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Catch Up Cafe Pt. 3

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by purpleskys

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252 replies

by purpleskys

with their green heads poking through all the foliage. I'm very interested in the wild garlic. Is it something one can actually use for cooking like chives sort of http://taniaoconnor.com/?p=66 or are they just pretty to look at?

We're still plugging along in the chilly weather. Yesterday we did a little skate around a patch of ice we made for Sarah to skate on. It was Hockey Day in Canada yesterday so it was just the right thing to do :)

by Member 25348569

and quite a trendy "cheffy" food. Michelin-starred restaurants serve dishes with them in. You eat the leaves of the young plants and treat them like spinach. It's just like eating a mildly garlicky, very tender spinach. A large bagful of leaves added to a pasta sauce or noodle dish and cooked just for a minute melts down.

I had a conversation this time last year and I think we established that they aren't available your side of The Pond.

This is a bowl of wild garlic chicken noodles from last year. A shopping-bag full of noodles went into a dish for four and just disappeared into what you see here.

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l243/neilb_uk/IMG_0039.jpg

Finely shredded into mayonnaise...mmmm....

:)

I'm a great believer in "hedgerow food". I'll be having pasta will mussels and wild garlic in a couple of weeks if the weather and tide are right for a bit of seashore foraging. Otherwise, chicken again.

by purpleskys

...I don't remember the conversation, but I''m sure we did...I just can't recall it..I do admit, I'm envious as well; it would be awesome to have something like that to cook with. I enjoy spinach and we've taken to using fresh garlic a lot with most of our cooking. That would be a nice addition to our cooking.

by Member 25348569

Your memory isn't going! :D

I meant that I had the conversation on TR and I think it's in one of the TR garden threads.

Neil :)

If you can get the seeds, it's very easy to grow. You can also eat the bulbs and flowers although I've never tried the bulbs as I don't want to dig any up. The flowers are rather unusual fried in a tempura batter.

Another nice thing about wild garlic is that it can be used to get people into the idea of "wild food" as, because of the smell, there is no mistaking it for anything else! Which is good, because the leaves are quite like lily-of-the-valley, which is poisonous.

American wild garlic is Allium vineale, which is quite like chives. That was introduced from Europe and, I believe, is now a pest. "My" wild garlic is Allium ursinum and, although it's also closely related to chives, has a much better flavour than A. vineale.

by purpleskys

good to know I haven't lost it then :D . We don't have wild garlic around here that I know of, but we do have garlic chives (they're not as garlicky as I had hoped they would be). We have both in our garden out back, they sure do tend to take over if given the chance. I may have to hunt down some seeds, if they're available around here, and try growing some. Thanks for the info Neil :)

by av .

I remember the picture of your yummy chicken with udon noodles and wild garlic. I would never think of cooking with Allium vineale, but I love chives, especially on a baked potato with sour cream and butter. Comfort food.

Your wild garlic looks very tasty and its leafy. Perfect for cooking, unlike the wiry, grass-like A. vineale. I've never looked for A. ursinum in my seed catalogs, but I'm going to. I get lots of seed catalogs this time of year.

I can't wait to see the ground again here in NJ. We've had a two foot snow pack since Christmas. This week is supposed to be warmer and if we're lucky, it will be melted away by next weekend. I am overjoyed and ecstatic to see this winter coming to an end.

AV

by ansugisalas

I'm sure my employer will be happy to franchise ;)
Bit of a long commute for me, at the moment...

by nexs

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I've been away due to family issues (partner of 3 years left me) but I'm back to talk some more rubbish.

I need a coffee....

by nicknielsen

Or congratulations?

Coffee on the house. Thermos on the counter, cream in the pitcher, and if you're like me, you don't need any sugar. Depending on who is asked, you're already sweet enough or beyond help. ;)

by ansugisalas

it's good to vent ;)
Put the rubbish here, fill up with coffee ([_] ... percolate.
And once in a while, some of the rubbish undergoes quantum-mechanical miracles to turn into high-grade diamonds ... to the dismay and detriment of the clowns trying to build that rubbish into a tower to the heavens... ;) :p

Nobody probably gets that reference...

by purpleskys

and if my pot empties, i'll refill upon request.

