The pickup and the prius and the ped

We are walking to the Chinese garden.

My head is full of thoughts of Jan Gehl.

Human Scale. Human Scale. Human Scale.

I approach the stench from the I-405 trench.

A bridge over the highway.

Not the Hawthorne or the Broadway over the Willamette- which also carry cars and are picturesque.

There are more than two dozen such bridges.

From the Pearl to the PSU campus.

Cutting the city.

Spewing polluted air.

A high-school sits next to this.

And a yoga studio.

And little houses too.

Oh! The two-faced cars.

How I love you and I hate you.

I love your ease and comfort.

But, I do not like this trench built for you.

A pickup and a prius are all the same for a ped.

I enter the LanSu Chinese garden.
It is the twenty-first century. I revel in taking a panorama with my cell-phone.
Why can't we have beauty like this everywhere?
So I do not snap photos to preserve the memory?
So I can have a thousand photos at each step in the city.

I ponder over the concepts I heard at the Japanese Garden.

Do they apply to this Chinese garden?

Concepts of Hide and Reveal.

You do not want the viewer to see the whole garden at once.

Frames. Doorways. Trees. Turns.

Not a straight freeway at 60 mph.

And bonsai on the human-scale.

For us to touch and appreciate things at the human eye-level.

Did you miss seeing the street-lamp lighting the highway?

Taller than the tallest giraffe.

I remembered the lamp on the way to the garden.

Built the timeless way.

Not just to cast light.

But a thing of beauty- even when not lit.

Buzz

This evening I had to walk to the library to meet with my presentation group. Sugata would not let me leave without my heaviest coat, snow pants and a pair of mittens. "It's cold," he said, "and it's going to get even colder on your way back. It's supposed to drop to twenty-two."

It was cold and is cold. Another cold snap. I'm not sure how I feel about that, except cold. I keep finding myself thinking of Wim Hof and wondering how to talk to my hypothalamus to keep my core temperature even.  I also find myself thinking about "Buzz."

On NW 24th, a street we walk on with some regularity to go to the Food Front Co-op, there is an apartment that has hummingbird feeders right in front of its windows.  We stopped and watched as we like to, despite feeling a little like an intruder lingering in front of the apartment windows with our cameras. But as we are standing there a man opens the door. "That's Buzz," he says, "He can't retract his tongue. We wondered if he survived last winter, but it looks like he's still here." The man didn't talk with us long, but it was long enough for me to suddenly feel concerned for this tiny hummingbird. He became an individual.

This is "Buzz" an Anna's Hummingbird. Notice the long, curved tongue sticking out from the black beak.

I wonder what it is like to have a tongue that cannot retract. How does he drink nectar? What other challenges does he face? Does the cold bring extra challenges for him compared to other hummingbirds?

Sugata and I have noticed that we tend to see more Anna's hummingbirds in the autumn or winter than we do in the summer. I am guessing this is because their food sources become less diverse. In the summer they may spread out more as there are more sources to feed from, but in winter or autumn they seem to frequent neighborhood feeders, which we also pass by.

ChrysantheYUM!

The homework that is expected of me during "Thanksgiving break," is a bit on the heavy side.  Each day I've had to weigh out my hours carefully to make sure I have enough time to complete my homework. Despite the weight of all I have to do keeping me a little on edge, I have managed to go on some delightful "field trips" to refresh the body and soul. Today Sugata and I went to the Lan Su Chinese garden. During November those who have memberships to the Japanese garden can get free admission to the Chinese garden, (and vice versa). In the early afternoon the weather was cool, but sunny and inviting, and we'd reached the Chinese garden before it seemed we had walked very far at all.

The lady at the gate asked if we'd been to the Chinese garden before. We said we had, but it had been awhile and that we were glad to hear of anything special we should see. She guided us toward the persimmon tree that we could just make out through the gate, and chrysanthemums. Once I spotted the first of the chrysanthemums, I could not stop taking pictures of them.

There were so many different shapes, sizes and colors! All of the chrysanthemums were started from cuttings and grown at the garden's greenhouse. Volunteers and staff carefully attended them for nine months.

We wandered the garden for some time, taking pictures of whatever caught our attention. It began to rain while we were there and we also started getting cold so we ducked into the tea house. I knew right away that I wanted chrysanthemum tea to make my experience complete. According to Chinese traditional medicine, chrysanthemum is supposed to aid in the prevention of a sore throat. It is supposed to clear the liver and the eyes. Sugata wanted to order chrysanthemum tea too, but since we wanted to taste two kinds of tea, and because he'd seen so many lovely gingko leaves on the trees and on the ground this fall, he decided to choose gingko.

