Aluajala's Cockroaches

Floating Channels - New Fractal Slideshow

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Recently I've discovered a nice fractal gallery with some beautiful works and couldn't stand making a slideshow using some of the pictures from the am gallery. The music I used here is Floating channels by Solar fields. You may find it a little bit heavy though it is an ambient electronic melody but this association was the best I could figure out. Enjoy!

My little Pony - Apocalypse Pony

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:01:00 +0000

Just a short note before the Pony gets me and burns me to ashes for adding those pinkish hearts to its photo. I made it a couple of month ago and he's extremely grumpy. This is the first time I didn't improvise but used a pattern. Two patterns actually. One for the pony and the other one for its wings (which are actually Cthulhu (fhtagn!) wings). Pony is a lovely creature but he always (and by this I mean ALWAYS) turns his back side to me and actually shows contempt in other ways. Oh oh I feel his fiery breathing behind my back. Gotta run away!!!

Shaolin Soccer - Get ready to kick some grass!

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:05:00 +0000

Shaolin Soccer is another odd movie we've watched recently and it was like some foreign food you try for the first time in your life: you don't know what is it made of but the taste is awesome and keeps you wondering what the hell was that.

To help you understand what I mean I'll show you the ingredients:

Take 1 young kung fu master with an idee fixe to let the world know about the benefits of studying kung fu and using it in everyday life. Add 1 down-on-his-luck soccer trainer who used to be a legendary player but ended up with broken leg and tarnished honor. Mix. Then add 5 shaolin monks: Iron Head - an unlucky janitor at night club, Hooking Leg - a grumpy dishwasher and excrement transporter, Iron Shirt - not-too-successful businessman, Empty Hand - unemployed guy who wears an infamous yellow suit of Bruce Lee, and Light Weight - an obese grocery store clerk. Also add a team of local thugs. Finally add a baker of sweet buns - a girl with severe acne whose face is only attractive to flies. Get Team Shaolin.

That's not all. The recipe also includes:

- A tournament with a 1 million dollar prize

- A beauty salon run by a transvestite (why WHY would anyone go there???)

- A weird team of ugh.. modern amazon women?

- Team Evil and a big huge doping conspiracy

If you haven't figured this out - the movie is crazy. It's cracking funny and is full of special effects that might beat matrix!

Plus some unique gags...

Mix all the above things, place them in the most unpredictable order, add some unexpected encounters and the dish is ready. Serve immediately!

New cafe for feathery foodies has opened!

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:42:00 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous post, winter has finally reached us. Yesterday was snowy. Huge wet flakes dropped from the sky for all the day and covered every road and every tree and every person outside. Today the snow has melted a little so we decided to take a chance and placed our first bird feeder on a tree near the apartment building we live in.

My Hubby made a feeder using a 2l bottle, scissors, an awl and a piece of rope and I placed it on a tree as high as my height let me. I also placed a mix of rolled oats and pearl barley inside.

It was evening and I didn't see any birds visiting a new cafe but I am sure that soon it'll become a famous hanging out place for everyone who enjoys comfort and excellent cuisine.

Encounters of Spooky kind

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:20:00 +0000

In the past couple weeks I and my Hubby have watched some really crazy movies. A shame I didn't start writing about them earlier.

Today I'd like to start and share you the Hong Kong film that's called "Encounters of Spooky kind" (or just "Spooky Encounters" in USA release) directed by Sammo Hung who also plays the main role of Courageous Cheung in the film.

Courageous Cheung is a not-too-witty fat pedicab driver whose wife cheats on him with Master Tam - the local official who plots to get rig of Cheung by hiring a magician. However the main character is called Courageous for a good reason.

The movie starts when we see his friends trying to make fun on him by telling a ghost story and later on pretending they're evil spirits. However when some of them get abducted we find out that there ARE ghosts and they're far from friendly.

Later on Cheung gets himself into more troubles. The most fascinating moment was when he fights a jumping corpse controlled by the above mentioned magician. The scene brought tears to my eyes as I LOLed watching that hopping thing with its hands stretched in front of it. Later on I discovered that this was one of the first depictions of Jiang Shi - a traditional chinese hopping reanimated corpse (sometimes called "Chinese vampire" although it looks more like a zombie to me). I made this sample movie so that you could see how it looks like:

This movie is full of hilarious moments that make you laugh like when we meet a local police inspector who has well his own concerns about dead men or when Cheung's hand gets possessed and tries to kill him or in the end when he allows a Monkey god to possess him so that he can defeat one of his enemies (also possessed by another spirit).

