Catbird

What is that bird?

Very elegant looking with a unique call, we looked it up to find it's a Gray Catbird. Although we've heard it in the back, we've not seen it until this year. Several unrelated groups of songbirds are called catbirds because of their wailing calls, which resemble a cat's meowing. The genus name Ailuroedus likewise is from the Greek for "cat-singer" or "cat-voiced". 

According to All About Birds, catbirds are secretive but energetic, hopping and fluttering from branch to branch through tangles of vegetation. Singing males sit atop shrubs and small trees. Catbirds are reluctant to fly across open areas, preferring quick, low flights over vegetation. Look for Gray Catbirds in dense tangles of shrubs, small trees, and vines, along forest edges, streamside thickets, old fields, and fencerows.The Gray Catbird is able to mimic the vocalizations of several other birds, and even other animals. Males with the most variety of sounds may be the most attractive to females because large repertoires demonstrate they have already survived many breeding seasons. Listen to a Gray Catbird with a particularly extensive repertoire—he even samples sounds from a Pacific chorus frog.

There's also the catbird seat.

"The catbird seat" is an American English idiomatic phrase used to describe an enviable position, often in terms of having the upper hand or greater advantage in any type of dealing among parties. The phrase derives from the common catbird's habit of making mocking calls from a secluded perch.

Here's this entertaining short story by Thurber, first published in the New Yorker in 1942:

Means of Communication

My Lapham's Quarterly arrived a few weeks ago, Means of Communication.

These collections are wonderful, with entries bite-sized but provocative enough to leave me thinking.  Juxtaposing thinkers through millennia, across cultures and alternating between text and visuals it feeds the soul.

Many of this month's selections can be accessed online, which is a good thing, because I seem to have mislaid this hard copy  more than a few times in my travels.  It's popped up again, and I'm thankful.  

Some of my favourites from this edition's pages:

The History of Life Written Across Her Face,
Margot Humphrey, 1991

Methinks the human  method of expression by sound  of tongue is very elementary and  ought to be substituted for  some ingenious invention   which should be able to  give vent to at least six coherent sentences at once

- Virginia Wolf,  1899

Plus, advice on setting type in Venice (1514);  Body Language; selections of poetry from ancient Babylon; notes made in the margins of medieval texts by bored monks and beautiful images

White Noise, by Graham Dean, 2007

I love the concept so much I'm now a subscriber.  You can also order back issues on themes including Food, Eros, Family and Lines of Work.

Taking in the good

Hour long lecture to Google staff

"There's an expression in neuroscience: Neurons that fire together wire together. This means that new patterns of thought can actually change the physiology of our brains.  So while we can't ignore the bad news, we can train our brains to become more alert to good information.   When you notice a positive detail in yourself or someone else, or your environment, try savouring it for at least ten seconds. Most of these observations will be as simple as "the sun is shining" or "this coffee tastes good", but do this a handful of times each day and you'll feel an emotional shift."
-Rick Hanson, Phd, neuropsychologist and co-author of Buddha's Brain.

1. Look for positive facts, and let them become positive experiences
2. Savour the positive experience, sustain it for 10-20-30 seconds. Feel it in your body and emotions.    Intensify it.
3. Sense and intend that the positive experience is soaking into your brain and body - registering deeply into emotional memory.

We can deliberately use the mind, over time, to change the brain for the better:

Birding Paradise

For my hiking and birding kindred spirits:

Ontario Nature digital magazine Spring 2012 has a feature article about Best In Birding.  "No need to head to exotic locales. Ontario’s landscapes offer a birding paradise right in our own backyard."

Lots of info about places in the GTA, including my beloved Bluffers Park.

A weekend jaunt to Pelee Island would be fun, too - I could combine two interests - birding and wine-tasting!

This spring or summer I'd like to check out Cootes Paradise in Hamilton. Alex told me about the waterfall there a few years back and I've been meaning to visit ever since.

Three recent reads....

