Hi Miss Eagle
I first posted about Locust spraying madness after I came back from a bird-watching trip to West Wyalong - 450 Km each way, through wheat-growing country (mostly), and I realised I had hardly seen a small hawk all the way. That was several months ago.
I vividly recall driving through wheat country as a child and as a young adult, and it was normal to see a Kestrel or a Brown hawk on every second or third telegraph pole. On that trip I saw just two such birds.
Where have they gone?
You would be familiar with Silent Spring, no doubt.
Your John Brumby has now come out and declared war on Locusts
Why?
They supposedly pose a threat to the Melbourne Cup! "Locust plague threat to Melbourne Cup"
Anyway, there is a Victorian farmer who is being roundly vilified for his environmental campaign against COMPULSORY SPRAYING FOR LOCUSTS.
His brother wrote to my blog, sticking up for his brother Eris O'Brien (you've got the love the Irish!).
Anyway, his video is compelling.
Have a look at the list of chemicals registered for use on CEREAL CROPS - to make them poisonous enough to kill Locusts - but we eat the crops (and feed it to our mean animals) after the "withholding period".
How stupid are we?
I would appreciate some support on this, plus also for Eris O'Brien's website, [Save the Locust.com] and You Tube video.
Cheers
Our present agricultural system depends on heavy inputs of increasingly expensive and scarce fossil fuels, and is exacerbating our current world food crisis. It warms the planet and depletes soil and water and contributes to every major problem we face. Meanwhile, 100 million people have joined the starving and one in every 10 Americans requires food stamps to sustain them. But that doesn’t have to be the case – agriculture could help us regenerate our society. We explore the possibility – and urgent necessity of creating a truly sustainable food system.
Above on the left is the box of goodies before unpacking. On the right is the unpacked goodies.
Above is a collage of goodies. A musical bottle opener beloved of Badger fans (I gather that there are a variety of college sports played under the Badger title); a copy of The Onion, a satirical newspaper which did amuse Miss E (the headlines are so interesting following Oz's longest election in history - or so it seems); more sweets and the cutest battery operated tea-candles with the teeniest batteries!
But the piece-de-resistance was these. Stupid Miss E did not comprehend what a cow pie could be when Jeanna talked of them. Open up the cellophane packet and you can see, can't you dear Reader, why this gorgeous cake-cum-chocolate coated biscuit is called a Cow Pie. And then there is the Badger Claw. Miss Eagle and Herself voted them both yummo.
AQIS (Australia's quarantine service) had been in for a peek but there was no evidence they had taken anything - just a couple of brochures.
Jeanna, the Tim Tams and assorted goodies should be in the good hands of Australia Post to-morrow.
Thank you so much. Your gift has given a great deal of pleasure and will continue to do so for quite a while. And thank you for the opportunity, through blogging friendship, to get to know beautiful Wisconsin.
MEAT LOAF GLAZEIngredients + Method:
Dessert was Orange Tart served with custard. The oranges that were used were Australian grown Navel Oranges. These are the most readily available oranges in Australian food markets. Citrus growing has been problematic in Australia in recent years and we have watched with sadness as many growers have uprooted their trees. Australians are amazed at this - particularly when they see Californian Navel Oranges in the supermarkets on occasions. In the last year or two though, there has been a focus on Australian-grown fruit and vegetables and, generally, food markets are taking pains to label the national origins of produce. It is not clear to all of us how beneficial this is to Australian growers overall and we do know that some fruit canning companies have gone out of Australian hands in recent years and a lot of fruit products list on their labels that they are constituted from local and imported products. In spite of the severe and prolonged drought experienced in Australia through which our food producers have battled, Australians still think of their land as a land of plenty and food sufficiency. So, many of us are saddened when basic food lines come from elsewhere.
Now to the Orange Tart. First a disclaimer. Miss Eagle is not copycatting Ahn at Food Lover's Journey. Miss E has only caught up with Anh and her marvellous Candied Orange Tart this morning. Perhaps because we share the same Melbourne weather, the need for Orange Tart was on the wind! Anh's tart looks wonderful with candied orange slices so Miss E resolves to try this one out. Miss Eagle's Orange Tart has been tweaked from Amy Schauer's Orange Tart in The Schauer Australian Cookery Book (p.413) so the ingredients below are Miss E's.
ORANGE TART
Ingredients
Pastry. (Miss Schauer calls this Cake Pastry. My mother called it Biscuit Pastry. The reference to cake/biscuit is because of the method which begins with creaming the butter and the sugar)
Ingredients
Method
Filling
Ingredients
Method
Meringue
Ingredients
Method
Following Anh's example, Miss E will be participating in Sharmi's blogging event A Fruit A Month.
Miss Eagle has never tried to get a decent self portrait.
The food was simple but appropriate for a chilly, welcome-rainy day. The slow cooker has come out of the bottom cupboard this week as the weather has achieved a certain bite to the breeze and, officially, winter has arrived to-day. It was pressed into service for the first course. On the menu was a thick vegetable broth and, to satisfy the sweet tooth, Polenta Orage Syrup Cake served with cream.
The vegetable (with everything in it) broth came complete with the kluskies from Vicious Ange's Kluski Soup. The cake came from Billington's site.
POLENTA ORANGE SYRUP CAKE
Ingredients - Cake
Ingredients - Syrup
Method
While the cake is cooking make the syrup: put all the ingredients into a pan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved completely. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes.
THE CONVERSATION
Food is best when accompanied by good and lively conversation and the food was well accompanied. Val is marvellous company. As well as a former librarian at the Goethe Institute, her background is in German language and lit. studied in the mythological sixties at that great mythological institution, University of California at Berkeley. Pardon, Miss Eagle. She is a child of the sixties and Berkeley was a place one read about with amazement - at a time when merely sitting in a park in conservative Toowoomba to protest the Vietnam war was enough to bring down on one's head the epithet of "Communist!".
And there were Val's handmade books which she brought to show. Beautiful! Inspiring! And Miss Eagle was given a teensy-weensy beautiful one! Thank you, Val.
Then we finished up with a visit to Craft Fair where Val purchased nothing but Miss Eagle found these papers irresistible. A sale on at the moment!
