There are many gulls sitting on these rocks at the Asbury Park beach. But you will see at the end of the post, the humans out number the gulls.
One lone gull (is he a gull? See this list of sea birds) flies away from his friends. This one appears brown.
A brown gull flies by the active waves. Crafty Green Poet writes: “the brown bird is probably a young gull, most species of gull have I think three years in brown plumage (slightly different each of the years) before they take on adult plumage” – thank you!
A few brave souls sit on the rocks at the beach. My kids both went dunking into the freezing May waters. I just put in my toe. My husband relaxed on the beach – too cold for him.
This photo should give you an idea of how crowded it was on the beach. And economically, this is good news. Asbury Park was very depressed in the past thirty years. My husband grew up in this area, and he saw the decline. About one hundred years ago, it was quite a fashionable place. People may no longer walk in fancy dresses and suits, but the new restaurants and shops are upscale. I hope the gulls don’t mind.
Pictured in the crowded beach photo are the Asbury Park Theatre (see it in my Asbury post from last year) and the Berkeley Carteret Hotel.
In honor of Jerusalem, I am posting a few pictures from our 2008 trip:
This is a synagogue that was destroyed by the Arab Legion in 1948. Here it is, in the Old City of Jerusalem, being rebuilt. The original Hurva synagogue was built in the 18th century and destroyed by Muslims. As it lay in ruins for 140 years until being rebuilt in 1864, it became known as the Hurva, which means ruins.
Migdal David (Tower of David) is now a fun historical museum by the Jaffa Gate. It wasn’t a museum when I first visited in 1980. You can see the winding tree sculpture on this photo of mine.
These flowers are growing by the arch in Migdal David – you can see my photo of the arch here.
If you think the “Old City” of Jerusalem is old – actually, it is new compared to the City of David. Pictured are excavations at the site. If you visit Jerusalem, I highly recommend a City of David tour.
In memory of the many soldiers that have died serving the U.S. or in any country that allowed the rest of us to have freedom, here’s the famous Flanders fields poem by Canadian John McCrae, written during World War I:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields
The two orange “blobs” in my photo (behind the rocket-like white columbine) are marigolds.
Jazz girl (namely my daughter) wants you to help with this post. As I wanted to write a post but I wasn’t sure what to say, I decided to ask questions. Pick any or all and answer in the comments.
Are you reading or have you read any good books? Care to share?
I’m reading The River Midnight by Lilian Nattel; I found it buried in a stack of books at the Highland Park Public Library book sale on Sunday. It’s a novel about women in a shtetl in Poland: one in particular who has not been able to have children and her friend and neighbor who has many, more than she can handle.
When you think of a photo from any blog other than your own, which photo first comes to mind?
I had in mind one post of an old house by EG Wow, but somehow I landed on this house by Lake Ontario.
Can you name any recipe from a blog other than your own that influenced your cooking or baking?
It would have to be Batya’s cake recipe (from 2005!) – she no longer talks about cake. Last year she talked a lot about diets, and this year she has been posting about simple cooking.
If you are a lurker (someone who reads this blog but rarely or never comments), will you delurk and say hello?
By the way, my daughter danced with a different teacher tonight, and it went well. So we probably have a new dance studio for her for September. And if you haven’t yet visited my free postcard giveaway post, you still have a few days left to join just by leaving a comment on that post.
These cookies were a Mother’s Day present from my daughter. She had a school assignment to get recipes for a book that would be presented to the mothers on Mother’s Day. So she and my husband went looking for the “perfect” cookie recipe – actually, they took various recipes they found online and combined them into a Raspberry Oatmeal Walnut Cookie. Last Friday I decided to make the cookies based on her recipe, and I was wondering why the recipe called for 3 cups of whole wheat flour AND 1 cup of oatmeal – that seemed to be an awfully dry cookie. I modified the recipe as I went along, and I found out when my husband came home that the recipe in the book was a conglomeration of various baking recipes. Oh, now he tells me. The recipe below is my modified version.
Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar OR 1/2 cup white sugar + 1 Tbsp. molasses (I did white sugar + molasses)
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup oatmeal (old-fashioned rolled oats)
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup flour (whatever you like – I used white, unbleached flour)
Topping (optional):
1/2 cup white sugar
6 strawberries or 20 raspberries (my daughter’s recipe called for raspberries – I improvised with strawberries – worked fine)
Heat oven to 375°. Mix coconut oil, 1 egg, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl. Mix well. Add baking soda. Add flour, oats and chopped nuts. Mix well. If it looks dry (which my mixture did), add the second egg.
