Life in Mexico
Mexico is a paradise for bird watchers! Every day, I see a mix of frigate birds, buzzards, pelicans, hummingbirds and flamingos.
There are about a half dozen caciques, a black and yellow relative of flycatchers, around my home, living in woven nests that hang like purses from the nearby trees.
Caciques are gregarious and noisy, flitting about the flowering plants in my courtyard, picking at the bugs that come to eat nectar. They have a wide assortment of calls, from squawks to chirps; they are most active when a squirrel dares to intrude on their stomping grounds.
My favorite was a family of small wrens that lived near a house we rented in Club Santiago a few years ago. We had a waterfall feature in the pool, and whenever it turned on, the wrens would fly over and take turns shooshing into the pool, chirping merrily away.
Recipe: French Macaroni & Cheese
I lived on Kraft M&C during my days at the University of Waterloo, so this recipe brings back a lot of fond memories. This upgrade is also a delicious meal that will please family and friends!
Ingredients
250 gm of cooked macaroni (save the pasta water).
100 gm of prosciutto (or fried bacon cut into bits).
Cheese Sauce;
75 gm of butter
3 Tsp of plain flour.
1 ½ cups of HOT milk.
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of black pepper
¼ tsp of ground nutmeg
1 cup of grated Gruyere cheese
Directions
Over medium heat, melt butter and sift in enough flour to make a roux (it should be smooth, like whipped cream)
Whisk in milk.
In a large bowl, mix salt, pepper, Gruyere, prosciutto and nutmeg. Use a pasta spoon to transfer the macaroni to the bowl. Mix (add a bit of pasta water if the roux is too thick).
Serve with chopped parsley. Enjoy!
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Book Review
Dial A For Aunties
By Jesse Q. Sutanto
Sutanto is a UK-based author who writes extensively about the antics of the Asian-born diaspora around the world. Her books feature a comic mash-up of various genres as Chinese ethnic mothers and their daughters navigate the intricacies of western culture.
I first became hooked on her work when I read Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. An aging woman running a tea shop wakes up one morning to find a dead man in her shop and decides to solve the mystery surrounding his death.
In Dial A for Aunties, young Meddy helps her Aunties’ marriage business by taking the wedding photographs. Her mother, looking to find her a husband, goes online and creates a dating profile of her daughter which leads to a blind date that goes terribly wrong – Meddy accidentally kills him!
Naturally, Meddy’s aunts step in to conceal the corpse by hiding it in a big cooler that then gets accidentally carried along with the rest of their equipment to the gigantic wedding of Tom Cruise Sutopo and his fiancé Jacqueline.
Did I mention someone tries to steal the wedding presents? The whole mess reads like a Marx Brothers comedy. I highly recommend Dial A for Aunties!
TV Review
National Geographics Lost Cities with Albert Lin
Streaming on You Tube
I stumbled on this series by accident while searching through YouTube for a video on Stonehenge. There’s a lot of ‘hot-rods-of-the-gods’ stuff out there, which I wasn’t particularly interested in, so when I stumbled onto a doco by National Geographic, I gave it the sniff test.
The 45-minute show was narrated by a California scientist named Albert Lin, a young engineer and scientist with 10,000 watts of enthusiasm. As he wandered through the iconic remnants near Salisbury, he waxed eloquently about the wonder and majesty of the site, then asked the question; “Who came before the builders of Stonehenge?”
With the help of British archeologists, Lin then began a journey back in time over 8000 years, when hunter/gatherers roamed the vast forests of Britain. They were attracted to the plains of Salisbury by Aurochs, ancient forebears of cattle, which were drawn to the sweet grasses that grew on the flat, prairie-like expanses.
One Auroch could feed 300 people, and the ancestors of modern man grew to both covet and worship the beasts. They built extensive temporary ‘cities’ adjacent to the plains, creating flint tools to both hunt and process them. Using ground penetrating radar (GPR), the archeologists have been able to document both the cities and great mounds of Auroch bones in the ditches that encircle Stonehenge.
There are dozens of documentaries in the series along the same vein, using science to search for the origins of Machu Picchu and El Dorado. It’s a wonderful blend of entertainment and science; I highly recommend Lost Cities with Albert Lin!
Bonus Book Review
What an Owl Knows
By Jennifer Ackermman
When I was 10 years old, I was handing out candy at the door during Halloween. Late in the evening, a friend of ours came by dressed as a wizard with a live owl on his shoulder. Alan was deeply into bird watching and had taken the owl as a baby from its nest. I was fascinated as it peered at me, its big eyes seeming to take up half his tiny body.
Ackerman, an international authority on birds, brings some of that wonder to her work, along with a lot of science. Owls have always been difficult to study because they are nocturnal and have excellent camouflage. Even the most devoted bird scientist can be standing within a yard of an owl and never see it.
Advances in surveillance tools now allow researchers to intensely study many of the endangered species, learning why their numbers are declining. Loss of habitat and fewer mice and voles are some of the culprits, but humans are not far behind.
Even the simple act of disposing an apple core out the window of your car can have tragic consequences; mice are attracted to the food and owls, intent on hunting the mice, are hit by cars.
Ackerman takes us on her journey around the world, where she encounters Tasmanian Masked Owls, Brazilian Burrowing Owls and Arctic Snowy Owls. Each are unique and fascinating in their habits and personalities.
She also describes the scientists who dedicate their lives to understanding these captivating creatures; a flock of birds of a different feather. I highly recommend What an Owl Knows!