Back in November, I noticed that a local charcuterier was selling merquez sausage.  I had only had merquez, a spicy Moroccan lamb and beef (or sometimes pork) treat, a few times in restaurants.  I’d never seen it in stores around here.  Not knowing how I was going to prepare it, I bought a 1 lb package and figured I’d spend the afternoon researching what I was going to serve for dinner.   I didn’t have to search long!   Although there were many recipes on the web that I could have used, what evolved is a combination of several recipes.  Since I first tried the following dish, it has been a favorite in my house.    This recipe is for 2 plentiful servings; adjust as meets your needs.

Place four merquez sausages with a 1/4 cup of water in a skillet over medium heat.  Cook slowly — about 25 minutes.  The water will have evaporated and the sausages browned and heated thoroughly.

The pleasant aroma of these spicy sausages will fill your kitchen!

In another pan, bring water to a boil and add leafy greens to blanch for 1 minute.  I think this is best with a hardy kale, but have used collard, spinach and Red Russian kale.  Red Russian Kale, pictured in the photos below, was a bit too delicate for this dish in my opinion.

Drain the greens and reserve one cup of the cooking liquid.    Admire how pretty the liquid looks.   Cool the greens and then chiffonade.  If using something like Dino Kale, you may want to remove the leaves from the stems before blanching.  Don’t throw them away —  just add to the boiling water for an extra 2 – 3 minutes before the leaves.

Reserved liquid from the greens. Looks like mint tea!

In a skillet, sauté 1 onion and 1 -2 gloves of garlic.  I think that butter always adds a nice richness to sautéed onions, but olive oil is perfectly fine.   When the onion is a nice brown color, add 1/2 t of red pepper flakes, 1 t of cumin, 1 t of cinnamon. Continue cooking for 1 -2 minutes.  Then add any combination of the following:  red raisins, golden raisins, chopped apricots, chopped figs.   My favorite is figs and apricots, but I will throw in raisins too if I have some on hand.  I didn’t have any last Saturday, so I added dried cherries, which was a flavorful change for this dish.   Stir for another minute or two, add the greens, and the reserved liquid.   It should come to a boil quickly; reduce to a simmer, cover and cook for about 5 minutes.

The cinnamon and cumin will blend nicely with the onions, adding a sweetness that balances with the red pepper.

This dish comes together quickly & is very colorful!

Cook 1 cup of couscous according to directions on the package; usually 1 cup water, 1 cup couscous. Most couscous suggests adding butter; I usually don’t.   I like the look of the tri-color couscous, but plain tastes the same on my palate; I’d use either in this dish.   By the time that the couscous is done, the sausage should be too.   Plate the greens & fruit combo on top of the couscous, and then top with sausage.   If you like to have wine with dinner, a Rioja or a Shiraz would be a good choice.  For something non-alcoholic, consider a traditional Moroccan mint tea.

Yummy!

If you can’t find merquez in your area, substitute another spicy sausage, such as Spanish Chorizo or andouille.

I decided at the beginning of the year that I would participate in the Photo Friday challenge each week and that I would not dismiss those weekly challenges that either didn’t interest me, or that seemed too difficult. What am I going to do with that? I’ve found myself thinking several times already this year. But, since I made the commitment to myself to participate, I’ve found that I usually don’t have to think too long before I figure out something that meets the challenge.

At the same time, I’ve been participating for the last few weeks in Liv Lane’s Friday “Follow your Bliss” blog hop. While photography is a blissful pursuit for me, at first glance it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with this week’s Photo Friday Challenge, which would appear to be the opposite of bliss, to be something reflecting despair.

This week’s challenge, Inner City, was not one that seemed too difficult. Yet, it wasn’t something that I was that interested in doing. Why? Because I immediately thought of the cliché picture of urban blight: decaying, boarded buildings, broken windows, trash, poverty.

Years ago, a colleague from another city commented that there were no “bad” places in Indianapolis. I laughed. You just haven’t been in them. I replied. On another visit, with no intentions of sending him through slums, I gave him an alternate route to the airport because of road construction. On arriving in his office the next day, he called me. I believe you now. I wanted to lock my doors and get the hell out of there quickly. And I don’t think that it was really a short cut!” I didn’t find that route on the way to downtown to be that dangerous, but there were many blocks that were abandoned. That area has been revitalized in recent years, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t areas where the gritty inner city exists. It exists in every city. While I don’t want to diminish the hardships of poverty, or turn a blind eye, I just wasn’t in the mood this week to take a photograph for photography sake of what might be someone else’s bleak existence. After all, there is joy in the inner city too, sometimes in spite of hardship. Sometimes because of the joy that we have, or will, overcome such hardships.