Of three recent reads, my favourite is definitely Lapham's Quarterly, summer edition Food. I've spent hours enjoying the illustrations, essays and sidebars. Glancing at a single page brings hours of thought and imaginings.

Food has contributions from Emperor Julian, Duke Ellington, Hunter S. Thompson, Edo, and Charles Beaudelaire.  The illustrations are beautiful - including one of my all-time favourites from Arcimbaldo.

I've seen the quarterly on the shelf before but passed it up because it seemed pricey.  But how could I pass up one on this subject?  Certainly lots of "food for thought".

One sidebar offers:  Meal Plans Daily Menus at various institutions  through time and history(p 119); another offers the  William Carlos Williams poem, Icebox Note; and another Foreign Delicacies in Three Easy Steps, with recipes for fried tarantula, river pig, and maggot-ridden pecorino cheese (p.68).

Great quotes/toasts peppered throughout:

• It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears (Cato the Elder)
• No lyric poems live long or please many people which are written by drinkers of water (Horace, 20 BC)
• When men drink, then they are rich and successful and win lawsuits and are happy and help their friends.  Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever (Aristophanes, 424 BC)
• Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die (Book of Isaiah)
• He who eats alone chokes alone (Arab proverb)

Chop Suey, Edward Hopper (1929)

I felt obligated to read the The Sentimentalist when it won the Giller; I became obligated when it ended up as one of the Book Club selections. Not loving it. I find my mind wanders and I wonder what's going on as the plot unfolds upon itself. There is one bit I like, though, and that is the boat that was purchased with the intention to fix up and and then sits in the driveway for years. It moves when it is trailered from one place to another, floating along the driveway (and I imagine, sailing down the hiway). Reading this right after The Tale of the Unknown Island, the metaphor gains even more significance. I will go back to this again in August and give it another try....

Liz P. gave me Room as a gift, and I finally got around to reading it on the way home from Victoria. It was almost the perfect length for the plane ride. By the second chapter the first-person voice of the five-year-old was really getting on my nerves, but I persevered, hoping the two main characters would find their way out of confinement soon as I was losing patience. While the novel itself was inspired by real events, the insights of the five-year-old require a huge suspension of disbelief.

Proof that Other People Exist

You know.  Well.  Some weeks are just longer than others.

Happily came home to a perfect antidote. My first copy of 'Other People Exist'.  Laugh-out-loud-in-my-backyard funny.  Scare-the-birds-with-weird-laughing-sounds funny.

I can't remember how I came across the 'Other People Exist' blog, some mutual link somewhere.  The zine is available only through snail-mail, limited editions.  Sign up fast before it goes pdf!

I would scan and print but that would definitely be a copyright infringement, so I really must urge you to order your own copy.

I'm sticking my cheque in the mail for Year Six.

And I must say, this zine goes well with Hendrick's Gin.  Both are small batch & hand-crafted.

Sip slowly.  Savour.  Juniper, coriander and citrus peel infused with rose petal and cucumber.

"A most iconoclastic gin.  It is not for everyone."  But those who like it, like it a lot.

Leaping greenly spirits of trees...

Sweet potato gnocchi with fried sage and shaved chestnuts

Absolutely delicious!

The recipe is from the October issue of Gourmet magazine, which ceased publication with its November issue. Their website is still going strong, but the recipe appears below (just in case).

Making gnocchi is not as intimidating as I first thought. In fact, rolling the dough is almost therapeutic. The first time I made this I didn't have chestnuts on hand, but pecans worked quite well. Wonderfully colourful on the plate!

For tips on making the dough from a real Italian nona I visited You Tube. Don't worry , the footage is a bit corrupt in the middle but rights itself soon enough. She speaks in Italian but the demo is easily understood.

OCTOBER 2009

Frying sage leaves is easy and provides a real wow factor. The sage and chestnuts make an ideal foil for these pillowy gnocchi. View more of our favorite recipes from this issue.

