Complicated As Duck Soup

So this was the goal of Saturday's bike ride - the Fei Long grocery in Brooklyn's Sunset Park Chinatown (Brooklyn's got multiple Chinatowns).

As I mentioned yesterday, they were sadly lau lau less, but they did have all the duck soup fixin's I'd hoped for. 

These were NOT among the soup fixin's, I just had to take a photo because I don't think I've ever seen a vegetable the size of a husky toddler before (ok, excluding giant pumpkins). At first glance they resemble cucumbers but look a little closer! Never saw anything like 'em.

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Now HERE was the absolute best find of the day. When I started leaning towards trying to make the soup with ingredients in keeping with the deliciously pronounced Chinese seasoning of the broth I'd made from the frame of the duck TQ had brought home, I started by picking up bok choy and enoki mushrooms at the Flatbush Food Co-Op. I decided I also wanted to add dumplings, which was why I wanted to go to Chinatown. Knowing that that was my destination, I asked TQ if he had any ideas of anything that would be good in the soup.

He thought for a minute and then said "Fresh water chestnuts?"

Which sort of blew my mind - believe it or not, the concept that water chestnuts ever existed outside of their canned form had never crossed my mind! We looked them up, though, and the answers we found seemed promising.

Walking around Fei Long's amazing produce section, I found chestnuts first - then a few aisles away, aha! there were these things that looked exactly like chestnuts, except that I knew the actual chestnuts-roasting-on-an-open-fire variety chestnuts were elsewhere. Sure enough! Packed up a bag, got some fresh noodles, beansprouts, dumplings (so many dumplings to choose from!), and a packet of roast pork buns (consolation prize for no more lau lau), and then headed for home.

Fresh water chestnuts turn out (surprise surprise!) to have the same relationship to the canned variety as fresh peaches or green beans or corn have to their canned varieties.  TQ looked up how to prepare (he was so surprised when I walked in and showed him one and said "OK, this is a fresh water chestnut, what do I do with it?") and it's really simple - cut off the top and bottom and peel the rest of the brown rind. They can be eaten raw, so we tried one that way and it was delicious! I always think of canned water chestnuts as being more about adding crunch than flavor; biting into a fresh one, a lightly sweet flavor I never would have expected, and the crunch is somehow more delicate. The recommendations for cooking were to add them at the very last minute to preserve the crunch and flavor, so that's what I did. 

Making the soup! I mentioned that I was making duck soup yesterday on Facebook, and an old friend commented, "Is Duck Soup easy? 'Easy as duck soup' is an old saying."

My response: "Duck soup actually IS easy, if you have a duck. You take the frame and you cook it exactly the same way as you would a chicken carcass and the broth comes out so delicious! I chose to complicate mine tonight because the seasoning of the duck gave the broth (which I made last night) such a delicious Asian flavor that I decided I needed to roll with that. Hence the Brooklyn Chinatown trip today, and I ended up with some time-sensitive ingredients that had to go into the pot in a certain sequence. But you can also just slice up normal soup veggies - I've done that too."

But I had so much fun making my complicated duck soup. Even the noodles were special - fresh wonton noodles from a company right here in Brooklyn. Totally worth the bike ride, even with the accidental extra mileage.

The end result - onolicious! Another successful cooking adventure!

Brooklyn Chinatown Bike Adventure!

Decided to do a little biking today. Somebody cracked me up a long time ago by saying "It's not an adventure 'til something goes wrong", so by that standard, I think today was an adventure.

It wasn't anything bad, just me still learning my way around the borough by bike. I had set out to get soup fixin's in Brooklyn's Sunset Park Chinatown. Earlier in the week, TQ had brought home a roast duck from one of his favorite Chinese restaurants in Queens, where he works, and yesterday I'd used the carcass to make broth. I was originally going to use that to make just your average duck soup with carrots and celery and onions and such, but the restaurant (sorry can't remember the name!) seasons their ducks really nicely, and the broth came out delicious - and very much like something you'd get in a Chinese restaurant! So good that I decided that the rest of the fixin's needed to come from Chinatown.

There was a certain place, Fei Long, that I decided to go to because a long long time ago they had had frozen lau lau. Lau lau is a Hawaiian food with different kinds of meat (the ones Fei Long used to have had pork and butterfish) usually with some extra fat in there to make it succulent, wrapped in taro leaves and then the whole thing wrapped up in a ti leaf to make a neat little package. It was traditional luau food, the lau lau would be put into the imu (pit oven) to cook with the pig that would be the main course. Best that way but of course you can also just steam them on the stove top. I've learned how to make some of the dishes from da 'aina that I love (spam musubi, kal bi, kalua pig and cabbage for starters) but lau lau is a little complicated, so when I found out from a high school friend that Fei Long had them, I was SOOO excited!