Hope you're doing well, I've been down that road myself. I always believe that all things happen for a reason, if it were not for my breakup all those years ago, I would not have met Darryl, extended my family, returned to school, etc. It may not seem like it right now, but there will be a silver lining for you, I have no doubt. :)

by ansugisalas

""It was all a bit worrying. The burn on my tongue lasted half an hour and the effects went on and on. At one point I was doubled over in pain and thinking about ringing the hospital."

by nicknielsen

:-&

I'll be right back. I want to check the pantry for a container of rhubarb-flavored corn milk...

by santeewelding

The Cafe is four off the bottom, with no apparent way of recall should it drop off the bottom.

Unless, of course, you go to Main discussions and try its interminable drop-down menu, where I notice that anything and everything is tabulated; also which I seldom consult. It drops off the the Main, I don't chase through all those pages back to Year One.

Excepting for the Cafe. I'll chase it to the Gate of Hell.

Ain't it grand -- step-child status.

by michael jay

twice on the last comment to bring it to the top, krikes, the last comment should always go to the top.

by ansugisalas

One slight miscalculation up there though, I have more beard than hair these days... and beating on a red-bearded step child is a sure-fire way to wake up in itty bitty pieces of shark food.

by santeewelding

I wouldn't knock them. As a kid, I was introduced on a dare to a cube of chocolate ants. Couldn't taste the ants for the chocolate. The visual was something else, though. When I bit into it and, while chewing my bite, I held up and inspected the remaining face of the cube. All them ants and ant parts. Some few revealed in their whole and grotesque, final moment before the onslaught of molten chocolate.

It was a dare. So, I finished them off.

Reminds me of Papillon, subsisting on bugs. Only way you'll get me to do it is when I [i]have[/i] to.

by michael jay

I stand down from that, as you say, when I have to. There is still food in the frige, and pantry, I will use that first.

Bugs, I will save for last.

by av .

Its not time. Right now is the time to make a stand and then we'll see what comes of it.

AV

by santeewelding

One more post up top and Catch Up Cafe drops off the edge of the world.

I have no plans of going anywhere, right now.

by ansugisalas

They don't so much eat the bugs... they carry them to their plantations, put them as fertilizer for their fungus farms.
Don't tell them I say so, but I think they use it all for some kind of recreational substance.

by Member 25348569

I invested in an electric propagator and the first seeds are just coming up - after two weeks! I'll post a photograph once a few more are showing.

I have some Dorset Nagas and Bhut Jolokias - the next two on the list in Nick's link. And a few other ornamental chillies, including some that start off black and ripen to bright red.

We just need a hot summer!

:)

by Member 25348569

The one time that I tried a piece of raw Naga, the burn was slow in starting (and so I kept chewing, then swallowed), but then it built and built over a couple of minutes until I was almost tempted to suck the refrigeration coils in my freezer to reduce the pain.

It's not anything that I'll ever do again. :D

by nicknielsen

Or did one of our discussions just ... disappear? It's in the update email, but every one of the links to that discussion gives a 404.

by av .

I've run into that intermittently and usually it comes back in a couple of minutes. I'd like to think we're not missing discussions.

AV

by cmiller5400

I have coyote's at my house. The buggers are nasty too. They sit there and watch you bring your trash over to the barrels. I wonder what they are thinking behind those eyes... "Well, he'd make one he!! of a meal, but I ain't gonna mess with a guy with a big metal thingy in his hand" I borrowed Mae's idea of a shovel: I've taken up to carrying a metal snow shovel around with me when I am out during the dark. The d@mn b@stards were following my father the other night (he was bringing out the trash), when I drove in from work I spotted the bugger not 20 feet behind my Dad. Time to get my Firearms ID card and purchase a nice shiny firearm. One that would take down an elephant should do :D

PS: No matter how well you secure it, something still manages to get the d@mn lid off and riffle through the trash. I saw a raccoon the other night that decided that my car wasn't the thing to stand up to... I had my high beams on it and was honking the horn and the damn thing still charged the car! :O It's belly was dragging on the ground it was so big!

by andreas.oops.backup.id.in.use

less chance of shooting someone on the far side of the critter, and it will learn to fear humans.
A nasty critter with a healthy fear of humans is worth more than a nasty critter with terminal perforation... they teach each other.

by nicknielsen

Yesterday's alert email lists it by title. Today's alert email lists the title as "Thread not found!", but lists two posts added to the thread. ?:|

The last message has a time stamp of Feb 24 6:48 AM PST

by tigger_two

I know I responded in that thread but haven't gone looking for it lately. It's possible that the word "spam" in the title might have caused it to disappear through some automated rule- but I'm only guessing.

