Picklicious

Made some pickles earlier this week with some of my CSA Kirby cukes. The results were good and crunchy, but not super exciting; of course, I dived in well before the week of recommended pickling. Will try making kosher dills next time.
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Chatwin: “Pascal, in one of his gloomier pensees, gave it as his opinion that all our miseries stemmed from a single cause: our inability to remain quiet in a room.” Speak for yourselves, Bruce & Blaise! It’s not what I always want, of course, but a bit of monastic quiet is quite a tonic.

The other day, though, I was on the “lordly Hudson,” the wind howling over my ears and pressing my glasses into my forehead. We were going about 40 mph, which is fast on the water. The water which, down at the Battery, roils mightily, whitecap-less but surging in a way that gives you a new perspective on gravity. My center, not to mention my feet, rose and lowered as the boat hit the bellies of the swells. We went ‘round Governor’s Island and up Buttermilk Channel, so I got to see my Brooklyn (Red Hook, Cobble Hill, and the Heights) from the other side. But we missed the wooden submarine by a couple of days. Damn! Then under the three lower bridges of the East River strait, passing Domino Sugar (sayonara, sweetie) before returning between all the ferries and choppers that make up the escape from lower Manhattan known as quitting time. Then we went all the way up to Croton Point, where the sun was setting. There we cut engines and floated for a while as some mallards swam out to us to freeload. (Next week, we'll discuss my carbon load. Uh-oh.)
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Grim: I see that the saltmarsh islands in Jamaica Bay are disappearing at a faster rate than earlier predicted. The nitrogen being pumped out of four sewage treatment plants on the bay is thought to be the main contributor to this annihilation of these crucial habitats.
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Saw Dr. Strangelove at BAM. Love those names: Col. Bat Guano, Major Kong, Generals Jack D. Ripper & Buck Turgidson, President Merkin Muffley. Also watched Herzog’s Nosferatu on DVD after having barely escaped Ratatouille.