in ice-cold water for 24 hours. Because it's so warm here,  kept it in the fridge, with a few breaks for sunlight (which it needs, though very little). The log has been embedded with spores, and this initial soak shocks them into believing it is winter, so that when they are removed from the cold, they respond by fruiting for the warmer season. The log stands upright in a saucer and needs to be kept in a cool, shady and humid place-- something that simulates the forest floor. 

Here's what happened in week one:

After the last photo we harvested our fruit. We left a couple of the smaller ones on the log to see if they'll grow bigger, and we're wondering if we'll get more mushrooms by next weekend when the log needs to be soaked again. It's kind of amazing how quickly they grow! Here's where you can find one: http://shiitakemushroomlog.com/

madeleines!

I've always wanted to give madeleines a try... & while Ray and I were in England, I bought a couple from the French Market that visited town. And they were truly delightful, these little treats, plumply yellow and moist with a hint of lemon... So today I gave them a try. I used a recipe from the newspaper's food section, but this recipe from smittenkitchen looks perfect.

how do you like your shrimp?

Remember the jumbo shrimp I mentioned in the last post? 

We peeled them, but left the tails on, so we could stuff them with crab meat, like so:

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of them out of the oven, they were gobbled up!

local seafood + my birthday.

Birthdays feel like a personal new year, yeah, that sounds accurate. In this sense I feel I want to see how I've done with my new year's resolutions, or maybe make some new ones? 
Life as a quarter-centurian has been great so far. It was a very nice long weekend filled with a visit to the Farmer's Market (where we bought some beautiful fresh jumbo shrimp and squid), plenty of cooking, even yard work (our compost will be happy). 

I'd never cleaned squid before, so Mom showed me how it's done. Squid aren't a common catch, but sometimes a few will get in the net. Mom said growing up, her family used to save them until they had enough to cook. 

First, you cut off the tentacles. You need to cut out the beak in the center, then they're good to eat as is. Next you turn over the mantle, and slice it open. Things can get messy as you clean out the insides... sometimes the ink sac releases the dark ink, which I'm thinking now, we could have saved for squid ink pasta (I've never tried that before).
Once that's cleaned out, you remove the quill, the backbone of the squid; it's also called the feather, or the pen.  

a pile of quills and a few beaks. 

Then you remove the skin of the mantle. (We did this, however, I recently heard that you don't have to remove the speckled skin).

this is what the end-product looks like. 

I found a recipe in the Williams Sonoma cookbook for fried calamari and gave it a try, they turned out nicely! 


(next post... Jumbo Shrimp)

Atticus

I take Atticus with me to the gallery, and when it rains, she hides beneath my chair. 

Today she is a little zombie-like after a visit to the Vet. 

books books books.

What are you reading?

I just picked up Tom Rachman's debut novel, The Imperfectionists from Octavia Books, and so far it's quite a good summer read. 

Ray is here & we ate Hansen's snowballs on my birthday.

At last, Ray has arrived! We've been doing all sorts of fun things together...

love you, dear. 

like sharing a limeade snowball from Hansen's on my birthday.