Happy Easter

Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba)

Bloodroot (Sangunaria canadensis)

For the first time in about 3 years, we're actually having a nice spring here in Chicago. There has been ample warmth and sunshine. Today was gorgeous, and Leon and I took an Easter morning walk at Bluff Spring Fen. In addition to the very familiar spring wildflowers like Bloodroot and Hepatica, we saw some more unusual species, like Early Buttercup and Whitlow Cress.

Early Buttercup (Ranunculus fascicularis)


Whitlow Cress (Draba reptans)

I especially like the Whitlow cress, because it's so tiny. The entire plant in the photo could be covered with a dime- with room to spare.

There were other important signs of spring at the Fen today, as well.

Twelve-spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela duodecimguttata)

After we returned from the Fen, we had our friend Michael over for a traditional Easter dinner of ham, squash, and rice pilaf. Michael brought over a special Easter bread that he made, and we had home-made raspberry ice cream for dessert. What made the meal especially fun is that it was in the 70's this afternoon, so we ate out on the screened porch.

Holiday Creations

I've been working for some time now for cheese to accompany me home for the holidays. This is the first year that I have been able to create a cheese flight for Christmas Eve. I began a blue cheese way back last summer, a Gouda around Labor Day, and a Camembert just a few weeks ago. I was especially eager to try the Gouda, as it's the first one that I have made with the Guernsey milk (verdict: better, but still not what I'm looking for).

The Flight (l-r): Karner Bleu, Gouda, Camembert

Chilmark Girl gave me a beautiful porcelain tray for my birthday. It set the cheese flight off nicely.

Jan Hagels

I made Jan Hagels again this year- a perennial favorite (the link will get you to the recipe)

Th Sally Lunn bread came out much better than last year.

Today, Chilmark Girl was typically adept in creating a Christmas feast featuring herbed rack of lamb. I've only been home a few days, and have already eaten far too much. I hope all of my readers have had a fine day.

The Miraculous Mangosteen*

*With apologies to Bela Bartok

Six years ago, the New York Times ran a story on an exotic fruit called the mangosteen. The author waxed rhapsodic about the incredible taste of this Asian beauty that was unavailable in the US. I've craved one ever since. My recent trip to Malaysia represented my first opportunity to try them. At the risk of sounding like a 14-year-old girl, OMG, OMG, OMG!


Mangosteens are about the size of tennis balls. The outer skin has a very similar texture and toughness to that of a pomegranate. It's inedible- the delicious part lies hidden within. The blossom scar on the bottom is lobed, and the number of lobes corresponds to the number of segments of the inner fruit. Mangosteens are challenging to eat. The outer, inedible flesh is red, and it's juice stains. The inner fruit is very sticky and juicy, but the whole thing is so incredibly worthwhile that this hardy merits mentioning.


The segments of the inner fruit separate like those of a citrus, which is not even remotely related. The largest, (or occasionally two largest, as in this photo) segment contains a single seed, which is surrounded by a rich, fragrant and flavorful jelly. The smaller segments consist of the jellylike pulp with no seed.

I can't begin to describe the flavor. It's sweet and scented, though not cloying. There is no tartness like one might find in a kiwi, yet there's a bright, refreshing quality to the flavor. And, like the kiwi, it's tempting to describe the flavor as a combination of other fruits- yet in the end, it just tastes like mangosteen. I've waited six years to try this, and it lived up to expectations.


The other interesting fruit that I sampled on my trip was the rambutan, a relative of the lychee. The leathery skin is coated with pliable spines, that aren't at all sharp. The skin is easily ripped open with the fingers.


The white fruit within is about twice the size and the same texture as a peeled grape. There is a single seed within.


Rambutans are much easier to eat than mangosteens. Sweet and juicy, they are delicious in their own right, though they lack the startling complexity of flavor of the latter fruit.

Journey to the Cameron Highlands

The hosting institution for the ICBES conference in Malaysia was Tropical Entomological House. They maintain a beautiful butterfly display in Penang and supply live butterflies to other butterfly displays around the world, including ours. Earlier in the week , we had visited both their public display and their breeding facility. It looked lovely, even in the rain. Our hosts were, nonetheless, a bit disappointed that they had not able to show their facility at it's best due to the weather. They wanted us to return. As someone who runs a similar exhibit, I fully understood the motivation. Saturday morning was beautifully sunny, so we delayed our departure for the post-conference tour of the Cameron Highlands in order to have a better look at the exhibit.