Yep this film is crazy crazy crazy like hell. It's a pity I don't know much about modern Chinese culture because I'm sure there should be some things I didn't understand which a normal Chinese guy would. But that's a problem of watching almost any foreign movie I guess. Oh and the ending is fine too. I won't tell you in case you'd like to watch this film. It's just about what happens to wives who not only cheat on their husbands but also plot to kill them.

A new sheep!

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Hey hey hey just look at these guys! They've got a new pal!!! Here they're discussing something... something vicious may be. Or may be just gossiping about whatever stuff sheep may have in their curious minds.

I said I was planning to make lots of sheep. That was not joke. I'm working on this flock so that they can invade.. um ahem never mind.

Skywatch friday and first snow of this season!

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:41:00 +0000

I kept missing SkyWatch friday for far too long. So here is a couple of photos I made in the beginning of this autumn.

It is the end of October already and today my Hubby woke me up in the morning to show me the first snow of this season! Not too much snow but enough to cover some grass here and there. So exciting!

Have a happy SWF everyone!

Last but not least

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:25:00 +0000

I've got my hands full and a lazy mind too so it took me two weeks to post the last fungi of this season (I hope they're not the very last though. I hope there are more to grow!!!). So. Last month we made it out of the town a little bit to explore the suburbs and found a terrific forest with various types of life there. There are places with fur trees with moss and fern covering the earth and places with birches and lindens that have already lost their leaves so the forest is light. But today is post about mushrooms we've found during our two visits to the new forest. And not only them.

Day 1:

Stropharia aeruginosa. This is one of the most beautiful mushrooms I've ever seen in my life and it is also a new finding of this year - I've never ever seen it before. It is an autumn mushroom and usually grows in September and October. It is edible and I have already tasted it and liked it :) But still its look is what really attracted me - bright greenish-blue color - you can't really miss it or mistake it. Very beautiful!

The last Birch bolete (Leccinum scabrum) - one of my favorite boletus mushrooms. I tend to find it everywhere. This time it was old and I decided not to pick it though it was still fun to find it.

Tricholoma nudum aka Lepista nuda - another great discovery of this year. You'll see another picture of it below. Very very nice mushrooms. I particularly enjoyed handling and washing them for there's something about their texture that is very pleasant to touch. They usually grow in 'nests' so if you spotted one it is likely there are another 10 nearby!

In the end of the day we made a small fire to warm up our hands and had some rest. We used to spend lots of time resting by the fire last year and it was nice to observe dancing flames this time.
Day 2:

A week later we went to the same place again to discover more Tricholoma nudum though not as many as we had found on our first visits.

One of them had a very interesting stipe. Just look at that loop!

Last blooms and berries of Spindle - my husband's favorite bush! It has green branches (that's why we also call it a green bush) and colorful little berries.

My favorite photo of this set. Don't know what these fungi are but I love the way they invaded this old stump.

I just nearby there were these interesting fungi. Macrotyphula fistulosa. I would've never ever noticed them if I hadn't sat on my hunkers in order to have a 1 minute rest. Fabulous species really. And they're strange to touch. Imagine how the word 'opaque' feels and you'll get the idea. Maybe.

Some stick looking mushrooms. I found them fabulous too although have no idea what they are. Some fascinating life, huh )

I love making photos of ladybugs so that they look BIG. This isn't really big but it was fun to actually meet a ladybug in the middle of October. "Hi ladybug! - I told her - have a nice day!" and you have a nice day too! And I promise not to disappear for so long.

Late bloomers Part II

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:49:00 +0000

Ok let's continue to the flowers of this Autumn. Some blooms are already gone, the others are still here to celebrate the coming of the new season. Let me tell you about each of them.

The above pinkish bloom is Clover (Trifolium). We have several different kind of this flower. The smaller ones like on the photo can be white and pink. There are also bigger ones that are maroon and even violet. When I was a kid I loved to chew these blooms because they have a very sweet juice :)

Though I've met this flower many times, I still can't ID it. There are actually several similar-looking small white flowers (like little gray birds huh) we have here. Hope to find which is what soon.

I captured this Campanula patula in the beginning of September. Well it's October now and local weather forecasting services tell we're going to have first snow approximately on... the next week! Oh oh! I already started knitting myself a scarf. Yet these flowers are still here. We were in the forest yesterday and kept finding the blooms here and there. It was nice to see the last colors of this season.

These are some clover kind blooms. May be. And this is a bee kind on them. Definitely! Busy gal gathers the last bits of nectar before getting to sleep. Good luck to her!

This is Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense). You've already seen it in the starting post about late bloomers. Here's a nice close-up of this beautiful flower.

Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale) finally changed their soft yellow suits into fluffy cloud-like cloth. But again we still find dandelions in their yellows! Moreover there are also trees that decided to shoot some buds! Can you imagine that? I guess I'll post a photo in my next post so you can see this madness.