• 1 1/4 lb russet (baking potatoes)
• 1 (3/4-lb) sweet potato
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano plus more for serving
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 cup sage leaves (from 1 bunch)
• 1/3 cup bottled roasted chestnuts, very thinly sliced with an adjustable-blade slicer or a sharp vegetable peeler
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• EQUIPMENT:

  a potato ricer or a food mill fitted with fine disk

MAKE GNOCCHI:

• Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in middle.
• Pierce russet and sweet potatoes in several places with a fork, then bake in a 4-sided sheet pan until just tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
• Cool potatoes slightly, then peel and force through ricer into sheet pan, spreading in an even layer. Cool potatoes completely.
• Lightly flour 2 or 3 large baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
• Beat together egg, nutmeg, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in a small bowl.
• Gather potatoes into a mound in sheet pan, using a pastry scraper if you have one, and form a well in center.
• Pour egg mixture into well, then knead into potatoes. Knead in cheese and 11/2 cups flour, then knead, adding more flour as necessary, until mixture forms a smooth but slightly sticky dough. Dust top lightly with some of flour.
• Cut dough into 6 pieces. Form 1 piece of dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rope on a lightly floured surface. Cut rope into 1/2-inch pieces. Gently roll each piece into a ball and lightly dust with flour.
• Repeat with remaining 5 pieces of dough.
• Turn a fork over and hold at a 45-degree angle, with tips of tines touching work surface. Working with 1 at a time, roll gnocchi down fork tines, pressing with your thumb, to make ridges on 1 side. Transfer gnocchi as formed to baking sheets.

FRY SAGE LEAVES AND CHESTNUTS:

• Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Fry sage leaves in 3 batches, stirring, until they turn just a shade lighter and crisp (they will continue to crisp as they cool), about 30 seconds per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Season lightly with salt.
• Fry chestnuts in 3 batches, stirring, until golden and crisp, about 30 seconds per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain. Season lightly with salt. Reserve oil in skillet.

MAKE SAUCE:

• Add butter to oil in skillet with 1/2 tsp salt and cook until golden-brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

COOK GNOCCHI:

• Add half of gnocchi to a pasta pot of well-salted boiling water and stir. Cook until they float to surface, about 3 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to skillet with butter sauce. Cook remaining gnocchi in same manner, transferring to skillet as cooked.
• Heat gnocchi in skillet over medium heat, stirring to coat.
• Serve sprinkled with fried sage and chestnuts and grated cheese.

COOKS’ NOTES:

Uncooked gnocchi can be frozen (first in 1 layer on a baking sheet, then transferred to a sealable bag) up to 1 month. Do not thaw before cooking.
• Chestnuts can be sliced 1 day ahead and kept in an airtight container at cool room temperature.
• Sauce and topping can be halved; make full recipe of gnocchi and freeze half of it.

RECIPE BY MELISSA ROBERTS

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROMULO YANES

Ombama

Refreshing

yet

Oddly disturbing

This is one of the latest Lululemon ads & appears on the back of February Yoga Journal. I thought it was charming and funny when I first saw it, but now that I look at it again, in the context of selling yoga gear, it seems crass.

The style reminds me of graphic Russian propaganda in the Stalin era, the colours are definitely borrowed from the American palette, the branding is blatant and understated at the same time.

I love Obama, I love yoga, I think Lululemon is a great company, but still, the whole thing together is a bit creepy.

On the inside back cover there is a short interview with Bikram Choudhury, the guru who has trademarked his method and opened franchises worldwide. He has a lot of fans, but probably more critics. Here are a few Qs & As (I would link but it isn't on the Yoga Journal website yet).

Q. You think yoga should be in the Olympics?

Sports give kids discipline, but you can't always do them. But we can do yoga at 100. With yoga, kids won't do drugs, smoke, drink, go to jail. Competitions will increase yoga's popularity. We can make this world heaven if every child does yoga.