I enjoyed the exhibit for a bit while waiting for my friend BT to show up. I had an ulterior motive. There is a nice population of tiger beetles on the grounds of the Butterfly Farm, and BT had told me I could collect a series. Let's just say that I had a very good time.

Spotted Tiger Beetle (Cicindela aurulenta)

This was the only species of tiger beetle that I would see on the trip, however I got to see it in several different locations. We departed the Farm for a journey to the mainland peninsula of Malaysia, with the plan of seeing some sites on the way to the Cameron Highlands. Penang is an island, and we departed via the longest bridge in Southeast Asia. It was a glorious day and we were treated to views of the islands dotting the Strait of Penang.

Island in the Strait of Penang

The road runs through an extensive region of oil palm plantations, then enters some beautiful tropical forest near the mountains. We skirted the coast and had lunch at a fishing village. The restaurant where we ate is the upstairs of a facility where fish is unloaded from the boats. Let's just say that the fish was very fresh. I especially enjoyed the pompano and the blood cockles.

Fishing docks viewed from the restaurant

Fisherman about to catch a line and tie his boat up

The fishing village was on a river estuary, surrounded by mangrove forests. There is a beautiful nature reserve with boardwalks though the mangroves. We visited after lunch. There was excellent wildlife viewing, including long-tailed macaques.

Mangrove Forest

Colorful Crab

Hairstreak
It's disconcerting to be as unfamiliar with the butterflies as I was here.

Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis)

During the walk through the mangroves, I had a chat with Michael who was part of the hosting team. On the first day of the conference, as I was signing in, he approached me. Asking if I was Doug Taron, he told me that he was a reader of Gossamer Tapestry. Hi, Michael! As I was taking photographs, he asked if I planned to blog about this. I said or course, and had a colleague take a picture of the two of us so i could post it here.

Michael, Mangroves, and Me

While the mangroves forest seems idyllic, it is exploited as a resource. After lunch we stopped by a charcoal factory that used mangrove wood as a raw material. We were told that the mangrove is sustainably harvested. I have no way of assessing this myself. The boardwalk runs through secondary forest, the primary forest having long ago been cleared for charcoal. The charcoal factory was decidedly low tech, using human labor rather than machinery for most of the operation.

A worker shovels finished charcoal out of a kiln

By now it was late afternoon. It would take us several hours more to travel into the mountains where we would spend the next day. It was dark when we arrived and I fell asleep to the gentle tapping of tropical rain on the window.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

My habañero peppers only produce ripe fruit about one year in three. This was a good year. Many more to come- I foresee much salsa in my future.

Full Weekend

Ichiban Eggplant and Roma Tomatoes

It was such a full weekend that I never got to the Fen. That's pretty surprising at this time of the year. Things at home had me tied down. We spent a lot of time working on the screened porch. That project has been underway for a bunch of years now- and we just about finished up. I'll give it a whole blog post later in the week.

The vegetable garden is producing full tilt at the moment, and I spent a lot of the weekend putting food by. I froze three pints of eggplant and two of beans. I dried a bunch of Roma tomatoes, and went to the farm stand for corn. I got four pints of bicolored sweet corn in the freezer. I'm feeling very virtuous right now.

Sweet Corn!

It wasn't all indoor stuff, however. As I mentioned recently, we have 300 swamp metalmark larvae in the lab right now. That's a lot of mouths to feed. I collected a bit of swamp thistle, which is the caterpillar food plant.

Swamp Thistle (Cirsium muticum)

Swamp thistle is a biennial. It grows a rosette the first year, and in the second year it blooms, sets seed, and dies. I collect the first year rosettes to feed the caterpillars. I get them from a mowed area on the edge of a bike path just up the street from my house.

The bike path. The thistle is mostly on the right side.

First year thistle rosette

Summer is definitely passing by. I saw a lot of fall wildflowers. Sunflowers were abundant, but there were some other, more interesting fall flowers.

Tall White Lettuce (Prenanthes alba)


One of the Fireweeds (Epilobium sp.)

I even saw zigzag goldenrod, which Andy and Adam were discussing with me last weekend. I took a picture so they can see what it looks like.

Zigzag Goldenrod (Solidago flexicaulis)

After digging up one of the thistles, I felt a tickling sensation on my left wrist. A mating pair of stick insects had climbed aboard.