Late bloomers Part I

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Though summer is over and it gets colder and rains every day there are still one or two different flowers we can find in the forest or in the fields. I want to share some of these late bloomers with you before they finally get cold and covered with snow.

Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis) or Yellow Melilot - we usually have yellow and similar looking White Melilot growing together in the field. They have very sweet smell that I love very much. Melilot honey is my favorite one too.

This is St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum). Funny enough I saw this flower many times but only recently when I've made a research I learned that it is considered as a widely known herbal treatment for depression! I'm usually a pro-pills person but I guess I should try making a tea of this herb for a difference. Hope it tastes nicely.

Wood Cow-wheat (Melampyrum nemorosum). Here in Russia it is also called smth you translate like "John and Mary". According to a legend a brother and a sister used to have some unsolvable conflict and finally decided to become a flower. Not a too romantic story if you ask me but the flower is beautiful. It barely smells but is very colorful and has an interesting shape.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) can be white and (rarely) pink. This small tender flower smells very sweet too and is believed to have blood-stanching effect although some people are allergic to it.

Creeping Thistle (Cirsium arvense) a really beautiful flower that attracts not only me but lots of various insects especially bees ans wasps. I know gardeners consider it a weed because it loves to devour space but to me it is one of the awesome herbs I can see in the forest. Its stem is also very strong and for some reason attractive.

Everybody knows Chicory (Cichorium) right? It is used as a dietary supplement and most popular coffee substitute. To tell the truth though I used to be a caffeine addict for ages I never tried it and even never associated this flower with not-too-attractive looking packages of "Chicory coffee". For some reason most diabetic and dietary and even ECO products are considered only as substitutes to 'normal' and have very plain packages. Doh I'm being boring again and that's when talking about flowers! oh Oh

The last one is a riddle. I made quite a research but this and several other plants remained unidentified. Anyone has any idea what it can be?

I have lots of flower photos I made in the end of September and hope to post the next batch in one of my next posts. Till next time!

Aluajala's Cockroaches' Blogiversary

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Oh oh looks like I missed my first cockroachy Blogiversary! I've always been bad with dates: all those birthdays and holidays... I sometimes forget even how old I am. Hmm and it looks like this time it was actually my second blogiversary. On 20th September 2007 I made my very first post here shortly after I closed my account on Livejournal. I wasn't sure what to write here or who will even read it so the blog remained empty until April 2008 when I started publishing my first photos and writing about my adventures with nature.

Still I'm not a too frequent poster though I love this blog very much. Thanks to it I've met many wonderful people from all over the world and seen lots of great photos. And thanks to all my visitors who stop by to read me and leave some nice comments.

This blog has also helped me change my attitude towards the writing process and besides it serves as a nice photo album too! With it I know all my impressions and cockroaches and yeah memories too will be in place.

Skywatch Friday: Birds of prey

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:01:00 +0000

On this Wednesday the sky was full of birds. Big birds. Lots of them. Were they having a party? I'd say not really but they sure looked like they were having lots of fun.

We thought these are ravens because we often meet them when we go on our favorite forest walks. However not all the above birds turned out to be ravens.

You see this one is raven. I managed to capture him croaking!

However this one looks completely different. This is some other bird of prey. What a luck to see it in the suburbs of such a big city as Moscow.

I still wonder what were they doing together both ravens and these birds. I thought that naturally different kinds of birds of prey should fight each other for food and territory but they didn't seem to chase each other at all. Instead they were just flying rounds, croaking, calling and obviously having fun. It was very exciting to watch them glide deep in the skies so high even my camera's zoom sometimes failed to reach them.

Time for beautiful Amanita mushrooms

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:49:00 +0000

First photos of this Autumn are photos of mushrooms of course. I've been posted lots of mushrooms recently and you need not to be a foreteller to guess that soon there'll be even more of them. Both mushrooms and photos.

Toadstools (Amanita Muscaria) are of the most colorful and elegant mushrooms one can find in the forest.

Their color varies from scarlet to dark red.

They may grow alone or in groups.

They are also called Fly Agaric because of the fact that when sprinkled in milk they work as an insecticide. However usually it is fungus gnats (aka mushroom flies) who destroy these mushrooms by laying their eggs in them. Fly larvae eat toadstools very rapidly and often seemingly healthy mushrooms (like ones on the above photo) may happen to be completely eaten from the inside.

This and the next one are likely to be both of Amanita genius too although it is difficult to tell which exactly. The above mushroom has a white cap and slightly pinkish gills. The one on the picture below has a gentle shade of beige.

As always I have lots of mysteries to reveal.

Forest walks: day 2, part II

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Ok so where did I stop? Oh yeah: other creatures besides mushrooms that we encountered in the forest in our last summer '09 forest walk.