We were seated at a table that was big enough for several people, so another couple joined us after we were already on our second refill of hot water. When the waiter brought their tea, he commented that they had ordered the exact same thing as we did, though we had not discussed tea with them at all. The woman had ordered chrysanthemum, the man had ordered gingko.  This may seem extraordinary, but I think it had a lot to do with the power of suggestion within the garden itself. Surrounded by such beautiful flowers and leaves...

...why would you want to drink anything else?

The Killer-Cat and the Hunter Junco

Life in the city can be unexpected if you are not a good birder.
Having returned overdue library books, we took a woodsy detour.
Up the stairs, avoiding the switchbacks.
Stairs without balustrades hugging the hillside.

A bird cheeped from a bush to the left.
Curious, it hopped out, and sat on a branch.
And went to a higher perch, and higher still.
It was not a song sparrow for sure. If not a sparrow, it had to be a wren.
It had a pointy beak.
When I had the camera ready it dove back in.

I had lunch and thought about it.
I went up the same Stearns Road Trail.
I heard no one.
I saw no one.
I climbed higher and heard faint tinkling.
To my left and above me.
Were they bush-tits or kinglets?
I saw no one.
I kept wandering.
I saw the silhouette of a Steller's Jay high above and plenty of squirrels on the ground.

I continued on to the neighbourhood feeder.
Through my left field of vision, I saw a silent bird with dark streaked feathers fly away.
Was it a cooper's hawk clutching a junco?

On to the next neighborhood feeder.
Song-sparrow on the tree and juncos all around.
Juncos on the ground.
As I prepare for my shot, I get blocked by a cat.

The cat sees me, and sees the junco.
It hides under a car; stalking the birds. Finally, it gives up.
It walks up to me.
I pet it with my leather gloves.
It looks at more juncos on another tree. Whiskers twitching.
It encircles me and gets petted again.

It looks up at all the tiny birds.
I want a shot of the birds- any bird.
It wants a shot at the birds. Any bird.

Do the birds think the cat and I are allies?
I pet the cat.
The birds hop down on the ground.
The cat moves away and stops three feet from me; looking at the birds.
I look at the birds too.
I get one photo of a junco hunting on the ground.

I look up.
Northern flickers and robins arrive on the tree above me.
A scrub jay flies diagonally through the scene.
A gull flies far overhead.
Do I hear the wren?
When I look down, the cat is gone.

Rain

Rain, oh, rain.

Why must you pour

at the exact moment I 

descend from the bus to 

go to my apartment? Why

must you drench the woman

who is already late to the airport?

Why do I feel so stuck and so

bored that I am writing this

insipid poem just for the

sake of having written?

Just so that today, no

matter my lack of 

inspiration I will

spew words.

An Ordinary Day

An ordinary day but a holiday

 A day on which it was sixty F and the sun shining

  A day for taking pictures in a garden.

    In November.

Not a day like today: drizzly, gray and cold.

 A day when a wolf-dog with icy blue eyes stared at me at the cross-walk for no reason.

It was ten. On the way to the Rhododendron garden.

Via Public Transit.

Via Downtown.

A woman feeding pigeons in downtown Portland.

The quotidian line of customers queuing outside the glass cave of the Apple store.

The shop-assistant unlocking the door the door at the Rolex showroom and smiling

Smelling burritos being cooked on the sidewalk waiting for the bus.

The smell of oil and beans and tortillas like the food truck for "workers" at work.

A US American wearing "Power" brand shoes from India.

Fluorescent dots working on the Tillicum Bridge.
And into the Rhododendron garden with fiery fluorescent leaves.
Take a few steps in. Relax.

Relax?
A red-sapsucker.
A RED-sapsucker.
I realize that I have a heart.
That it is pounding furiously.
Hunch my shoulder blades closer together.
Lower the backpack to the ground. Un-velcro it.
Reach for the camera.
Motion Sonya to do the same.
Birds have a way of disappearing fast. One has to be ready.
   - I admonish myself.
This red sap-sucker is in no hurry.
Hops from branch to branch. Even looks down at me for my precipitance.
Drill. Tap. Clamber.
Hop. Climb. Higher.

Spilled Millet?
Around a bend. Sun behind my back. Set up my tripod and relax.
The Spotted Towhee flees into the bushes. Crosses the path but too shy to be seen in public.
The Song Sparrow- the ubiquitous native lonely chipper- gobbles a few mouthfuls.
Makes way for the hierarchy of the squirrels.