Unfortunately after a few that were as onolicious as I'd hoped, I got a package that must have thawed out at some point - they'd gone rancid, and that was disappointing enough that I didn't go back for any more after that. But since I specifically wanted to go to Chinese grocery today, I figured why not go there?

I wasn't counting on them still having lau lau - that was a long time ago and I'm suspecting that even if they did still carry them, supply chains from Hawaii are probably messed up right now - but I figured if they had them, I'd give them another shot.

Google Maps said it was 3.6 miles to the store and would take me about 22 minutes to get there by bike. Unfortunately Google Maps totally failed to include my failure to pay attention to certain aspects of the route in their calculations.

I knew where I was coming from, I knew where I was going, and hey, it's easy to navigate in NYC - it's a grid, right?

Yeah. It's a grid. Until it isn't. And that explains how I ended up going from just south of 18th Avenue to 8th Avenue via 5th Avenue. Oops.

I'd neglected to note exactly where I would need to cut west to not run into the VERY LARGE Green-Wood cemetery. I did that once before on a long walk and ended up just going for a walk in the cemetery (that may sound weird but it's beautifully landscaped, features the highest point in Brooklyn and incredible monuments from the Victorian era, the heyday of mortuary art...ok that still sound weird but trust me, it's a great place for walking). This time I just flat out got confused and ended up going the long way around, making the outbound leg of this 3.6 mile ride more like 6 miles and also sending me up some pretty serious hills. I think I met the slope in Park Slope and the ridge in Bay Ridge personally today. Oof.

I did eventually get to the store, and I'm not that sorry about the detour because I saw a couple of interesting things on route - but next time I would take the more direct (and flat) route.

I had to stop for a photo of the Seeley Street Beach, which I thought was just charming: 

I also had to stop to take a photo of this temporary COVID-19 memorial on the fence by the main gate of the cemetery. So sad. 

On a happier but still sort of poignant note, I rode by some young people sitting out on their stoop, next to signs posted on their building congratulating them as members of the class of 2020. I smiled at them as I realized they were the graduates and they saw that and smiled back and waved. 

Finally made it to Chinatown, phew!

And here's Fei Long, yay! Actually I was a little worried when I first pulled up because gates were down and I wasn't sure if they were open, but they were - you can only get into the store from the parking lot, though. The food court is open but that entrance to the store is thorough barricaded with tables and chairs, I'm guessing because grocery stores need to keep track of how many people are in the store and that people are wearing masks. The store wasn't very crowded today. No lau lau but I did find everything else I was after - including a pretty brilliant request of TQ's! 

And I think I'm going to continue this tomorrow - long enough already and it's late and I'm going paddling again tomorrow. Hooray!

I did get home by a much more direct route, but I'm actually getting a lift to the club tomorrow as both TQ's bike and I have had enough biking for one weekend. The hills I ran into ended up requiring way more active shifting than I've done on any of my previous rides and in there somewhere, something went awry with the shift mechanism. I got home fine but I think my next bike destination needs to be a bike shop. :(

Final mileage for this 7.2 mile ride - around 10 miles. Live & learn! 

May 31st 2020 - Paddling with the Sebago crew!

Sunday was looking like the best paddling day last weekend, and when one of the regulars suggested a noon launch, I jumped in on it.

This paddle featured a first for me - I actually biked to the club for this one! I'd done a dry run on Memorial Day and was VERY annoyed with myself for not taking a camera along. When I say dry run I meant that literally, I just wanted to find out how long it took, so I just rode there, and then I rode on out to Canarsie Park just to see what I could see. It turns out that of course there's access to the Brooklyn Greenway biking and walking trail from the park, and I suddenly found myself riding over the bridge that I've paddled under about ten million times. And of course the view was glorious, and one of the Sebago fisherfolk was just on her way out, and there I was without a camera, sigh. Have to go back to get the view at least sometime.

Anyways, biking to the club works great, it takes me about half an hour to get there riding at a moderate pace (pretty much the only pace this inexperienced biker can manage at this point), which is actually less time than it takes on the bus unless my timing is absolutely perfect, which it never, never is. As far as I know, public transportation is still technically reserved for essential travel (not enforced but I've stayed off the buses and subways except for my essential doctor visits), and biking is also excellent cross-training with kayaking, so as long as the traffic stays unintimidating, I'm looking forward to doing this more.