And the first creature we met was a Hornet. A very fast hornet. So fast that I can't really say we actually 'met' him. We saw him fly from flower to flower. He never stopped for more than a second as if he searched for some particular flavor. This is the only photo of him I managed to make.

Yep the autumn is here. I like various tones of red and purple and orange. Soon all the leaves will be like this.

On our way home there is a road which is usually clear. However there was lots of slug traffic that day. Don't know where they all were going but there were hundreds of slugs on the road. And they were not frightened when I tried to capture them too. Instead they stretched trying to touch the lens with their tiny horns. Imagine a horror movie: a traveler goes along the road when thousands of slugs surround him stretching their necks in his direction... have a nice dinner, my dear imaginary slugs hehe

Soon it became a problem to move - so many slugs were on the road big and small so we had to look carefully so that we don't step on them.

In the end we reached a duck pond. Surprisingly all the ducks gathered near a drain. Most of them either decided to clean or to take a nap. We watched them for quite a time but when were we ready to go one of the ducks stepped too close to the waterfall and it fell down! No worries! The duck was ok and it flied up very soon to the same place where it used to sit and continued cleaning. But it was so strange to see the bird falling! You that know birds have wings so it is very unusual to even imagine how they can fall down. Looks like they can. At least ducks do.

Soon it became misty and cold because sun has almost already set. On one side we could see the moon.

On the other side there was a sun. I always find it fascinating to see both the sun and the moon early in the morning or in the evening. My hubby also taught me a trick: if you look at the moon and close up one of your eyes and hold up your index finger at arm’s length you'll have an illusion that the moon looks smaller. It has something to do with optics. Try it when I'm writing my next post. - it's fun!

Forest walks: day 2, part I

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:06:00 +0000

The next day after forest walk # 1 we despite our aching legs and backs went to the forest nearby to find more fungi although not as much as in forest we visited on the previous day. (Um in case this sounds confusing here I posted a map of two forests - one full of mushrooms in the Northern part of town and the one nearby is in the South). Most of mushrooms we found were unknown so we decided to make a photo hunt for further identification. Unfortunately it was evening and my camera behaves disgustingly in low light so I had to post process the photos that weren't beyond hope (I rarely do it) so that they don't look that lousy.

I'll start with these coral-looking fungi which I find very beautiful especially when a bunch of them grows along some log. As far as I could find out they're of Ramaria kind. May be Ramaria Stricta.

These are Puff balls (Lycoperdon) and strangely here in Russia they're commonly considered as inedible. Fiddlededee! In fact not only they're edible but very delicious too when they're young. They can be boiled and baked and stir-fried and they are always very tender. I also saw a recipe somewhere that states one can actually make them crunchy. Gotta find out.

This is the first time I encountered this one and it looks like a Shaggy parasol (Macrolepiota rhacodes or Chlorophyllum rhacodes). I searched some internet resources about mushrooms and all of them say it is actually edible. Too bad I didn't know that but good I don't take those mushrooms I can't ID in the first place.

This is how wild Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) look like. My hubby is a big fan of them so we usually buy the cultivated oyster mushrooms in a supermarket but it was fun to find them in the forest too.

Now I haven't ID-ed these but there are hundreds if not thousands of them grow in the forest. I like the way they look too especially when they're sun lit and when there are many of these musherooms growing in one place.

As we walked along some forest road I saw the sun rays beaming through the leaves as if it is someone with a huge jack light searches for something.

Having watched the sun rays we went forth and found this. If you haven't guessed it was a mushroom too. Somebody planted it on a stick and later on mold got it. The structure looked really sophisticated but sadly I don't have a higher resolution picture to show you due to the above mentioned camera problems.

And I haven't yet ID-ed these mushrooms too. They're completely yellow and I find them adorable.

Hmm this post becomes too large so I'll split it into two parts. This one - about mushrooms and the next one - about other things and creatures we found in the forest that day. Till next time!

Forest walks: day 1

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:32:00 +0000

My calendar says it's autumn already so we have about 1 or 2 month before it becomes chilly outside *sigh* . However we still have 1 or 2 month to enjoy colorful leaves, fresh fruit and berries, birds and of course fungi!

I made this pics on 28 August - one of the last summer days. Leaves are still green although if you look closer you'll see some yellow ones too.

It was raining that day but not too heavily. I found some wild foxberries and blackberries. No photos of the latter ones - I first ate them all and then remembered about my camera. Both kinds of berries were tasty :)

A little fellow came to us to get some warmth after the rain. I will miss all the bugs and butterflies and birds very much in winter.

And mushrooms. We found a couple of these... I'm sure it is from Amanita genius but which one? Don't know. Most of them are so easy to mistake.

Honey fungi (Armillaria) on the contrary are ones we're always glad to find and this time we found more than we could take home!