Number 1 on my bliss list this week is remembering that this memorial is in my city, on the spot where Robert Kennedy gave a speech on the night Martin Luther King was assassinated, a speech credited with helping to prevent the riots that occurred elsewhere that night. It makes me happy that this memorial is in my city. I wish more people knew about it; I wish that fewer people would be hesitant to go because of where it is located, in the “inner” city.

Kennedy-King Memorial, Indianapolis, Indiana

UPDATED: Here is a link to a story about Robert Kennedy’s remarks on April 8, 1968, breaking the news of the King assassination. The link includes audio of Kennedy’s speech. The official name of the memorial is The Landmark For Peace Memorial.   Here is a link to a Wikipedia article about it.

Other things on my bliss list this week:
2. Finding the skeleton of a box turtle along the creek. It was fascinating to look at. I tried to find it again to take photos a few days later and could not locate it.

3. Realizing that the trees are starting to bud. It’s early — I think I saw some flurries earlier — but it still makes me happy.

4. Reading Jane Tomaine’s St. Benedict’s Toolbox monthly newsletter on reframing Lent with a spirit of joyfulness. Lent is one of those periods that I was taught to think of in terms of starkness, bleakness, or lamenting what miserable creatures we are. I always have problems with this. Her words reminded me not to beat myself up too much, during Lent or anytime. Thanks Jane. This message was repeated by my pastor when I went to Ash Wednesday services. I also saw a link to this website, Dark Cloth Diaries; Greg Miller takes pictures every year of people with ashes on their foreheads. Although most think that only Catholics do this, others participate in this ancient ritual as well. I think Miller captures this tradition beautifully. Scroll down on Jane’s website to the link for the feature article in this month’s newsletter to read about reframing Lent.

A twisted vine with wonderful shapes and textures

A snail that was a beautiful blue hue inside

The calm green water, the brown bank with concrete and pipe remains, and a culvert I hadn’t noticed before

What must be one of the very first buds of Spring:

Sometimes, even though the natural state just out of the camera is interesting, I like to play around with the image, changing colors and focus until it is something that no longer looks like something natural.

It doesn’t diminish its natural beauty:

I’ve never seen anything that looks like this:

But, green moss growing on a piece of bark is pretty amazing just the way it is:

When I returned from my walk, I realized that the Hellebore is still in bloom:

Later, inside, I took a look at my out of control desk: books, bills, papers, a program from a chamber music concert, masking tape (really? what’s that doing there), phone, tile samples, notebooks, two scarfs….And that’s where my glasses case has been hiding! Perhaps I need to spend more time inside.

There are places were you can see the remains of the former estate: concrete building blocks in places, a cement pad where an outbuilding once stood, portions of the old gates and fences that have never been torn down completely. But, for years, it was also a dumping ground. Because of the ravines — an upland forest — the interior of this park isn’t that accessible. In places near the creek where I walk regularly, I see where people leave things in the dead of night. Rolled up carpet, extra building supplies, an unwanted aquarium, a bag of trash that missed the weekly collection, a shoe, a sweater: I don’t understand why people throw things out of car windows, but it does make sense that they do it near the roadside, making for a quick escape to avoid being caught and fined.

Explore the Estate! See the Farm!

But, I can’t imagine porting something in nearly a 1/2 mile from the road, up a steep hill and then throwing it in a place where it is only visible from one angle. As I was walking the other day, I saw some graffiti that made me smile, painted on a fallen tree, advertising tours of the property. Of course there aren’t tours here!

Tours? Where's the ticket booth?

I walked the opposite direction from the arrows. And I doubt that dishes were left from a tour group or that the are remnants of the estate that has been gone for over 30 years. Sure, it isn’t necessary to spray paint fallen trees in the middle of the woods, but finding an occassional kid prank seems more likely than what I stumbled upon just beyond as I hiked down a steep ravine. Why on earth would someone need to get rid of three dozen metal trash cans? Why would they have gone to the effort to do it here? These have likely been here for years before the park reopened a few years ago. Even with a four-wheel vehicle, this wouldn’t have been an easy place to get too. Certainly they didn’t carry them all in.

Click on any picture in the gallery to see a larger version.

Intentionally backlighting subjects is not something that I have done before. I think that these were okay for an initial attempt. I love the way that the dried, white flower stalks have an orange glow. On a windy, cold day, when the air smelled like rain even though the rainclouds had not yet arrived, I would not have had the patience to wait for the sun’s angle on these winterdead plants. Happening upon them at just the right moment was serendipitous.

This morning, Light Stalking posted a link to a series of backlit photographs. These are far better than what I’ve done and have given me ideas for how I might compose other backlit shots in the future.