Q. What's the biggest misconception people have about you?

People wonder why I have Rolls Royces, a diamond wristwatch, live in Beverly Hills. I don't want to live in a cave in the Himalayas and meditate for myself only. That's no good for society! I want to spread yoga around the world....

I guess there is nothing inherently wrong with making money, it's a fact of life. Both these instances don't quite sit well with me, because they are commercial enterprises with the end-game of maximizing profits, capitalizing on an essentially spiritual practice. Like Tammy Faye and Jim Baker.

Well, better this than selling guns and starting wars to stay in business.

Zoomer

Love the magazine, Zoomer! Smart, and focused on the interests of people 45 years old and up.

How can you not support a magazine that challenges "everyone in society to look at aging with new eyes and create A New Vision of Aging.... It isn't about about denying your age or refusing to grow up. It is about redefining what aging means, whether you are 40, 60, 80 or 100 plus.... Longevity experts tell us that people are open to new ideas and seek out challenges live longer, healthier and happier lives." (Zoomer, March edition). Plus it's Canadian, eh?

Okay, I'm in... whether I like it or not, I'm getting older. I'm still a far cry from 60 but I'm looking to see more positive depictions of older women reflected in media. Margaret Atwood, Helen Mirren, Lauren Hutton, Emma Thompson, Adrienne Clarkson... bring 'em on.

The magazine features articles on the usual subjects of health, food, fashion and sex, but from a more mature perspective. How is this for a fun fact: "Doctors perform CPR better and with more confidence if they listen to 'Stayin'Alive' while they do it," apparently the Bee Gees song is 103 beats per minute, very close to the perfect CPR beat of 100 compressions per minute.

The website for Zoomer still leaves a lot to be desired. But page through the March print edition, with Margaret Atwood on the cover.

I'm getting a subscription for my mom, with full borrowing rights, of course!

Healthy Pleasures

In 1990, when I picked up a copy of the book "Healthy Pleasures," by Robert Ornstein, it was one of the few books that looked at the scientific research about happiness and wellness. Most research up until then was focusing on mental illness, not mental wellness, and this book pointedly asked, "What makes people happy?"

Almost twenty years later, this basic observation still holds true:

The most healthy people do not follow the correct advice about health… some
assault the government's dietary guidelines at almost every meal… they salt
their foods… they love dessert… they drink a few glasses of wine everyday… the
exercise they get (to paraphrase Mark Twain) is as pallbearers at the funerals
of their overactive friends… They are keenly aware of their senses and relish
opportunity to indulge in sensory pleasures; savoring a tasty meal, listening to
favourite music or bird songs… they expect good things of the world and they expect pleasure in much of what they do.

Here's a preview of some of the pages in the book.

It was interesting to read in the February 2009 Psychology Today article Happiness, How to Turn it On that "happiness literature" has since exploded - last year 4,000 books were published compared to only 50 books released in 2000. Now the pendulum is swinging back - with the observation that "...our preoccupation with happiness has come at the cost of sadness, an important feeling that we've tried to banish from our emotional repertoire." Academics are observing the phenomena and publishing titles such as, "How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder."

The article presents a 'Greatest Hits' list that's of interest and there is an accompanying piece featuring a "passle of pedestrians" answering questions about what makes them happy. If I were one of the passers-by I would have talked about trying to find happiness in the pleasure of everyday moments, instead of looking at happiness as a place or destination or the consequence of something I own.

The 1990 title, "Healthy Pleasures" is still relevant, talking as it does about the importance of meditation, taking "music baths," deepening sensory experience and spending time recognizing simple pleasures like a good meal or spending time with friends. This book receives a 5 star rating in my Google Library because it changed not only how I look at the world, but how I live in the world.

Incidentally, I've noticed that since starting this blog I'm more aware of savouring these moments and pleasures, and yes, I guess I'm much happier in general, so here's a toast (with a cupfull of great wine) to 'Things We Love." Because they are so good for us.