There were dozens of such trees with even more mushrooms on them. You may guess this was how our walk finished: I picked hundreds of these fungi while my husband walked rounds finding more and more of such trees until we ran out of bags and HAD to get home.

Beautiful... so beautiful and so tasty...

And I spent hours washing them one by one because I'm a paranoid about everything linked with food.

But before I started washing mushrooms I found out that oh my! some of the forest creatures like slugs and bugs decided not to part with their food and were at the risk of drowning there in my bath.

I'm no tree hugger but I just couldn't let these particular creatures die. So I picked them carefully - slugs and bugs and worms, placed them in a plastic bag along with some mushroom parts and took them all to the local forest. Hope they're ok. The next day we went to the forest again...

Homemade food is fun

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:50:00 +0000

Long ago I wondered why do modern food producers pretend they can make synthetic flavors that are 'just like real' instead of making some new flavors that do not resemble anything natural. However this was just a musing when the real problem is why they actually substitute real components of some products with cheaper alternatives still pretending they're just as good as original ones. I'm not a conspiracy freak and won't blame evil corporates for taking over the world but I just don't like most kinds of food sold in supermarkets. The most annoying thing is that a common myth that the more expensive thing the better it is does not work. You may have money here but you're still limited by the supermarket's range.

However we found a solution that is pretty simple and even enjoyable: buy only those components we want and make products by ourselves!

We started with pickled mushrooms and also plan pickling some cucumbers and tomatoes. Sure you may find pickled mushrooms and tomatoes of different kinds in every shop here but they're all literally tasteless. And I do not buy such things on markets because I fear what kind of extra lifeforms may happen to be inside.

Milk is another headache. You know if you open the package but don't use it and leave for awhile it curdles and its taste becomes sour. And it's ok. But most milk you buy in the supermarket does not. It stays fresh longer but then it acquires some strange bitter taste and a funny smell. I am lucky to have found some local dairy producer whose milk curdles normally so I can make quark whenever it happens. Making quark is simple: just wait until your milk curdles (besides sour taste it should also kind of divide into whey and well the substance that will finally make into quark). Pour it into a saucepan and warm up at 50-60°C until the quark goes up and liquid whey goes down. Filter the substance and get these:

To the left is quark ready to be served or further modified into a cheesecake or whatever possible. To the right is whey which is best to be used as a component of dough or some soft drink.

I failed to make it for the first time because I left curdled milk in the room for a couple of days and only then decided to make quark which was ok despite somewhat bitterish taste. I decided not to risk eating it. My second attempt today was a success! Quark was very soft and tender and I ate it right away with blackberry jam!

The last thing for today: buckwheat flour. Again here you can usually find wheat flour and hardly some rice and oatmeal flour. But why search if I can buy some buckwheat or buckwheat flakes and use grinder to make some coarse flour?

I think homemade food is fun: you can always vary the taste and you always know what is it made of!

Pickled fungi recipe

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:05:00 +0000

The mushrooms we pickled recently turned out to be superb! So we decided to make more. Today we bought some fresh button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) and pickled them too. The recipe was modified. Main thing is we didn't boil the mushrooms but just washed them. Um I say "we" but it was my husband who did the cooking part and me who captured the process step by step so that I can show you the detailed instructions on how to pickle fungi.

So here is a 1kg pack of mushrooms.

# 1 First thing to do is to wash them. I did it in a bath with a shower.

# 2 Then place them in a jar. Unlike Kuehneromyces mutabilis or honeyfungi they are larger and thus they cannot be packed as tight as smaller mushrooms unless you cut them in half what my hubby decided not to do.

Tip# 1: Before placing mushrooms in a jar (#2) place them in a bowl with boiled water. In 5-10 minutes they'll become smaller and you'll be able to place more of them in a jar. We only guessed it after everything was done.

Other ingredients:
- dill (with seed cases and inflorescences)
- a couple of horse radish leaves
- ginger root (we'll need about 2cm of it)
- beet (one half)
- garlic (half a glome)
- 1 hot pepper

We usually have a dill+horse radish mix being sold in the market which is called mix for pickling or herbs for pickling. Salesmen usually claim there are some more different herbs in the mix (like raspberry and currant leaves) but usually there are just horse radish and dill with seed cases and flowers which serve the purpose just well. Actually you can use any herbs you like depending on which taste you prefer.

# 3 Chop all ingredients but pepper and place in a casserole. (We use a crock).

# 4 Place the pepper, garlic, beet and a little of ginger in a glass jar as well. But before placing anything in it make sure you washed it with a washing-up liquid (or soap or well something besides hot water. The goal is to wash away all the grease even if it's a new jar) and wash the liquid away too. Don't touch the glass inside the jar since you've washed it.

