Delicacies

[vaneramos]

Danny djjo arrived last night for the weekend. At the door he mentioned what a beautiful evening it was, so I suggested a walk. On the way I spotted something I had never seen before, in a garden on the edge of the park.





I believe it is a yellow morel, Morchella esculenta. If so it is reputedly delicious.

The air was fresh and cleansing. The evening light was heavenly. I took this shot from Victoria Road bridge. On the right side is the park where I regularly walk. You can barely see white protectors around new saplings the city has planted in a naturalization project. On the left bank is the limestone cliff with maple woods where I photographed leatherwood and bloodroot. The pond is further downstream, out of sight.





From there we continued down the path my daughters christened Lilac Way—where dark-knotted little buds are just now emerging among the new leaves—and onward to high meadows near the Turfgrass Institute.








Danny has had several busy weeks at work. The refreshing walk wore him out. After banana muffins, green tea and a quick game of Cribbage, he was ready for bed. Sleepycub is still living up to his nickname, but I get to go wake him up shortly.

Comments

photographs of morels

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Either that or somebody lost their brain. Strange mushrooms, those.

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Several gorgeous shots. I'm not familiar with morels, so I can't say, but it's a striking shot. Cross-post to texture, perhaps?

Danny is handsome, as always, and the light you caught on his face (late afternoon, evening, I presume) suits him.

The last may be my favorite. I really like those classic Dutch landscape paintings with the horizon line very low in the frame to show off the sky. I also love the pink-and-blue skies of the kind that French painters did so often in the 18th century (I think I'm thinking of Boucher). It would be lovely if, some day, you could capture that scene or one like it just a little earlier, so the foreground scene would be just slightly better lit. It conveys early evening very well, something in me wants to see it about fifteen minutes earlier.

Great work, sweet man, thanks for sharing.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

The first picture does a wonderful job of depicting the Morel fabric of Canadian society.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I'm no mushroom expert, but that is surely a morel of some sort. I'm surprised you let it live (a quick sauté in butter or olive oil would have been an appropriate method of execution).

The lilacs in Cambridge are just now reaching their peak, whereas the ones in Gloucester are still in the tight-bud stage. It's nice that we get an extended lilac season this way, since this is the month of our transition from city to country boys.

[poetbear.livejournal.com]

nice evening walk, Van. lovely pictures. congratulations
on your morel fibre in not plucking that out of someone
else's garden and taking it home for a snack!~paul

[art-thirst.livejournal.com]

Super images. I feel very much at ease as a result.

How PUNishing...

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

Da-dum-bum-KSSHH!

[ubermunkey.livejournal.com]

lovely entry V,
is it just me or does dijo look wholesome? you know that good to the core sweetness that so few posses?
I enjoyed the pics especially the one of the grassy trail next to the water.

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

If so it is reputedly delicious.

Oh, oh, yes it is. Some morels have a flavor like chocolate. They are luscious.

The only poisonous look-alike kills you while you cook it, by releasing deadly fumes. So it's not like you have to worry about eating it...

Re: photographs of morels

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That was precisely our impression of it.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comments, Pete. It's nice to get some feedback.

Danny and I discussed the problems with that last shot the night I took it. I actually did take a photo of the same scene on the way out, about 15 minutes earlier! Gold light was streaming across the cornfield. It looked stunning. But the photo looks like nothing because the sky and bright portions of the landscape got washed out.



I might have been able to do better by taking a light reading off the sky and then shifting downward to darken the landscape. But the real problem is the heavily contrasty shadows versus subtle gradations in the sky and sunlit portions. This later shot worked better because the camera took its reading off the pale sky, so the cloud patterns showed. These shots would have benefitted from a polarizing filter like I have for my old camera. It cuts glare from reflected sunlight. It would have darkened the sky, deepened the blues, enhanced the cloud shapes, and probably deepened the gold colour on the sunlit field. Again, thanks for your feedback on this. It helps me consider more concretely how I could improve.

I liked Danny in the evening light, too. ;-)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

It's unusual to find any Morels.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I envy you that. Along with magnolias, lilacs are my favourite garden shrubs.

Thanks for the cooking tip. Have you ever eaten a morel?

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I was tempted, but having never seen one before, had only a vague notion that it might be a morel. Now I know. It isn't far from home, so I might go back later today to see if it's still there.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thanks Paul. I'll keep my eye on that part of the park to see if more of them show up.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm glad. That was the way we experienced the evening, and I'm happy the images conveyed that.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

That is part of my beloved trail that winds far and in so many different directions around this lovely river, a source of much refreshment and contentment in my life.

What you see in Danny is genuine. He is a rare individual.

When I read this to him he said, "I am wholesome. And only 50 calories per serving."

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! Thanks for the warning. If I get another chance, I think I'll risk it. Open the window maybe.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I've had dishes in restaurants that included them; I've never cooked any myself. But the treatment I described works well for pretty much any mushroom.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I went back just now. The one I saw on Friday had started to mold on one corner, so obviously no one else was paying attention to it. I found a second smaller one, so I picked them both, brought them home and sauteed them in butter. It was delicious, although I would say the same of pretty well any mushroom.

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

Greetings,

just to alert you, the topmost image is a rare photograph of an honest-to-Cthulhu Fungoid from Yuggoth, the Dark Planet that whirls with a shadowy, shuddery secrecy around the extreme perimeter of our solar system.

Now that It knows you have seen It, I'm afraid you are doomed. Fell slothlike horrors of an eldritch, non-Euclidean geometry stalk the Spaces Between the Night, ululating your name in their voices that are like the gutteral cacodaemoniacal cadences of a non-carbon-based-life-form that strangely has a cultured, New England/Oxonian plumminess to its sonic sonorities. THEY will not rest until THEY know that all copies of the image of one of THEM have been obliterated, lest Mankind tumble to their little caper and cop the robin that is the Slobberer beyond the Stars.

ngaiiiii... YOG-SOTHOTH!!!!!

And finally... my apologies for my little joke--the result of an adolescence of which far too much time was spent reading the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Ah, if only I had spent my time reading The Good Book and the Early Church Fathers, instead of The Necronomicon and The Trail of Cthulhu (not to mention... THE CHINESE TAOIST PHILOSOPHERS! *gasp*)

[kwangjse.livejournal.com]

It looks like a brain! Beautiful photos.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Sorry Shimmer, but all this nonsense begs the question: what kind of mushrooms have you been eating this weekend?

Hugs,
Van

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

This afternoon I found out it tastes like....a mushroom. Thanks!