Northern Walking Stick (Diapheromera femorata)

You can see the much smaller male on the lower left of the female.

The problem with very full weekends is that Monday always seems to come around particularly quickly.

Fun with Chilmark Girl

The end of my New England trip was all about family. I've already blogged about going to the Sox game with my dad on Wednesday night. Thursday, Chilmark Girl (my little sister, for those who don't know) and the BIL got together for lunch with Leon and I. Friday night they had us over for dinner.


I brought a round of Camembert with me and a bread called Ami de Fromage from a Chicago bakery. I was very eager to have CG try my cheese, because this is her first time tasting some that I have made with raw Guernsey milk. She seemed reasonably impressed.



Chilmark Girl has been one of my primary cooking inspirations in life (along, of course with Mom- however my cooking style is much more like CG's than it is like Mom's was). It was the kind of meal that I'd expect from CG- succulent pork tenderloin, amazing salad, fresh asparagus (perfectly steamed) Parmesan biscuits, and a wild mushroom risotto that I couldn't believe. Dessert was the orange-ricotta tart with blackberries that you can see us holding in the top photo.

The CG household gets on very well with Leon and I in part because they are fellow geeks. The BIL and the nephew spend lots of time building electronic gadgets from parts that they scrounge from old electronics that they find online, at yard sales, and in the trash. Sample invention: a zapper that discourages squirrel raids to the bird feeder. It was only natural that the group would spend the evening blacklighting in the back yard.

Still working on an ID for this tiny guy

Harris's Three-spot (Harrisimemna trisignata)

The blacklighting was notable only for the good company. Most of the latter half of the trip was cloudy and rainy. We did get a few good moths, however, including Harris's Three-spot, a lifer for me.

The weather improved on Saturday, which was beautifully warm and sunny. We had lunch in downtown Manchester and time in the park with my brother, SIL, and two nieces. The CG family arrived by boat, and took Leon and I out for some time in Manchester Harbor and out by Misery Island.

The outer harbor, looking back towards Manchester

I spent a lot of time on the water off of Cape Ann when I was growing up. It's been many years since I've been out there. I had a great time, and was surprised at how enthusiastic Leon was about being out on the water.

Me, the nephew (who's nearly 14) and Leon. The last time I say the nephew at Christmas, I was still able to look him in the eye. Now I'm definitely looking up at him. Yeeps!

It was a wonderful weekend. Thanks, Chilmark Girl!

Soup for a Dreary Weekend

I have been very busy this past week, hence my very light blogging. Yesterday was the butterfly monitoring workshop. More about that in another post. The whole weekend has been dreary. It's been very dark and gray with lots of rain. We're having a thunderstorm right now. At least it sn't snowing. It's perfect soup weather. Let's make cream of mushroom and roasted red peper soup.


I've found that it's much easier to get the skin off of roasted red peppers if you char them until the skins are really, really black. This doesn't harm the flesh underneath, and gives it a nce flavor. Once the skins are blackened, I put the peppers in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let them sit for 10 minutes. Then I take the skins off under cold running water.


Next I sautée a coarsly chopped onion and some diced garlic in olive oil. The soup gets a better flavor and color if I do the onions first, and let them get nice and browned.When the onions are almost done, I add the garlic and continue just until it's nice and fragrant. Then I quench it with some dry white wine. I bring the wine to a gentle boil, stirring to bring up the browned bits off of the bottom of the pot. I add chicken stock. This time around I used turkey stock that was still in the freezer after Thanksgiving. A very tasty vegetarian version of this soup uses vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.


A couple of Portobello mushrooms and the chopped roasted red peppers go into the soup. It gets covered and sits on a low simmer. I let this one putter along for most of the afternoon.


I don't have a photo of me using my new toy. I puree the entire soup with the new hand-held blender that I got for Chirstmas. The entire puree then gets put through a sieve. The result is a beautiful rich brown soup stock. The residue that gets left behind is a great base for mushroom pâté. If you stop at this point, this soup freezes very well. I next add a couple of chopped mushrooms and a chopped roasted red pepper. The next time I make this soup, I'd also like to add a handful of pearl barley at this point. This soup is so full of great vegetables that it's really good for you.


Or not. I suppose it would make a fine soup without the heavy cream, but it wouldn't taste nearly as good. It's a great way to warm up during cold, dismal weather.