But Why?

This is a cake with teeth. It must be stopped, before it gets to the children. (Via Laughing Squid)

Rainbow Rose

I found this confused but pretty rose on Neatorama.

Scuppernongs

I was born in North Carolina and lived for several years in the western part of the state, but I had never heard of scuppernongs, the North Carolina state fruit, until recently. As you can see from the photograph they are a type of wild grape, a bronze muscadine, and Giovanni de Verrazzano wrote about wild North Carolina grapes in his log as early as 1524.

According to Wikipedia, the fruit is named after the Scuppernong River in coastal North Carolina, which explains why I might not have heard of it in the foothills of western Carolina. Also, it is mentioned a couple of times in To Kill a Mockingbird, which pleases me as a lawyer from the South.

A Quiescently Frozen Confection

We have some Popsicles in our freezer with advertising on the box describing the product as "a quiescently frozen confection." I wondered what that meant and pulled out my Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

Quiescent is defined first as "being at rest" or "inactive." Since the product is frozen, this seems accurate. Quiescent is secondarily defined as "causing no trouble or symptoms." Hmmmmm. I would hope so.

Confection is defined as "the act or process of confecting." Confect is defined as "to put together from varied material," or "to prepare" or "to preserve." Confection is further defined as "a fancy dish or sweetmeat" or "a sweet food."

I would characterize this advertising as truthful, yet baffling.

Tupelo

While we were in Florida having breakfast at the Donut Hole in Santa Rosa Beach I saw a bottle of Florida Tupelo honey on the table, which struck me as strange since Tupelo is the birthplace of Elvis Presley in Mississippi. It made me wonder if Tupelo might be a flower from which honey is made since clover honey comes from clover and orange blossom honey comes from orange trees. I later learned Tupelo is a flowering tree common on the Gulf coast, so it makes sense that Tupelo honey could be produced in both Mississippi and Florida.

Tajine

I tried my hand at making a chicken tajine yesterday afternoon. (The picture isn't my dish. It is an example from the link.) It was my second attempt, and I think it turned out better yesterday than it did the first time I tried it. The dish is named after the pot that it is cooked in, and like a stew what you put in it depends on your taste and what you have on hand. Tajines are served in several areas in North Africa, but I think the recipes I was working from were going for a Moroccan tajine. Many years ago my cousin David and his wife Margaret entertained us at their home in Washington, DC, and they served a wonderful dish they called Moroccan chicken with couscous. I suspect it was a tajine.

One of my first attempts at cooking outside my comfort zone was Daube of Beef Provençal, and I've made it several times now. I find it interesting that like the tajine the French dish takes its name from the daubière, which is the traditional pot it is cooked in.

Here's yesterday's stab at chicken tajine:

8-10 chicken thighs
2-4 tbs. olive oil
medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander (We were out.)
1 tsp. ground ginger (The recipe called for fresh ginger.)
1 tsp. paprika
4 tbs. salt
2 tbs. black pepper
2-4 cups flour
1 cup blanched almonds
1 cup pitted olives
1 cup chicken broth
1 sliced carrot
12 oz. can of apricot nectar (The recipe called for 1 cup dried apricots.)

Travel to North Africa or France and acquire tajine or daubière. Or stay at home in East Tennessee and use your Dutch oven or a big ol' stew pot. Mix flour, salt, pepper and paprika on large plate. Heat olive oil in tajine or other pot. Toss chicken in flour mixture to coat and brown on all sides. Reduce heat to medium and add onion, garlic and ginger. Cook for five minutes, and add and mix coriander and cumin in last minute. Add apricot nectar and chicken broth, increase to boil and reduce by half. Add carrot, olives and almonds and reduce to simmer. Simmer thirty to forty-five minutes. Serve over couscous. (I used leftover Spanish rice I brought home from lunch at Los Amigos.) I might add more seasonings next time.