This was the first time I'd actually biked and paddled, and it took me a ridiculous amount of time to sort out the bag, gear, and keys to do both (I came awfully close to leaving without my Sebago keys) but it doesn't take me too long to get ready to get on the water, so I didn't hold things up too badly.

Getting ready!

The forecast was for pretty gusty conditions, so Lori, our trip leader du jour, decided on Four Sparrows Marsh in Mill Basin. That would keep us mostly out of the wind, and that's a nice destination with opportunities for good birdwatching. It's actually named for four species of sparrow who nest there, Sharptailed, Seaside, Swamp, and Song Sparrows. Didn't see sparrows but there were red winged blackbirds a-plenty, a hawk of some sort (possibly a harrier, aka marsh hawk) being harassed by some smaller birds, a great blue heron, and an osprey, all good to see. 

Entering Four Sparrow Marsh

We went as far into the marsh as we could, then headed back out of Mill Basin, where we stopped for a socially distanced lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to the club; at around 6 miles, this is actually a pretty short paddle for this crew, but the wind really kicked up right in our faces as we turned the corner from Mill Basin and headed back for the Paerdegat, so we got some good exercise - Chris and I got a bit out ahead and we were howling with glee as the endorphins got going from the workout! Plus the bike ride ends up being about 7.25 miles, and I had a headwind for that, too - I slept so well that night!

BTW, this was such a pretty day that I took about a million pictures; I shared a few here, but there were lots more and so I've put together a Flickr album with 2 dozen.

Now one of the things I was trying to get a good picture of was Steve the Paddling Chef's new boat! He ran a boatbuilding workshop last year and his came out beautiful - he likes to decorate his boats and this one features black skimmers and terns, some of his favorite Jamaica Bay birds. He did a lovely job on them and the boat itself practically glows as the sun shines through the translucent skin. The Flickr album includes details of the art - really a thing of beauty. Also fun - we had 4 Romanys out and we all happened to park side by side for our lunch break. There's something so photogenic about a row of Romanys, so of course there's a picture of that over on Flickr, too. Just couldn't have asked for a prettier day! 

Oh, and one more fun thing from the paddle - clubmate Dotty took some photos of me in the marsh! I'm usually the one behind the camera, but I loved these -  aside from looking as happy as I was to be out there with my friends, I like my spring plumage of blue and gold, after spending the winter looking like a banana all in yellow. In fact, I liked the photos so much that if we're Facebook friends, you'll recognize this as being from the same series as my new profile shot.

I've got another 2-week furlough coming up at the end of June - fingers crossed that the weather is nice and I can get in some good biking and boating!

Memorial Day Weekend Birthday Paddle!

All things (particularly cancer and coronavirus, fie on both of them!) considered, I've really had a wonderful Memorial Day + Birthday Weekend. There was enough good food that I may do another post about that, but the best part of the weekend was that by pure coincidence, the Sebago Canoe Club reopened after 62 days (not that I was counting or anything ;-D ) closed while the city and state dealt with the initial onslaught of COVID-19. Marinas were among the facilities closed by order of Governor Cuomo, and although I don't think of our club as a marina, that's the category under which we fall. The club closed on March 22nd, as I vividly recall because a friend and I happened to sneak out for that one last paddle that day and only found out about the ruling when we came back to find the gate sealed with a lot of packing tape wrapped around a sign that said "CLUB CLOSED". Oops.

Anyways, things are gradually opening up again here in NYC - "returning to normal" would be a stretch, but as we've gotten past the awfulness of the first wave of the virus, people are now carefully figuring out how at least some commerce and recreation can resume. As NY State allowed marinas to reopen, NYC parks followed with particular guidelines for city marinas; unfortunately those were aimed at more traditional bigger-boat marinas, so Sebago at first wasn't able to, but our board went to them and talked to them the difficulties things like only single boats being allowed to go out posed for a paddling club.

We've been a tenant of the parks department for a very long time, and Parks listened to the board and asked the board to come back with a management plan addressing various concerns. The board worked with them, and although the final results unfortunately mean only those of us with our own boats get to paddle or sail until further notice - at least we have that, and I'm grateful to the board and the parks department for working that out.

Official reopening was actually the 23rd, but it poured all day that day so TQ and I stayed home and read and messed around on our computers all day - quite relaxing. If anyone paddled in the rain, more power to them!

The 24th was my birthday and TQ took the day off to take me paddling!

