Hop and Stretch

Tea: Earl Grey

Music: 21st Century Schizoid Band, "21st Century Schizoid Man"

Time: Night.

This is getting to be a habit. I went bug hunting today.

I didn't start off to do that. My son had a strings gig at a park with some decent wooded areas, so I took along a couple of plastic bags in case I was able to find some nuts (including acorns) or mushrooms.

Total forage: One edible hickory nut. The acorns were (a) small and (b) wet, and the only fungi were either (c) unidentifiable or (d) clearly not for consumption.

So, finding an area of long grass outside the woods, I spent a half-hour pursuing (and in about two dozen cases, catching) grasshoppers. They got the usual preparation, with the added step of pulling the legs off the larger ones. (Spiky, those legs are.)

In the meantime, I made a small pot of rice. When it and the bug/chile preparation were both done, I fluffed the former and stirred in the latter.

Hey, if you've only got a small amount of a good thing, you stretch it how you can.

Escape of the Six-Legged Snacks

Tea: Jacob's Dream

Music: Chris Isaak, "Only the Lonely"

Time: Night

Just my luck today. My son and I saw hundreds of grasshoppers -- and had nothing in which to store them.

So we couldn't catch them ... purge them overnight ... boil them in the morning in salted water seasoned with oregano and garlic ... and then sauté them in oil with jalapeño chiles.

(Yes, we've done that once already. And it was gooooooood. No "ewww" allowed.)

Ah, well. It's a long summer. There's bound to be a skillet full of bugs on the horizon.

And yea, verily, it will be good.