recipe — 2017 — The 21st Century Matriarch

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Sounding Off on Noise – I’ve been thinking a lot more about noise since I started driving an electric vehicle. I notice and enjoy the quiet of the vehicle even though the noise from the well-maintained gasoline powered cars was something I accepted as ‘white noise’ for all the years of my life up to 2017. I would rather hear natural noises (birds singing, wind in the trees) that noise from a highway or airplanes overhead.

Albatrosses counted from space – Even nests inaccessible to humans (on the Chatham Islands off New Zealand) can be seen in satellite images from the WorldView-3 satellite. The numbers of nesting pairs were lower than expected. Several more years of observations will be needed to determine if it is just a poor year or the numbers of birds are indeed declining.

The Nature of Americans: A national initiative to understand and connect Americans and Nature – There is a lot on this site. I started browsing with the Major Findings and then Recommendations. It is well organized and intended to be actionable.

Foods that Lower Cholesterol – No surprises…but the review is good.

Guggenheim Museum Releases over 200 Modern Art Books Online for Free – I am enjoying browsing this collection on the Internet Archive.

Saber-Tooth Cats, Dire Wolves Found in La Brea Tar Pits Show Wounds from Ice Age Battles – Based on analysis of just under 2,000 bones that revealed signs of trauma sustained in combat….events of lives etched in bone.

2-ingredient no-sugar date caramel sauce – Yum! I made this in my small Ninja – very easy and yummy. I’ve used it as a dip for apple slices and spread on toast. A great treat and counts as a fruit and calcium.

Moose hair and birch bark – Taking a close look at an artifact that will go into the Native American Voices gallery at the Penn Museum later this month – after a bit of treatment in The Artifact Lab.

A first-ever find in Egypt: 4,000-year-old funerary garden at tomb entrance – Before now, this type of garden was only known from illustrations on tomb walls.

The secrets of the Coke and Mentos Fountain – A fun experiment….and chemistry lesson.

Yesterday was blustery and cold. When we first got up there were a few snowflakes but the only place I could find that they were sticking was the skylight on the covered part of our deck (as seen from my office window). The day alternated between a gray winter day with short periods of brilliant sunshine.

It was a good day for making Chicken Soup with the leftover chicken from earlier this week. I started a pan with water, a chicken bouillon cube, and a cup of shredded summer squash from the freezer (left from last summer’s CSA). By the time I had cut up a few mushrooms to add, the squash had thawed and the liquid was bubbling. I added seasonings (not measuring…just added what I thought would be enough): onion flakes, my own grated orange peel, minced garlic, ‘original’ Pinch Perfect no-salt blend. I decided that cilantro would be good in the soup but it has more flavor if it isn’t cooked too much so I put it in the soup bowl and cut it up with scissors – with the plan to pour the soup over the fresh greens. Finally, I cut up the chicken and added it to the simmering soup. It took about 15 minutes…and was just what I wanted for lunch!