On a different note, take a look at how the photos on the Light Stalking page are credited. Title and Flickr user name is on each. I have a blogging friend who has been using a plug-in to find photos to illustrate her blog posts and we recently had a discussion about how to credit properly. Her plug-in provides the link to the photo on Flickr; hovering over the photo displays the photo’s title, but not the name of the photographer. (All are properly licensed via Creative Commons, so that is not the issue.) For those of you who have photographs in the public domain, how would you want your photographic credit to appear? Light stalking gives the Flickr username, rather than the photographer’s name even when that is available. I have mixed feelings on this. While citing that one of my pictures was created by SilleeShutterbugz2785 (that is NOT my real user name, btw) would be better than no attribution at all, if I have my work publicly available and my name is on the same site, I think that I would want that. On the other hand, I could make my username the same as my legal name so that was used, even though it is available on my profile.

I’m interested in what you think. Would it make a difference to you if you were being paid? What if the site using your photograph was generating income, though not directly from your image? Is linking to your photo, which gives a link to your name and information on your profile, what you would expect if someone used one of your photos from a photo sharing site?

This is definitely not a climbing tree, or one that you would want to run into!

Self-protection

Cluster of Thorns

Thorns encircling trunk

Thorn Close-up

Tree: Needles? Nails? Deterrent?

Wearing its thorns like a suit of armor

There is all sort of interesting finds in this 80 acre site, a site that was once a farm and later an estate of a reclusive businessman. Local legends grew up around the place, known for over 50 years as The House of Blue Lights. For years, before the Parks Dept too over the property, it was a dumping ground and a site for illicit rendezvous. Pieces of barbed wire fencing remain scattered throughout: gates that no longer prevent trespass, rusting along with the leaves.

Honey Locust were not liked by the early settlers because they could spread rapidly, forming natural hedges. As a landscape plant, usually only varieties bred to be thornless are used. My guess would be that many were cleared when the land was farmed. The honey locust in the designated “transition area” between upland forest and wetlands, which is being allowed to revert to natural species, are just beginning to get re-established, I assume. Trespassers on the property were a nuisance for many years while the land was inhabited, and for years after the old estate and guest house had been torn down. Had there been more honey locust on the property, there might have been less need for barbed wire, fewer unwelcomed visitors making their way up the wooded creek to see what spooky legends lived at the top of the steep hill.

Patti Smith, Prayer of St. Francis and Wing

Awesome!

Have a great day everybody!

After trying several times in recent weeks to get decent pictures of food, I have come to understand why there are people called “food stylists”. Getting a picture of food is easy. Making it look appetizing is a completely different thing.

Fresh from the Farmers' Market

Libations

The veggies photo was taken in ’09; the drinks photo a few weeks ago. My dinner this evening? Photos will not be published, but it tasted better than it looked.

Remember: Everything in moderation.

A few scenes from my walk:

Just before I walked out the door, a bright red cardinal perched on a tree outside my dining room window. The cardinal was not the only bird I saw, of course. Along the way, I saw flickers, robins, ducks, and geese. There were a few leftover nests from last year, visible on the barren trees.

Duck

Duck

Goose

Last year's nest

I walked along the creek for 2.5 miles, stopping often to look and listen to the flowing water. Because we’ve had so little snow this year, the creek is much lower than normal. The sandy islands that form in the middle, usually only accessible in late summer, were reachable in a few spots. It isn’t a view I usually get to enjoy. I crawled out on one dead tree and sat for a while and listened to the rapidly flowing water and the birds.

As always, there are lots of interesting things along the side of the trail. Today’s surprise was that on the small island, there were many clam shells. I knew that clams populated inland waterways, but I had no idea that I could find some along this creek. Many were pearly and several were as large as my hands.

Of course, not everything to be found is natural. Looks like someone left in a hurry, leaving an unopened bottle.

A few days ago, Terry at Mobius Faith (Click on that link! His photos are fantastic!) posted some photos of concrete. I know it sounds a bit odd — concrete? — but his post inspired me to look at concrete differently. I’ll post more later — there are some that I want to experiment with in post-processing — but look at the interesting shapes and color from lichen and rust from the bridge materials. In places where graffiti artists have been, the parks department has tried to cover it up. The paint, as it ages, creates an interesting pentimento. Even the shapes of the concrete bridges are interesting.

Of course, there was plenty of nature to photography as well: empty milkweed pods, hanging from a limb; fungus on fallen trees; stark trees pressed up against the gorgeous, cloudless sky; snowdrops, those early signs of spring, pushing their way up from the winter ground.

As I returned home, walking up the drive, I noticed the tulip trees in the front ravine. They are over 100 feet tall, so it’s difficult to tell, but I think they may be starting to bud. As nice as it was today, early blooming is not good for the trees.