You -the fattest baddest squirrel are not satisfied with a mouthful.
Not satiated with a minuteful.
Not satisfied with driving the others away.

You approach me after feasting with an imposing in your eye.
Stands up to make eye contact.
You have trained humans well- O Mighty Cute One!
- but I have empty pockets and instructions from Audubon to not feed you.
Your co-squirrel looks at me from his perch on the rocky ledge by the side of the path.
Looks at you to end your gluttony.
Looks at me pleadingly to shoo you away.
But you keep calm and carry on.

Clack! Clack! Clack!
Your scolding cry resonates through the garden.
Your corvid pack descends on the scene.
Half a dozen black and blue shapes against a background of leafless branches
You the boldest of them, hop to feast on the millet.
You knew when the squirrels would be done.
You, my dear Steller's Jay, pose for the most handsome full length portrait six feet away.

And in the pool to my right is a cackle of canada geese, 

 and wood ducks, and widgeons, and mallards aplenty.

Shy juncos and chee chee chickadees.

A silent crow looking on from above.

A few northern flickers alighting on branches overhead and moving on.

And an elusive green heron eclipsed by tall grass scanned by eagle-eyed Sonya- 

-perhaps you are the one from Lago Atitlan from Guatemala?

To the bigger expanse of water on my left, bounded by traffic, and train horns and a golf course

are other ducks.

Ducks whose names and identifying marks I have forgotten over the past year. 

No heron silhouette across the lake or a bald eagle on a tree.

But, I see a male bufflehead- the easiest duck to identify on a cloudy day in these northern latitudes.

And gliding nearby are nearly a dozen female buffleheads.

Clearly not fitting the profile for human newly-weds.

You are content contemplating the scene silently from afar- just within the reach of my telephoto lens.

A diving duck feeding on "Crustaceans, mollusks and insect larvae"- says the guidebook.

You do not care for the scraps of white-bread tossed by the visitors on the other side of the fence. 

And you, The red-breasted sapsucker return.

To drill a new hole into a deciduous tree.

And keep drilling insistently.

Even when two kids show up and pass by you to see the mallard multitude.

Even when a few paparazzi take photos from afar.

Even when I mistakenly identify you as a hairy woodpecker.

A fancy camera does not a birder make.
The flashcards fill up. 

The lenses retire into their warm pouches.

You keeping drilling in plain sight.

Like an oil company with an inalienable fracking right.

I leave you to your task.

And walk on.

I spot a varied thrush in the bushes.

Which climbs up and lands on a branch to validate that it was not to be mistaken for a robin.

It dives back in.

An angry mob of crows shouts displeasure at the presence of talons.

I see the talons land overhead- a white underside and a headless body blocked by a branch.

The talons make an exit- chased by the mob.

In another pond, I missed a devoted wood-duck couple
Preening each other.
Amidst the ill-mannered mallards.
Sonya shows me the photos later.

And there are Canada Geese looking imploringly at me.
I hope you don't bite me.
Your rubber-hose necks with crystal beads of water sway your head like a serpent.

You are wild I thought.
Or, perhaps, we have co-domesticated each other?

Are you permitted to be so close to me?

What about my personal space?

And on to Reed Canyon. 

Across the road.

Flecked with yellow and ferns.

And twisted limbs of aged trees.

Amazing to know that it continues all the way through.

Not a waterway for cars like Sullivan's Gulch.

A pair of mergansers slink away from us.

From the bank, smoothly without any wake.

We visit curious chickadees, a flock of Steller's jays and acorn woodpeckers.

And a separate song-sparrow tweets the party line each and every fifty feet.

Fun with Baking: Cooking in the Age of the Internet

Today was the first day, I followed a baking recipe and I am so happy that it turned out to be tasty. 

To be honest, I have done baking before. The first things I baked in my life were fish and chicken- following recipes sent by my mother on the phone or by email. My mother did a lot of baking when I was a child- the happiest memories of my life consist of licking the wooden spatula containing the baking mix of flour, eggs, sugar and vanilla. However, I had always felt that I could never succeed in baking a cake or quiche well in the oven. Thus till today, I had confined myself to baking fish or chicken or roasting veggies.

This holiday, we decided to have a meal with a friend of Sonya, named L and her family, who live across the street. Now L is a great cook with a great sense of style- whenever I eat something she makes, I am always amazed by the taste. I felt that with the invitation to her house, I wanted to contribute something original and fun. Because Sonya is vegetarian it rules out non-veg recipes. I did not want to do my usual fall-back option of cooking lentils. Why not try something new?

