Fork + Fauna

While trying to figure out InDesign, I came across a fun fact about squid. (Here’s how it happened—I was trying to figure out how to tint a photo, and one thing led to another, and you know I’d rather be looking up fun facts then going through a web tutorial). Anyway, here it is. The sepia tones in your great-grandparents’ photographs come from cuttlefish ink. This made the photos more resistant to aging, which is why those are the ones that still survive.

Maybe I should have guessed this. Cuttlefish are in the family Sepidae, genus Sepia. A cuttlefish might have guessed it—they’re supposed to be dang smart, like other cephalopod, including the wild and dangerous Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, although members of these species are frequently squished by cars on their water-bound mating journey and eaten by Sasquatch.

You would think this would be a great place to talk about how to cook calamari. It would be, except I don’t know how. I don’t even really like calamari. (Okay, I liked it one time in Italy, where it was super-fresh and I’d also had several glasses of finocchietto.) But I’m willing to be swayed. If you’ve got a killer calamari recipe, I’ll try it out and post it here.

For the last year or so, the number of owls arriving at this house has increased exponentially. We haven’t entered the wizarding world (and it’s too bad, too—I’d rather have a snowy owl deliver my mail over breakfast than have to check my phone, computer, mailbox …). But we do have a two-year-old who has developed an obsession for owls.

Part of this is my own doing. I’ve found a few great owl videos online, and we watch them over and over again:

And I’ve also been surprised at how many owls appear in children’s books—and how easily small eyes can spot them. The budding ornithologist has spotted owls (yuck yuck) in everything from Richard Scarry’s classic to new favorites like The Great Paper Caper by Oliver Jeffers.

So when I saw this recent study about snowy owls, I couldn’t resist taking a look. Researchers found that snowy owls use their white plumage to signal other owls. Birds with the whitest feathers frequently found perches near the snow, where the reflected light might make their feathery beacons burn even brighter.

by Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr

We don’t get a lot of snow around here, but we did make something fluffy and white to celebrate the resident ornithologist’s recent birthday. Waffles with ginger whipped cream kicked off a long day of eating and stormy puddle stomping.

Ginger Whipped Cream

1 small carton heavy cream

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

Whip together. Serve with waffles. Or pancakes. Or put it in your coffee. It’s good on everything.

And here’s one last owl video. Not really a glimpse of owl natural history, but after watching this one 117 times, I find myself humming this song at the strangest times.

I thought it was impossible to go wrong with dark chocolate, but I was wrong. Beware of bars made with “dark chocolate liqueur” from Cost Plus. Blech!

On a friend’s farm early this fall, I learned about this amazing property of bean leaves. They stick. My friend Tessa picked the leaves and stuck them on our kids’ shirts, calling them “leaf badges.”

These leaf badges are appealing to me—partially, I think, because I always looked in envy at the Cub Scouts in my elementary school classes. Not only did they get to wear their scouting uniforms while I was stuck in my plaid parochial school skirt, but they got to learn new skills and then show them off to the world with a tiny little patch bearing a bow and arrow or a red cross. But also, the leaves seem to stick with Velcro-like properties—and, in fact, “sticky” burrs are what inspired a Swiss engineer to invent Velcro in the first place.

I haven’t come up with any inventions since getting my leaf badge, but I have been able to try Tessa’s amazing bean varieties, including the gorgeous dragon tongue beans, which have stripes of purple on their shells. I’ve since learned that there are even all-bean CSAs—Lonesome Whistle Farm in Eugene, Oregon offers shares with eight varieties of heirloom beans to local residents.

Tessa told me how to cook her beans—lots of olive oil and garlic, and you can’t really go wrong (my favorite kind of recipe).