Food of the Gods, of Lucky Cats and of Hungry Old Women

(Poster for Lisbon's 2011 Annual Sardines Festival, a week-long event.  The Portuguese love their sardinhas!)

Michael Leddy, at Orange Crate Art, reawakened a longing in me for sardines, something I used to eat regularly in my youth, but not for over forty-plus years of late.  My mother used to buy them for when my step-father came home from his trips abroad.  Pop was a Master chief bosun's mate and sailed with the Merchant Marine fleets all over the world.  We knew he'd be home soon when the cabinets were stocked with pasta of all shapes and sizes; cans of crushed tomatoes with basil and garlic and whole plum tomatoes; globes of aged provolone slung, melon-shaped, in twine, small wheels or larger wedges of Parmesan; raffia-wrapped bottles of Chianti and tissue-papered bottles of port; tall bottles of anchovy-stuffed green olives, tins of smoked oysters and of sardines.  

Ah, the sardines!  What stinky, delicious memories!  There were smoked sardines in olive oil, plain sardines in mustard sauce, in tomato sauce with garlic, in red wine and olive oil.  Oh, and larger dry, salted sardines with heads still attached.  Those were wrapped in brown, heavily-waxed paper, which smelled more like the sea than did the fish.  (He liked the whole ones poached in a bit of Chianti with some of the pomodores, lots of garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes, served with a side of cavatini napped with the poaching sauce.  Yum - except for the sardine heads; couldn't look the fish in the eye, you know?)

Anyway, several weeks ago I started searching for sardines in the local groceries and fish markets.  I was disappointed that no one around here had fresh or dried sardines, with or without their heads.  Almost every vendor told me to go to the Italian markets in either Phillie or Baltimore.  That will have to be a road trip (Road Trip!) after the weather settles down.

However, I have found numerous brands of processed sardines from as far away as Thailand, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, France, Canada (which isn't all that far away), and China.  (The ones from China glow in the dark and smell of kerosene.  Okay, I lied.  I didn't buy those, as a matter of principle, so I have no idea whether they glow or not.  Kerosene odor emanating from the paper wrapper, yes.  Didn't have to buy them to know that!)

Sardines are amazingly inexpensive, unless you have no money at all, and then everything is outrageously priced.  I bought three tins: King Oscar Mediterranean style, Bar Harbor skinless boneless, and Season Brand kosher sardines, certified by Rabbi S. Z. Revach of Israel to be parasite free.  I must admit that I'd never given the health of the sardines I've eaten any thought - except I won't ever buy canned foods from China, no matter what it is.  Unless a Rabbi certifies it, but even then...maybe not.

The sauce on the King Oscar sardines smelled strongly of fish, but I reminded myself that it has been forty-something years since my last can of sardines, so maybe this was to be expected.  The sauce was a light mixture of a fruity olive oil, a couple of black olives and a pesto-like blend of herbes-de-Provence and red bell peppers.  I ate half the sardines as they were, which was surprisingly tasty, but lacking something.  I added aged Modena balsamic* vinegar and a few capers, the tiny ones.  I like the combination.  Next time, I'll drain off as much oil as possible, then dress them with the vinegar and capers.

The second can (didn't eat all these brands at one seating, mind, in case you are wondering; a few days between), the Bar Harbor brand, was okay but I ended up giving about a third of it to Cat Who Overran My House.  First of all, I've discovered I prefer sardines to have their skin and their bones, especially the bones.  That's why I like salmon, mackerel and sardines in the can - love the crunchy bones.  Secondly, the fish were broken, almost chopped in appearance, and packed in oil that didn't look or smell like olive oil.  The first helping was straight from the can, nothing added, not even pepper, which goes on almost everything I eat, even ice cream - and in chai.  Very bland flavor, dry fish - fibrous.  Was not impressed.  For the second third, I made a mustard sauce, using the baby-crap-yellow hot dog mustard, a little bit of kosher dill pickle juice and chopped fresh dill.  Flavor improved, but the texture remained the same.  Dumped the last, unadorned, into the cat's bowl.  Cat, who is very finicky about what she eats (like Mikey - starts at 10 secs), scarfed them down as if she'd had nothing to eat for weeks.