Put spoonfuls of the cookie batter on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Put in the oven and bake for 4 minutes. While the cookies are baking, mix the berries in the food processor with sugar. Take out the cookies after 4 minutes, and apply a spoonful of berry topping to each one. Then bake the cookies for another 8 minutes or so. If you skip the berry topping, you can just bake the cookies for 10 minutes.
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My husband and I loved the cookies, and my sons said they were okay. My boys would have preferred the cookies without the berry topping. My middle son is considering making peanut butter with oatmeal cookies. His current peanut butter cookie recipe is just eggs, sugar and peanut butter.
I learned through Twitter that the husband of Trip’n Mommy, sometimes known as Trip’n Daddy, has died after his battle with lymphoma. His name in real life is Barry Shuter. Sometimes, if you read enough of someone’s tweets, you feel like you know them. Trip’n Mommy has a blog called Trip’n Up, named after her triplets.
May his wife and children be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Bridge over Canal in New Hope, PA
We visited New Hope, PA last Sunday – we went on a train ride, visited the old Parry House and browsed in some shops. This photo of the bridge over the canal is my entry for Sunday Bridges.
FYI, Laura was right about the pickles: ours fermented a few days longer, and they were sharper and more sour! Yum. Use plenty of garlic, if you love the garlic flavor.
This graceful ballet dancer is performing a scene from Alice in Wonderland (she plays Alice). As the room was not well lit, I found it easier set the camera to take photos in sepia than in full color. You will have to imagine the white with a bit of pale blue dress.
Ah, she has fallen. Perhaps she has just come down the rabbit hole.
Would you like to win free postcards of your very own photos? Or postcards for your business or cards with photos of your kids. Visit Postcard Giveaway and Catchy Title Contest and leave a comment to enter.
This blog got an overhaul this morning, but you may not notice many changes (feel free to comment on the ones you do notice). I updated the theme of the blog to a child of the Twenty Ten theme. What does that mean in English? It just means the code is more 2010 than the previous theme, which I created myself from scratch in 2007. So it helps me out technically with adding new plugins to the blog, such as the Add This plugin so you can easily share a post on your favorite social media site, such as Facebook or Twitter.
There is a contest on my other site, Websites for Small Biz, that offers free postcards. Yay – my first giveaway. Stay tuned to either of these blogs to learn more.
The girl? She’s my daughter in Winter 2009. She’s taller now and even more graceful a dancer.
Pickles in a Container Fermenting with Spices, Garlic and Brine
It sounds daunting, making your own pickles, but the trick is assembling the ingredients and equipment. The rest is throwing it together and patience. You don’t want to use vinegar in your pickles – the whole idea is to create your own fermentation, so you can reap the benefits of the good bacteria from pickling. This recipe was inspired by the Sour Pickles recipe in Sandor Ellix Katz’s book Wild Fermentation.
Ingredients and Equipment
1 large jar or jug or plastic bucket (just has to be big enough to fit your pickles)
6 medium-sized pickling cucumbers (you can use as many as fit in your container)
2 tsp. Ball Pickling Spice (or make your own with black peppercorns, dill seed, cardamom seed, mustard seed, allspice, coriander, bay leaves)
3 – 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced in half
4 tsp. sea salt
water – enough to cover the pickles
grape or oak or horseradish or sour cherry leaves (to keep the cucumbers crisp – the tannin in the leaves is supposed to help) – I used oak leaves
1 piece of cloth and 1 rubber band
1 small lid + 1 weight, such as a rock or two to weigh down the pickles (I updated this recipe with this recommendation)
Place the spices, leaves, garlic and cucumbers in the container. Sprinkle at least 3 tsp. of sea salt on top. Pour water into the container so that it covers the pickles. If you want, you can then add some more salt. Sandor Katz suggests covering the pickles with a plate and a weight; since I don’t have a plate that small (he was using a big bucket instead of a jar), I used a smaller jar lid from a different jar and two rocks to weigh down the pickles. Cover with cloth and rubber band.
Check the pickles every day. If a little mold is growing on the top of the pickles, wash off the mold. The pickles may be ready in a week or in two. My first batch tasted a bit like a mild sour pickle after one week of soaking in the brine and spices.
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If you like homemade pickles, maybe you will enjoy homemade sauerkraut, too.