It wasn't the most beautiful day ever, a little gray and overcast, but oh, was it beautiful. The water's still pretty cool - TQ and I both got a little warm and ducked our heads using each other's bows for support and had ZERO desire to roll after that, partial dunks were plenty. I was delighting in NOT being in a drysuit since the water's up around 60 now and a wetsuit is sufficient - but I didn't quite want to get that all the way wet. I'll let the water warm up a bit more!

My last paddle, some of the summer denizens were just back, now the bay is thoroughly into the Spring swing. Laughing gulls laughing, brants still here but discussing their flight plans for their travels to their northern nesting grounds (hrrnk hrrnk hrrnk!), sandpipers and swalllows flitting by, ospreys tending their little ones (we could see little heads popping up in the nest at Canarsie Pol while one of the parent perched nearby).

And of course oystercatchers - one of my favorite moments of the paddle was when a pair of oystercatchers took off from Canarsie Pol as TQ and I were paddling parallel to the Pol's north shore, maybe 30 yards out. The pair flew a big circle around us, wheet-wheet-wheeting all the way so easy to follow - first crossing behind us, then flying past us well off on the Brooklyn side, and then coming back in towards the Pol and then, wheet-wheet-wheet, right past my bow! Felt like the perfect welcome back to the bay. Also possible we were being cursed out but hey, it's my projection and I'll make it chipper if I want to. Yougottaproblemwiddat? 

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We kept it on the short side, around Canarsie Pol, over to the Duck Point Marshes, and then home again. I'd thought of going through the marshes to see what was stirring there but as we approached the break between the marshes, we could see that there was a huge flonk of brant relaxing in there. Hrrnk hrrnk hrrnk. Jamaica Bay's bird life is so rich that it's really hard to paddle without putting up some birds, but I didn't want to wilfully disturb a flock that big, and there was no way to go through without spooking the entire gang, so we scratched that leg. Ended up doing about 6 and a quarter miles and that was good; we were both feeling OK in our boats despite the long break, but there's this "Sunscreen" thing we'd both forgotten, and although it wasn't bright and sunny, it was that thin cloud cover that lets the UV rays right through. So we're both feeling slightly overexposed today.

And we got back in time to say hello to the larger Usual Suspects gang who'd gone out earlier - I'd bailed from that paddle when TQ told me he was taking the day off because we're not fast starters, and although the group start time was hardly crack o' dawn, we were still going to have to hustle ourselves a bit. It was really nice to just go when we were ready to go, but it was also SO nice to actually see folks and get some in-person birthday greetings, even with face masks and social distancing. Really couldn't have asked for a nicer day under the circumstances!

And today I did an exploratory bike ride to the club; I can get there in half an hour without even pushing too hard, so that'll work great! I didn't get going early enough to actually paddle (partly to stay out of the sun), but it was a nice ride, I went on over to Canarsie Park after the club, they've got nice bike trails there that link to the Brooklyn Greenway bike trail, so I got in a nice leg along Jamaica Bay. Looking forward to some biking/kayaking crosstraining - that's actually great for fitness!

Just photos now - click on any photo for a slideshow view. 

More from Mother's Day Weekend in Prospect Park

Oof, I had a very busy work week! Surprise, surprise, working from home hasn't made any difference in the usual timing of times when I have too much to do. Got a couple more forecasts this week then hopefully will quiet down. Anyways, had more pictures from my Prospect Park walk on the 9th - I'm just going to share those today. Pretty day, I decided to walk instead of bike because it was really breezy and I still don't trust myself on a bike that much.

I wish I'd taken my Lumix with the zoom lens because it turned out to be a good bird day - in addition to the robin I shared on Mother's Day (ok, truth is I don't know whether that was Mom Robin or Pop Robin, but I loved sharing that), I also saw a Hairy Woodpecker, a Black and White Warbler (first time I ever saw one of those, neat looking bird, looks like a high-fashion sparrow!) and 2 ospreys fishing the lake. The ospreys were a surprise - I expect them around salt water but I don't think I've ever seen them in Prospect Park - heard their call though & saw them a minute later. I guess freshwater fish are just as good as salt. And there was an unusual boat getting ready to go in the lake - the Floating Goat! So there, phew, I can keep calling this a boat blog, even though I haven't been on the water in weeks now.

SOON though! Can't wait!

All pictures after this - click on any photo for a slideshow view. 

Happy Mother's Day!

I stayed up until midnight so that I could post this to wish all you moms (and any other caretakers who are filling that role for someone) a Very Happy Mother's Day! I was so lucky to get to see this robin caring for the babies yesterday in Prospect Park, and I thought it would be the perfect thing to share.