I know that they have been busy bees this week. There was an outage that I am aware of as well as work that was going on this morning. I could tell- I was being automatically logged out every few minutes.

by nicknielsen

It was off-topic, the OP hadn't been flagged, and we had just taken a turn toward cats.

I didn't notice any outages this morning, but I wasn't that attentive. I spent much of my morning configuring my new box, a refurbed IBM 8187. Yes, I know it's old and slow, but it was only $40, and came with two 40 GB drives and a CD burner. (I'm saving for a new laptop.) Since I'll be using it as my home workstation and not the play computer, I wont be doing heavy graphics on it. Running the network off a Cisco Valet Connector. Getting decent-enough download speeds that it feels wired. Not too shabby.

I nuked the drive and installed my last XP license. Installed SP3 and all the updates, my apps, and I'm just about to the point where I'm ready to take the base restore image. I just need to restore my feeds. (Yes, I know can import them from the old laptop, but I don't have them. Long story short, I did everything I needed to do to salvage my settings and data from the laptop, then had a major brain fart and saved the configs archive onto the laptop and not onto the USB drive. That was Sunday evening, so I can't blame lack of coffee.)

So, now I'm searching archives to see if I have something there...success! When I originally got the first netbook for work, I archived my entire profile folder on the laptop. Found the .rdf file for my feeds. Cut and paste time, but it's easier than rebuilding totally from scratch.

by tigger_two

The only thing I can think of is that an over active filter shut the thread down without human intervention. I tried looking through what I know about what I have posted but I just did a clean up and probably fried it with other incidental stuff. I don't know.

I'm going to end up with a bunch of computers that I don't need if you want me to save you some bits and pieces. Among the stuff is a pair of netbooks and a 17" laptop that runs XP.

Dunno if TR is Gathering again this year and I don't know if I would be able to make the drive by myself. UPS works.

by nicknielsen

The netbooks not so much. Those things are too small! My hands overflow the keyboard on the netbook they gave me for work, the only way I can read the screen is to buy reading glasses at 2.5x, and I have so much trouble as a touch typist because my thumb wants to rest on the touchpad.

Not sure I would make a Gathering this year, either. If they schedule it the way they did last year (ending July 4th weekend), there's no way. I caught so much crap when I got back to work last year...

Got my feeds rebuilt, to an extent. I'm still missing a couple, but those won't be too bad to search out on the web. I'll clone the drive in the morning. Right now, I'm off for a beer and a book.

by tigger_two

You had best be there if I'm there.

Maybe we can think about mid July or something.

If I drive all the way there, I would expect that you and MJ would make it. Otherwise I would be forced to visit you at home.

by nicknielsen

I would have no trouble making it then. But that holiday weekend is out. Last year, they wanted me back on Saturday morning and sent me an email to tell me so. The only thing that saved my job was that I had specifically stated in my request for PTO that I wouldn't be back until late Sunday.

by nicknielsen

Although there's that Memorial Day thing at the end of the month that I won't be able to get out of...

by tigger_two

Is a non starter for me. I am putting together a fundraiser for the 3 Day and for the charity I am trying to put together in hubby's name. I'm likely to be up to my eyebrows in pulling in silent auction stuff and finalizing arrangements. Then, of course, I have to attend the event itself.

Anything after Memorial Day would work. I am hoping that I can find someone between here and there that I can share the drive with.

by ansugisalas

It was just my smartalec way of framing the link the the Schroedinger's Cat poster, which I thought was fun.

Wanted: Dead & Alive!

by 2rs

Your words are so eloquent and true, my heart is aching for you. Those who know you will find it difficult to understand that you'll never "stop grieving" & that you ARE a different person. My best friend lost her husband very unexpectedly, so I have seen firsthand how such a loss changes a person, along with relationships. May joy sweep in unannounced....

by santeewelding

Sweep in unannounced, that is.

Has to be the most joyful expression I have ever heard. May it extend to all!

by purpleskys

I can finally see green grass through all the snow. It's around 9-10C today, but it's gusting to about 50kph which really isn't too bad. I'm just thankful that it's not snowing or raining like a bugger :)

by av .

I think we'll be getting about 2 inches of rain. Its 50 degrees though, so I'm not complaining. It would be really nice to get rid of all that nasty snow and replace it with mud, glorious mud!

My first Snowdrops are finally up! Yay! Spring is almost here.