Luckily for me, the choice was made easy by me thinking about food that I would like to eat for a holiday meal, and settled for two things, which I have purchased and eaten at bakeries: chocolate chip bread and quiches. I make bread regularly in a bread machine, and even had one random loaf of bread where I added chocolate chips and sunflower seeds to the dough -just to be naughty; and it turned out to be yummy. I figured, with a recipe, I could certainly beat this baseline. And on occasion, when cooking an omelette I have whisked the eggs in a blender, and added spinach, in a cast iron pan, and cooked it slowly, and found that the result tasted almost like a quiche. How much harder would it be to have a crust, and follow the recipe and see if I could replicate bakery results in my own kitchen?

I did a little research on the internet over the past week, and at first was overwhelmed by the number of options spat out by google. I decided to try the third or fourth link, from a website that did not look like something from a nameless machine, but belonged to an individual.

Spinach and Cheese Quiche:

from http://www.onceuponachef.com/2010/09/spinach-quiche.html

I was lucky to find a quiche I liked- only visually- because the other senses cannot be downloaded from the internet. I went to the about section, and found that the person who wrote the blog had worked as a chef, and spent time abroad in France learning the art of cooking. I also read the reviews of the recipe, and was happy to note that almost all of them were positive. The blog author, Jenn Segal, responded intelligently to questions like "Can I make it without the crust?" or "Can I freeze and serve later?", and she took her own photos, and the quiche looked spectacular. I followed her recipe, and voila, the quiche I made looked just like the one on her blog, and it tasted as delectable as it looked. (Kudos to L for aesthetic table settings with a warm candle surrounded by  fallen maple leaves on a square frame for the centerpiece of the table.)

The quiche was not difficult to make, even if we made the one mis-step of forgetting to prick the crust before baking it in the oven. We rectified it by pricking it 8 minutes into its 15 minute baking. Also, it appeared that the cream and egg-mixture when standing in the tall blender, which would form the filling for the quiche, would be more voluminous than the capacity of the pie-crust- but it filled the crust exactly- demonstrating how humans are bad at estimating the volume of liquids in a tall container compared to a shallow and wide container.



















Chocolate Chip Banana Walnut Bread

From: http://portandfin.com/chocolate-chip-banana-walnut-bread/

For the chocolate chip bread, I was tempted to try a recipe from the same website as the quiche, but I decided to spread my bets, by trying a recipe from a different website. I chanced upon another elegant website, titled, portandfin.com. I loved the clear instructions from the website, and the appealing pictures. I was not disappointed with the moist bread (though I reduced the amount of sugar used to a third!)






























Digging into a green-salad made by L.

From http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/02/green-bean-salad-with-pickled-red-onions-and-fried-almonds/ . The beans were blanched perfectly, and were crunchy and utterly fresh and delectable.


Final Thoughts


Visual-sense dominating the others

In the internet age, I am as guilty as most other people of being attracted to something that looks visually appealing. There are probably, a number of recipes out there which are equally good, but I would not be tempted to make them without a visual prompt of how the final product is going to look like.

Buzz Factor and Book Sales 

Jenn Segal (onceuponachef.com) - Quiche recipe- mentions on her blog about her dream of writing a book and becoming a famous author and making enough money from passion for cooking.

Deb Perelman ( smittenkitchen.com) - green-bean salad - has already made it. She had a blog for years, and had her book published in 2013. (The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook). She has already had her book tour and hopefully, her book is doing well.

I am thinking about the writings of Malcolm Gladwell, and the BBC Podcast called Thinking Allowed and Nicholas Naseem Taleb,  when I think of why one person may be unsuccessful, while the other person is a hit. In 19th century France, there were a number of authors who wrote as well as Balzac who never got published (from Taleb). What is the tipping point for an author to be successful? Is it a small random difference in the initial start which makes a difference in the final outcome? That authors go on book tours- not because the sales from each author talk event make it profitable- but the only hope of having a super-hit book , out of the approximately 5000 books published each year in the USA, is that  the buzz factor from the talk, might be the tipping point which avalanches book-sales.

Reptilian Brain and Nostalgia.

Smell. Flavor.
The direct pathway to the reptilian brain.

Vanilla. Flour. Egg. Sugar.
Or all four of the above in the BATTER?

Which transported me to my childhood today.
 Cloudy but joyful memories swirling in my head.
  Of hanging out near my mother while she was baking.
   Of imagining the milky way in the double-spiral dough in the mixing bowl.
    Of licking the spatula clean.
     Of peering into the oven
        - willing the dough to rise above the baking dish at a pace visible to the naked eye.