# 5 Add 4 table spoons of salt (per 3 litre jar) to the casserole. We always use crystallized salt only for it is tastier, easier to use and looks nice too.

# 6 Add some spices to both casserole and jar:
- allspice (in corns)
- paprika
- red hot spice
- parsley root

Again like with herbs: we used these. You may use any spices you like. Just as usually don't overdo.

# 7 Add 1 litre of hot water in a casserole too. (What we usually do is first boil water in a kettle and than pour it in a casserole).

# 8 And place a casserole on a stove to prepare a brine.

When it starts to boil...

# 9 Add a bit of baking soda. Just a bit like this.

And watch the reaction start!

Pretty cool if you ask me! Just don't overdo with soda or it may attempt to run away!

Lots of bubbles and hiss! I find it really entertaining to watch! :)

Soon the brine should be ready.

Tip # 2: Make sure you washed the jar with hot water just before pouring the brine into it or it may explode because of sudden contact with boiling substance.

Tip # 3: How do you see if brine is ready btw? Here's a tip: horse radish leaves should become soft but still green (means not boiled to death).

# 10 Pour the brine in a jar with mushrooms. Remember I said bigger mushrooms cannot be placed as tight as small ones? Well if you did place small fungi - 1 litre of brine should be enough. In our case it only occupied 1/3 of a jar. To make it full pour some boiling water from a kettle until the jar is almost full. Like this. And place the herbs from the pot to the top of the jar too.

# 11 Add 2 caps of vinegar. Here you may see apple vinegar but you may use whichever you prefer. Make sure the brine fully covers mushrooms.

Presto!
Here is how it looks like: brownish (because of concentrated brine) on bottom and purple (because of beet we placed in the beginning) on top. Soon it's going to get mixed.

This is how it looks like. Cool the jar and place it in a fridge (+4°C is the best temperature for them). Do not DO NOT place a lid on a jar to prevent anaerobic microorganisms growth which would in turn lead to poisoning the mushrooms. Pickled mushrooms should be ready in about 3-5 days! Enjoy your meal!

In search for mushrooms

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:16:00 +0000

I said we're having a mushroomless summer? Noooo that's untrue. At least for a half. There are almost no fungi in the forest close to the place where we live now at the southern part of Moscow but yesterday we went to place where we used to live in 2007-2008 which is situated on the opposite side of the town and were pleasantly surprised. Just a short explanation before I continue:

This is a map of Moscow. "A" is a place where we used to live and which we visited yesterday. "B" is where we're now. "A" is an awesome place and I enjoyed visiting it very much for both the most pleasant memories and l-o-t-s of mushrooms we found there. So many of them that I was afraid I could step on some picking the other ones! Hundreds of Saffron milk caps (Lactarius deliciosus) , Russulas of all colors and sizes, Puffballs, some Boletus chrysenteron (although we've found lots of musty remains of these ones), a couple of Suillus bovinus and a large Boletus edulis.

We've also found this Blusher (Amanita rubescens).

Don't be confused by its name and appearance: though it belongs to Amanitaceae family it is 100% edible and actually very tasty. Unfortunately it is quite easy to mistake it with its not too safe relatives.

Especially this one. This is Amanita phalloides - a death cap. Well the name explains everything - it is a highly toxic mushroom. Half a cap is enough to kill a human and the toxicity is not reduced by cooking, drying or freezing. Be careful to touch this one if you find it!

This one is Amanita Muscaria or Toadstool. We found it too and it is quite long and no doubt looks very pretty. But that's a completely different story.

This is something I haven't id-ed yet. Some violet-colored small mushroom I find here and there but don't know what is it called and if its edible or not. So I usually make photos of it and leave it alone.
Stinkhorn (Phallus Impudicus). I wrote about it here and here. This is how it looks when it grows up. Its cap becomes green and the fungus deserves its name more than ever.

Ta-dah! Boletus edulis - the one I mentioned in the beginning. My hubby found it and it was Large.

Just compare it with the grass and realize its magnificent size. Wow!

But enough about mushrooms. Here's an adorable creature we've met yesterday. This summer we've met many huge slugs and a couple of snails in the forest near "B" place. I enjoyed watching how they move and explore the land with their antennae. But we'd never seen them in "A" place before yesterday.

We found it in the middle of the road and first he got scared a bit. But you just look at the way he hides his head! I'm glad I caught it from this angle.

It waited for a while and then continued the way. An awesome guy it is.

The flowers are almost all gone. The autumn is so near. Still there are some blooming and I'm really glad to find them here and there.