Today, I had the Season Brand (certified by Rabbi Revach) for lunch.  This can held whole fillets, in a little bit of olive oil.  The fish were surrounded by a gelatin, probably of their own making, slightly salty, but no overwhelming fishy odor.  They were tender, soft-bodied: very good, I thought.  I pulled one from the can to taste, decided to add a couple of things.  I squeezed the juice from a Meyer lemon onto the sardines and sprinkled a good amount of red pepper flakes on top.  We have a winner.  Despite the lack of bones, these are good fish, good sardines.  I will not be sharing these with Cat.

(*) Is Modena and balsamic redundant?

(Disclaimer: I am not being paid to review any of these.  I wrote this for Michael, with thanks.)

Courting Cardinals and Counting Crows

Spring has arrived in Hanover!

How do I know this?  Because the sun is turning the snow into small streams of icy cold water?  Because the thermometer at the back door reads 58F and rising?  Because I feel the dark cloud that has shadowed me for the last few weeks is lifting?  Because the air is so warm I have the back door to my office open to air out the room?

No.  While all of those things are otherwise good clues, they are not dependable indicators that Spring is here.  The one clue I put great store in is birdsong.  I awoke this morning before dawn to the sound of neighborhood crows flying northwest to meet up with the rest of the roost.  Such chattering, croaking and cawing!

While checking emails and the blogs I follow, I was serenaded by a song I think I recognize: "phreet-phreet-phreet, birdie-birdie-birdie."  A male cardinal is staking his claim to the dogwood right outside the back door.  Later, when I take my cup of coffee out to the top step, looking for a sunbeam to sit in, I find him midway up the ironwood beech by the carport.  His song has changed, is softer, the notes almost slurred, in a longer string.  Then I see the female, in her khaki-green-brown feathers, with the bitter orange top knot.  They touch beaks, lower their top-knots and move closer together.  He strokes the top of her head with his chin, she bows, placing her head near his.  Facing each other now, he regurgitates something into her beak.  Again, they rub beaks and cuddle closer.  Some other bird flies overhead (I see only its shadow) and the cardinals snap to attention, sitting back to back, feathers fluffed and top-knots lifted as high as they can make them, like red shark fins atop their tiny heads.  Bird-love at its finest.

Another sure sign winter is leaving is that the crow roost which meets morning and evening in the trees across the street from the post office is more vocal, and wide-ranging.  When I first started watching the crows in my neighborhood, there were three or four separate flocks, widely scattered across the width of town.  These few families hadn't formed roosts, per se, but would occasionally cross into another's territory, for whatever reason crows do such things.  These groups weren't cohesive enough to form a large roost, yet, but maybe that's what the fly-overs were about - checking out the competition (maybe), looking for potential mates (likely), and testing the families' reaction to determine if they might be good crows to invite to roost.  All I know is that we now have a roost in my neighborhood (roughly 10 blocks square) of between 250 and 300 birds.

They were congregated in the trees of St. Matthew's Lutheran church yard at the corner of High and West Chestnut streets (the post office is on High Street) last Friday afternoon when I went to collect the mail for the historical society.  I was thrilled to see we now have at least one roost in the downtown area that meets within a couple of blocks from my house.  They soon will break up their roost as spring becomes more entrenched.  Each family will begin spending most of their time in their own territories, nesting, mating, bringing new crows into the world.  Some of the older 'teenagers' will begin visiting the other families, seeking mates, testing their territorial defense skills, and - in general - getting into trouble with their elders.  You know, typical teenager behavior.

www.massaudubon.org flock of crows

 Robins have been spotted, but I think these are from regions to our north, the ones that fly south from Canada to winter here.  When the backyard is so full of robins (next month or so) I lose count, I'll know our native flocks have returned.

By then, though, Spring will have settled in nicely, and the robins will be playing catch-up with the early birds.  

Just realized that the birdsong brings more than Spring.  They bring Hope.  That's probably why that dark cloud is lifting, allowing the metaphorical sun to shine light into my soul.

Thanks, birds.  I needed that!