Via site feedVia Real Japan:
This is hors d’ oeuvre served at a hot spring hotel in Japan. It created an atmosphere of autumn. You can find two ginkgo leaves changed color were made of sweet potato.
Garnish
Ginkgo Wednesdays: Photography
Image courtesy of aikitherese.
Ginkgo Nut Gathering
A brief visit last evening to my local ginkgo trees told me that the season of ginkgo nuts has passed. While I don’t have any first-hand knowledge this year, in the past I have seen small groups of middle-aged Korean women collecting the nuts.
Dover describes her own autumn ginkgo nut-gathering expedition. She also links to a page that describes the ginkgo nut roasting process. When I first visited the page, there were instructions (albeit in Japanese), but the pictures are descriptive.
Service interruption
There is a very good chance that this site will be down for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow.
But I’ll be back.
Cultivar
Pronunciation: ‘k&l-t&-"vär, -"ver, -"var
Function: noun
Etymology: cultivated + variety
: an organism and especially one of an agricultural or horticultural variety or strain originating and persistent under cultivation
Source: Merriam-Webster Online
Heksenbezem Leiden
Rubus Rhetoric recently posted a photo he took of a plant at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden.
Further research confirms that the plant is a dwarf ginkgo cultivar known as Heksenbezem Leiden. The only online English-language description of this cultivar is available from The Ginko Pages:
quite compact, rounded, dwarf form, branching closely grouped, up to 3 metres.
Ginkgo Fridays: Tiles
A sample from Meredith Art Tile‘s Ginkgo series.
Autumn Ginkgo Watch
JD at jean.e.ology posts the first Northern Hemisphere autumn ginkgo photo I’ve seen this year. It’s located at the corner of Granada and Huntington Drive in San Marino, California, USA.
Ginkgo Wednesdays: Photography
Image courtesy of MAKSTER.
Ginkgo Bowls
Ginkgo bowls from Glasblæseriet v. Bente Sonne.
Phantom Limbs
Through the yellow hooves
of the ginkgo, parchment light;
in that apartment where I first
touched your shoulders under your sweater,
that October afternoon you left keys
in the fridge, milk on the table.
Read the rest of Anne Michaels’ poem here.
Matsutake Soup in a Tea Pot
A delicious way to enjoy matsutake mushroom soup is to cook individual servings in small pots which look just like small teapots, or dobin. These pots are actually designed expressly for this kind of soup. The soup contains many other ingredients as well, such as seasonal nuts and seafood. And all these ingredients cooperate to produce a perfect balance in the taste of the soup.4 servings
3½ cups dashi stock
1 tablespoon sake
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon shoyu
12 gingko nuts
3 fillets of chicken, strings removed and cut into bite-sized pieces
14 shrimp, shelled and deveined with tails on
1 matsutake mushroom, sliced thinly and stem tip removed
4 sprigs mitsuba trefoil, cut into 3 cm/1 inch lengths
4 pieces maple-shaped yuzu citrus rind
.
Ode to Autumn
Blogger Gail Hapke reminds us why ginkgo trees are not always welcome:
They stink. They drop their nasty, smelly fruit on the pavement where I walk in the morning for exercise. If I wanted to live someplace where the pavements smell like vomit, I’d move to campus. The nuts apparently do not smell like vomit and are a prized ingredient in Chinese cuisine.
Read the rest at Scribal Terror.
Living fossil
Function: noun
Date: 1922
: an organism (as a horseshoe crab or a ginkgo tree) that has remained essentially unchanged from earlier geologic times and whose close relatives are usually extinct
Source: Merriam-Webster Online
Ginkgo Fridays: Textiles
Canvas floorcloth by Rab Terry, available at The Artful Home.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
This ginkgo, located in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew was planted in 1762:
The ginkgo, a male tree, was one of the first of the species to have been planted in Britain, following the introduction of ginkgos via Europe in 1754. Its hardiness was unknown, so it was planted against the wall of the Great Stove glasshouse for protection. This was subsequently demolished in 1861, which left the ginkgo standing alone. It is a multistemmed tree, probably due to the transplanting and moving early in its life which may have accounted for it losing its growing point.
In 2002 it rightly became one of the 50 “Great British Trees” in a scheme run by the Tree Council to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.
Ginkgo Wednesdays: Photography
Image courtesy of andee.
Marjorie King Studio
Ginkgo Dreams is usually all about the ginkgo, but you may like some of the other amazing pieces available from Marjorie King Studio.
Mixed Vegetarian Supreme
The exoticism of some of these ginkgo recipes is almost enough to make me get on a plane to Asia.
Today’s recipe from Amy Beh is via Chetam.
Peduncle
Pronunciation: ‘pE-"d&[ng]-k&l, pi-’
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin pedunculus, diminutive of Latin ped-, pes
1 : a stalk bearing a flower or flower cluster or a fructification
2 : a narrow part by which some larger part or the whole body of an organism is attached: STALK, PEDICEL
3 : a narrow stalk by which a tumor or polyp is attached
Source: Merriam-Webster Online
Ginkgo Fridays: Tableware
Try these ginkgo leaf salad tongs from Martini Pic with your next salad.
Ginkgo Wednesdays: Photography
This photograph from Revenant Photography and available as a limited edition print caught my attention as a possible addition to our home.
Gilbert and George: The Ginkgo Pictures Series
The British Pavilion of the 51st Venice Biennale is currently exhibiting a series of pictures from artists Gilbert & George:
Gilbert & George have collected images of flowers and plants for many years, and trees, branches and tree blossoms have appeared in their work from an early stage. In the new pictures for Venice, leaves from Ginkgo biloba trees collected in Gramercy Park, New York, provide both a point of departure and recurring motif. No longer a rare species, today the ginkgo tree adorns avenues and parks throughout the world and can be found in the streets close to the home of Gilbert & George in east London. The tree is an object of veneration in the Far East, where it is associated with longevity and reputed to have miraculous powers, and these extraordinary properties act as a metaphor for the vital life-force which runs throughout the group of twenty-five pictures. The leaf divides into two, and this is reflected in the halving and doubling of imagery in the Ginkgo Pictures, with the predominance of the rich golden yellow in many of the pictures synonymous with the colour the leaves turn in the autumn months. The double image of the leaf and the symmetry of the pictorial compositions are in turn mirrored in the installation of the twenty-five pictures in the six galleries of the British Pavilion.
The full series is available for download here.
Barley with White Fungus and Gingko Nuts
This recipe via chloewinkie at Let’s Talk Over Coffee:
Ingredients
Barley
Gingko nuts (with removed stix)
White fungus
Pandan leaves
Rock sugar1. Soak white fungus till it turns soft. Remove the yellow joint portion.
2. Wash pandan leaves and tie into a knot.
3. Add barley, gingko nuts, white fungus, together with the knotted pandan leaves into pot and filled the pot with water.
4. Boil at high heat till the barley has expanded in size and floats up to the surface of the boiling water.
5. Add rock sugar to taste.
6. Serve while hot.
Not Just for Your Eyes
Blogger Sarah writes:
Philadelphia is also unique because of many Gingko Biloba trees that have been planted over the years. During the fall months, these prized botanical specimens drop berries on the sidewalks of some of Philadelphia’s famous historical neighborhoods. The berries are especially known for their slightly pungent aroma that has been compared to decade-old toe jam. Walking through a patch of crushed berries will leave this wonderful fragrance on your shoes so you can enjoy it for the rest of the day.