Pickled mushrooms and my cooking life story

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:16:00 +0000

This year we're having a mushroomless summer. However a couple of times we managed to find some edible fungi. Each time there was a single stump or log full of Kuehneromyces mutabilis (ugh I wonder if there's shorter English name for them).This time again I failed to take a camera with me (And I'm seriously thinking about buying some easy to carry P&S camera for such occasions). But anyway I'll show you what we made with mushrooms that we found this time:

1. Bathtime! To me the easiest way to wash these amounts of mushrooms is to place them in a bath and carefully shower them with a douche.

2. Some like it hot. Mushrooms are then placed in big bowls. I added some salt and sweet red pepper and poured boiling water. After 10 or so minutes placed them all in a suitable saucepan and boiled for about 20-30 minutes. It was nighttime already so I cooled the boiled fungi and placed them in a fridge.

3. Whizz! My husband made a brine using some horseradish leaves, dill and fresh ginger roots. We placed the mushrooms in a jar and poured the brine. Having done that we placed the jar in a fridge again. In the next 3 days we'll see if we successfully made pickled mushrooms!

To tell the truth I'm still kinda afraid of cooking. As a kid I was never allowed to kitchen and never had a chance to try cooking something. My late grandmother was a cook at day-care and did all the cooking in our family too but sadly her post-war (WWII) experiences of hunger and such made her always make v-e-r-y greasy food and as I said she never let me cook something for she and my mother said I'll definitely spoil the kitchen-stuff.

In my early teens I had to cook for myself though and I felt disappointment and anger each time I did. You see fried things always turned into burned things and boiling things took each chance to escape. I even had my own recipe though. It was called "2d time french fries". Why "second time"? Because they always burned as I placed them in a pan for the 1st time no matter how I cooked them so I had to throw them away and place some more fries so that they get more or less ok.

I got my first full time office job when I was 17 yrs old and used to live on business lunches in local cafes since that. I only made myself breakfast that contained sunny-side up eggs and coffee.

Then I met my husband-to-be and my life turned into a waaay better way. Among other things it was food. Home cooked delicious yummy food! I still like watching him cook something and seing how usual things like you buy in a supermarket like vegetables or meat take a whole new form. No they can actually take million forms! Now isn't it a wonder? To me it truly is. It's like a puzzle that has many solutions and you can actually invent them too. As I look at him make something I also try to remember some basics and try to cook myself too. By far I can make some simple salads and sandwiches, fried fish and sometimes even soups. Although often I'm having hard times making the latter ones but I'm learning. I'm a little bit better with bakery though: can make pancakes, pies and cheese cakes.

Hmm looks like that's all. Never know how to finish my stories and posts too so I'll just say see you soon!

Craft, crochet, CRITTER!

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Firstly this crocheted critter was intended to be an octopus, then Cthulhu, then hedgehog. Now I don’t know whether it is a small dinosaur or a pokemon or an unearthly creature of some kind... I think it'll decide who it is later.

This is my second finished project since my first attempt to crochet and I think I'm doing better. I also started knitting but it seems to take longer to make a knitted thing than the crocheted one. It took me 2 days to learn the basics from an old book which title can be translated as "Knitting ABC". Then I started to knit slippers which took a bit longer then I expected but it's ok because I enjoy the process very much. Both slippers and Critter are made of the same yarn that I got after I unknitted one of my old sweaters.

I also bought some necessary instruments for my crafts: stuffing material (I used cotton wool for both sheep and the Critter but it proved to be very unhandy), two yarn balls (for the next crocheted creature), five bamboo 3.25 knitting needles (they're so comfortable to work with unlike the old crooked metal ones that scratched my fingers and always slipped away from stitches), scissors with colorful handles and a set of different-colored threads. I found out that there are 3 "yarn'n'stuff4 craftyppl" shops near my home. I've never seen any of them before I started crocheting/knitting though I passed them by many times. So it seems like soon I'll need some place to store all these things.

Oh and btw I got an account on Ravelry where there are more photos of the things I made.

Hungry forest mice

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:22:00 +0000

I have seen you, little mouse,
Running all about the house,
Through the hole your little eye,
In the wainscot peeping sly,
Hoping soon some crumbs to steal,
To make quite a hearty meal.

Yesterday I saw the mice. Actually I see lots of mice in the forest but fortunately this time they didn't see me so I was able to make a couple of shots and this video. I wonder if they chase each other when the 2d one comes or just communicate. The soundtrack is by Abakus "Igamatic"

Trying Linux for the 1st time

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:59:00 +0000

A week or two ago I found out that Canonical Ltd can mail you a free Ubuntu system installation CD. Since I've never used any system but windows and don't have enough resources for either Mac (#1 in my wish-list) or a new Windows licence I decided to try what all those red-eyed guys are anxious about. Linux.