AV

by jck

Well, good news: I'm outta Sunset Retirement Villa aka FL.

I got a job, and I am moving in April.

More details to come later.

by nicknielsen

...without my partner.

He was out for training last week, out sick this week, and will be out training others next week. 40 calls last week, ran my ass off. Only 19 calls this week, nice and quiet (but I ran from end-to-end, Myrtle Beach to Statesboro). Not really looking forward to next week..hoping I can get only a 5-day week out of it.

But I'm on vacation from the 21th through the 27th. B-) I'll be a judge at the 2011 Palmetto Regional at the North Charleston Coliseum, part of the FIRST Robotics program.

I expect to see certain people there...Tammy.

by hal 9000

Do you think TR will still be running as a Forum Space by then?

The way that things are going I very much doubt it unless you consider ZD net or C Net as Violable Forums. ;)

Col

by nicknielsen

I think it will all depend on the timeline for the introduction of the new forum code and whether it restores forum functionality to something close to what it was before the "improvements".

I find myself hoping they get it right, but searching for another on-line home.

by hal 9000

Nick I'm in the same boat

But have a horrible feeling that they will switch to something like FB as the Forum side of things to save them the major development cycle.

I've been watching some of Jason's posts recently and how he is Speaking Up FB as the Ideal Posting Site.

Doesn't matter that there is no security or that it is currently a Place for the Nigerian Type Scams where they already have access to most of the details that they require to steal your identity. It's the current perfect Forum Type site according to a lot of the Press and it's not something I would appreciate or even consider using.

Col

by nicknielsen

"Reponse to Answer"

"Response" has been misspelled since day one of the 'upgrade' and still hasn't been corrected.

by jck

I've all but given up Facebook. It's annoying, difficult to get through, unsecure, and hard/impossible to administrate. Usability experience = 0

They really need to get this forum back to a simple interface.

- The space-and-a-half line spacinguses too much space
- The larger typeset takes too much space.
- The view-all msgs mode is clumsy and slow
- Having to go through pages of posts is annoying and slow.

I hope they get something more usable and less flashy after I get moved. Otherwise, I'll become more scarce than I already am.

by ansugisalas

I swear, I didn't notice the missing "s" until now...

But maybe it's meant to read "Re:Ponce"... that'd be setting the tone ;)

by purpleskys

and for the first time in about three months, I can finally see the grass on my lawn. Winter is my least favorite season and I swear this past winter has felt longer than the last few. I don't think I've ever shovelled so much either. And although it's not my ideal weather, I'm looking forward to the nicer weather over March Break http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/ns-25_metric_e.html

Happy Sunday everyone :)

by hal 9000

The Deliberate Mistake inserted to see if we where paying attention.

There are so many other bugs I didn't bother about that one. ;)

Col

by jamesrl

But this week is March break for students in Ontario. Most years, my kids go tubing or sometimes skiing at the local hill. This year, no dice, too warm, too much rain has melted the man made snow.

Now we have had some big dumps of snow this year. And some very cold days. But I can compare this week to many weeks like this in the past, and this is the warmest one in some time.

Just putting that out there. Just another small datapoint.

by ansugisalas

but nobody else is around to do something about it, and nobody else cares, so we should try to figure out how to work the thermostat, at least.

by av .

The winter we had in NJ is the worst I have ever experienced in my lifetime. Snow and ice for a solid month and half. Feet, not inches. I don't know if this is the result of Global Warming or not. I think we better find out though, right away.

AV

by ansugisalas

All of a sudden, snow is starting to melt!
Strange artifacts of bygone ages start appearing from their frosty tombs... like that snow shovel ;)

by av .

My Daffodils are starting to pop up. Too bad we are getting *SNOW* tomorrow. 3-6 inches. March is a fickle month in the Northeast.

AV

by ansugisalas

We did just get more snow here the other night... but with 8C it's gone already.
Now I'm waiting for the load of snow on the roof to come down, that's going to be one heck of a crash, there's a foot of totally soaked snow up there. Hopefully the structures hold up! :0

by peconet tietokoneet

It was around 8C in Rajakyla (could not be spelt correctly with the "a" with dots on top on this site) today, very warm, had my shorts on. :)

by av .

Theres lightning too! It is odder than odd and very heavy. I think we will be buried in snow overnight. They said 3-6 inches, I beg to differ.

Hope the Spring flowers don't mind.

AV