Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Franklin in the garden
A modest bit of gardening yesterday morning, clearing the oak leaves away from some of the plants in the wild patch. Reminded that wildness is a rather wobbly concept, like organic. In this case, what I am pleased to call my wild patch is wild to the extent that it is a very low maintenance patch - but all the bigger plants and some of the smaller plants were put there by people, some of them do get pruned and now I am into leaf clearing. We are never going to get to what used to be called climatic climax vegetation, even allowing for the small area effect.
Franklin was very interested in all this. Sniffing around me, sniffing around the plants I was clearing, sniffing around the compost bin (maybe he will deal with the newly arrived mouse (not, I think, a shrew)), sitting in the wheelbarrow. Shortly after that he went off for a scratch and look terrified when the wheelbarrow sprang into life about 10 feet away from him. Shot up the neighbouring hawthorn tree - which he found to be rather prickly and not the sort of place for a self respecting cat to be at all.
I then began to wonder why it was that on the one hand we are told that cats, unlike dogs, are solitary animals. On the other hand, they are very cuddly and like being cuddled. Or cossetted. So I consult my puss-shrink book by that former Freudian, Jeffrey Masson. I recall that he was expelled amidst some publicity; in any event he now appears to be living in New Zealand with his cats. In the preface to his book about the emotional life of cats, he points out that cats and humans have indulged in this unusual cross-species affection for millenia. Dogs and humans do it too. He does not give a reason why, but perhaps it is not that difficult. Humans like the uncomplicated affection of a domestic animal. Domestic animals like the uncomplicated attention of humans. Uncomplicated in the sense that we do not want to eat them and we are not in competition with them. Plus there may not be any other animal around to be attentive. Perhaps the puzzle lies in which animals this works for. You can make a pet of a tiger, after a fashion, but it is a rather risky business. Need to be intelligent enough to relate to an animal of another species, and enough smaller than that animal not to think of eating it. So a hamster qualifies on the second count but not the first.
Must read up what the correct drill is when the cat brings you a present of a dead and possibly mangled pidgeon. Perhaps he or she would be traumatised by one's throwing a wobbly. One is supposed to accept the offering with grace and do something important with it. Like cook it and eat it.
Recent actual eating includes a fine peice of beef on Sunday. Fore rib, just on six pounds, with bone and unchined. Some fat. Good bright red. Tie it up a bit and cook for 2.5 hours at 180C and it was just the ticket. Damp with a pink tinge. Accompanied with much trimmings and palava, including a steamed jam sponge served with an ancient pudding wine from Hungary. Fastest known way to get down the calories known to man. Much more successfull than the last attempt when BH, against my better judgement, attempted to cook the thing in the microwave rather than in the traditional saucepan.
And yesterday a variant on the mushroom soup I have been making since first taught it by a very hairy Irishman, one Phil O'Reilly, on section 1 of Westway, just north of White City, just about forty years ago. So according to the variant, take a large onion and slice into thin slivers, orange segment wise. Gently fry in a little butter and well pounded black pepper. Separate mushroom caps from their stalks. Thinly slice the stalks crosswise. Add mushrooms and maybe half a litre of water to the onions. Simmer until mushrooms cooked. Serve with fresh white bread. The variation lies in having onion and extra water. A way of padding things out a bit - a relic of the days when mushrooms were expensive - and of providing a bit of textural variation. We judged the variation an improvement.
Franklin was very interested in all this. Sniffing around me, sniffing around the plants I was clearing, sniffing around the compost bin (maybe he will deal with the newly arrived mouse (not, I think, a shrew)), sitting in the wheelbarrow. Shortly after that he went off for a scratch and look terrified when the wheelbarrow sprang into life about 10 feet away from him. Shot up the neighbouring hawthorn tree - which he found to be rather prickly and not the sort of place for a self respecting cat to be at all.
I then began to wonder why it was that on the one hand we are told that cats, unlike dogs, are solitary animals. On the other hand, they are very cuddly and like being cuddled. Or cossetted. So I consult my puss-shrink book by that former Freudian, Jeffrey Masson. I recall that he was expelled amidst some publicity; in any event he now appears to be living in New Zealand with his cats. In the preface to his book about the emotional life of cats, he points out that cats and humans have indulged in this unusual cross-species affection for millenia. Dogs and humans do it too. He does not give a reason why, but perhaps it is not that difficult. Humans like the uncomplicated affection of a domestic animal. Domestic animals like the uncomplicated attention of humans. Uncomplicated in the sense that we do not want to eat them and we are not in competition with them. Plus there may not be any other animal around to be attentive. Perhaps the puzzle lies in which animals this works for. You can make a pet of a tiger, after a fashion, but it is a rather risky business. Need to be intelligent enough to relate to an animal of another species, and enough smaller than that animal not to think of eating it. So a hamster qualifies on the second count but not the first.
Must read up what the correct drill is when the cat brings you a present of a dead and possibly mangled pidgeon. Perhaps he or she would be traumatised by one's throwing a wobbly. One is supposed to accept the offering with grace and do something important with it. Like cook it and eat it.
Recent actual eating includes a fine peice of beef on Sunday. Fore rib, just on six pounds, with bone and unchined. Some fat. Good bright red. Tie it up a bit and cook for 2.5 hours at 180C and it was just the ticket. Damp with a pink tinge. Accompanied with much trimmings and palava, including a steamed jam sponge served with an ancient pudding wine from Hungary. Fastest known way to get down the calories known to man. Much more successfull than the last attempt when BH, against my better judgement, attempted to cook the thing in the microwave rather than in the traditional saucepan.
And yesterday a variant on the mushroom soup I have been making since first taught it by a very hairy Irishman, one Phil O'Reilly, on section 1 of Westway, just north of White City, just about forty years ago. So according to the variant, take a large onion and slice into thin slivers, orange segment wise. Gently fry in a little butter and well pounded black pepper. Separate mushroom caps from their stalks. Thinly slice the stalks crosswise. Add mushrooms and maybe half a litre of water to the onions. Simmer until mushrooms cooked. Serve with fresh white bread. The variation lies in having onion and extra water. A way of padding things out a bit - a relic of the days when mushrooms were expensive - and of providing a bit of textural variation. We judged the variation an improvement.
# posted by Jim @ 12:30 AM 