Yesterday evening I've received my CD with brand new Ubuntu 9.04 (they say it takes up to 6 weeks to receive it but I was lucky to get the package in a little more than 1 week) and today I installed it. Since I didn't know if I'm gonna like it or not I decided installing it without killing Windows. The installation went a little hard on my FAT32 hard drive so I had to format it into NTFS then install Windows and then Ubuntu. Sorry if the above details were boring. So now each time my system starts I have a fair choice between these two systems.

This is how my desktop looks now...

Right now I'm getting accustomed to a new system. Some things are fine, others are a little bit unusual. But all in all I from my very first sight can't really say there is such a major difference between Linux and Windows for a simple user who doesn't get into programming mumbo-jumbo. The biggest Ubuntu's (don't know about other distributives) advantage is that it has a whole pack of useful software that comes with a package for free and can be lately modified. There is a choice of several basic photo viewers, music and video players, torrent trackers, office programs, browsers, IMs etc in it. The main disadvantage is that this system is a little bit slower then Windows. Maybe because it is installed from / with Windows. Don't know yet.

The strangest thing so far is that to access my other hard drives I have to 'activate' it. The best example for this is: I've got a picture on one of my hard drives that I set as wallpaper. It suits fine. Then I restart the system and don't see my picture on desktop but a horrible standard brownish-orange Ubuntu background. Then I open something that resembles "My computer" tab, click on the hard drive where my image is situated and presto! the background is here again. Maybe there's a way to change this too. I have to check.

What about general things.. well the interface is quite customisable. You may add panels (toolbars), choose or generate whatever color themes you like, there are plenty of visual effects (which I switched off cause I hate them), language packs and other stuff. Oh and you can place a moving fish on your toolbar for whatever reason unknown to me. I'll may be write more when I get more accustomed to Ubuntu.

Critters small and big

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:29:00 +0000

As I promised here I'm posting some critters I saw this spring. This season spring was rainy and lengthy too. Sometimes I didn't even take my camera when I went hiking. So here are only a few creatures I've seen.

I'll start with this yellow bug that fed on a dandelion. There were some of them in May. Then I've seen almost no insects until July. Strangely there are still almost no mushrooms here and insects have only started to show up recently. I remember last year there were hundreds of various flies and bugs and bumble bees on flowers. I wonder why there's so little of them this time.

Anyway it was fun to go down some forest route and suddenly encounter this guy hanging on an invisible thread right in front of your nose! I believe if it's alive it is now a butterfly. I wonder what kind of butterfly it is.

Squirrels. I remember when I was a kid it was so hard to find a single squirrel in the forest. I may be saw only a couple of them back then. In recent two or three years however their numbers increased dramatically. I see a squirrel or two almost each time I go to the forest. Squirrels are crazy. As far as I know they don't really save food for winter as fairytales tell us. Naturally they do hide food in some suitable places but don't really remember where. So in winter they may just randomly encounter the old savings. That's so fun that I started to imagine some 'true' fairytales about squirrels. May be I'll write them too.

Birds are always fast and crazy too. Um.. I meant busy. No crazy! Busy.. crazy.. fuzzy.. I managed to only capture this house sparrow so far. Other species of feathered race did the same old thing: wait for me to adjust the camera and fly away before I hit the 'capture' button.

The last one for today. I can't really say why but I feel attracted to grey flies. May be because of their shaggy bodies. Or may be because of a silver shine that I see when the sun illuminates their backs. May be it's their big sophisticated eyes that keep my attention to them. Or the way they wash up with their tiny legs.

May flowers

Aluajala@gmail.com (Aluajala) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Despite some difficulties with camera that I'm experiencing now I make some nature photos anyway. For some reason (which is called laziness) I haven't posted them yet. But I'm going to start today. This post is about spring flowers that bloomed in May and the next one will be about critters I met in spring.

This is why spring is my favorite season: hundreds and hundreds of different flowers everywhere.

Meadow buttercups...

Forget-me-nots are among my favorite spring wild flowers. They bloomed here in May and I enjoyed these tiny blue and white flowers very much. The most interesting thing about them that I've discovered only recently is that both blue and white blossoms can actually grow on one stem.

Not sure how these are called.. may be they're some kind of Corydalis. And btw they should be violet. My camera for some reason doesn't seem to distinguish it properly :(

Absolutely lovely dandelions. Despite the fact that these flowers usually grow in huge numbers covering fields with bright yellow color, these particular ones grew in one batch by the road.

Looks like an apple tree. Or some other fruit tree. This one stunned me. So many flowers and you can imagine their fantastic smell! I also love the young fur tree needles. They're so gentle.

Some Wild geranium...

And I have no idea about this one. I sure need some field guide about local flowers. And mushrooms. And birds. I want to know more about creatures and plants I encounter and I need to know how they're called too.