Endive On A Stick

Fred has been searching desperately for our Birth Certificates.  Yes, some local natural-born morons have challenged our right to squat -- even as we serve as caretakers for the entire Haddock Family and Corporation property, including its physical (born, unborn, and dreamt of) and spiritual habitants, all of whom can trace their blood lines to Canadian farmers of French origin.

The accusations stem from paranoia that we are using Haddock monies and inexhaustible talents to whip the Montréal Canadiens into even more of a frenzy than the latest Hab's free agent dabble. I mean, really, aren't we all just glad that we could reunite the Kostitsyn brothers? Sure, we have enough Stanley Cups to decorate every ballroom, guest suite, barn, and hay-strewn ice oval but does that give you any right to turn into an inbred cross-eyed drooling birther?

When stressed, Fred goes shopping, and his most recent acquisition is a new camera.  When he left the Manor mid-afternoon yesterday, scratching off in Ruby the Honda CR-V. tail end wiggling with excitement (Ruby's, not Fred's), we all thought he had gone off to grab Marlinspike Hall's fair measure of First Endive.  Belgian white endive is classic, so we loving lay its pale production down in the lowest of the dark cellars, but psst?!  Are you up on Californian Richard Collins?

Forging his European experience with his American know-how, Collins’ farm grew into the nation’s top endive producer. But it took time, just like endive.


Endive is a twice-grown crop. The first step is the planting of chicory, which grows literally like a weed throughout the Golden State. Collins started with five acres and now has 275 acres throughout Central and Northern California. The root is harvested with the bud on top. The roots are then placed in cold storage — forcing hibernation — for up to 10 months.


After hibernating, the roots are placed side-by-side in trays. The trays, stacked several rows high, are then put into the dark climate-controlled “forcing room.” The roots are fed a special liquid diet and the roots then feed the bud, which in four weeks is a little head of endive.


Collins, the president of California Vegetable Specialties in Rio Vista, said his company produced 16,000 pounds of endive in its first year. Today CVS — formerly Rebel Farms — produces approximately 4.5 million pounds of the specialty crop a year. They are expecting to reach 5 million next year.


“Now, (16,000 pounds) is a so-so day of packed product,” he said.


CVS doesn’t look like your typical farm. The 30,000-square-foot growing facility is on the outskirts of Rio Vista in an agricultural zone. However, the two large buildings look more appropriate for storing produce than growing it.


The newly finished cold-storage unit houses the hibernating roots. There are four rooms that can hold 4,000 tons of chicory roots. The unit is specially designed with an insulation R value of 100. A typical home has an R value of 20. Industry minimums are 28.


“It’s very, very well-insulated,” said Collins, who added that his hope is to be able to shut off the system during peak hours to save money and take pressure off the power grid. “It’s probably the most efficient cold-storage building in America. It’s going to be a big saver for us.


“We projected a cost model, and were running 12 to 15 percent under, so that’s good,” he added. “We’re optimistic it will continue.”


In the second building is where the magic happens: roots are “awakened” out of hibernation, placed in trays, rolled into dark rooms for several weeks and then emerge with either yellowish or red heads. The yellow in the leaves is an indication of chlorophyll, which is what makes leaves change color in fall. If endive was not grown in the dark, it would be green. Collins noted that if endive sits in stores too long it can begin to turn green because of the lights.


After approximately four weeks (some trays may take longer), the trays are removed from the dark rooms. Employees sever the endive heads from the roots, take off a few of the outer leaves so they are left with the tight inner core and package them for sale. The roots, leaves and endive that is below company standards are discarded and sent to farmers for cow feed.


While giving cows a good meal makes Collins happy, he’s more excited about feeding people and bringing awareness to endive.


“It’s great being a farmer,” he said. “It’s good and versatile. You can make a lot of salads, but it’s also good for cooking.”

Of course, Collins cannot spill all the beans, cannot reveal the role of Captain Haddock's Pink Submarine or its five sub satellites that surface now and again in the moat (and only when Certifiably Algae Free), be it to transport all of our Miniature Olympic sporting teams, their gear, and chefs, or be it to assist in the storage of Corporate Important Paper Work.

But you can believe me when I write that our bovines are by far the most cheerful bulls, cows, and calves West of the Lone Alp, and that loving on endive is sometimes a place to start in the group therapy sessions held in Loft A-3 out in the Drug Rehab Carnie Barn. Thank God for endive, beef, and addicts making such great synergy because while the peanut brittle we first had them producing (therapeutically producing, you understand) was a good product to promote -- we used preferred local ingredients, from the artisinal processed white sugar to the hydroponic vanilla bean pods -- the heat of high summer and the sticky nature of brittle, well, they produced perhaps a better fly trap than amuse-bouche.

You wanna know what's scary?  Haddock Home immediately formed a committee on the viability of peanut brittle fly traps as cute little curio thingies, strange and interesting -- and "as seen on TV."

The famous Pierre Poulin designed and built the Schvitz, mother sub to all miniature bathyscaphes, and since The Captain loves Québec and various Québécois taverns, despite the fact that robots have essentially replaced his beloved personal submersibles, he volunteereed, between shots, to channel Richard Collins' endive booty back and forth from Canada to the little moat surrounding Marlinspike Hall.

Yeah, so, anyway.  This post was supposed to be about other things.  You lucked out this time!  I'm too busy fielding messsages from tech-challenged Captain Haddock, translating barks that issue from Fred's snout, soothing Marmy Fluffy Butt and reassuring her squeaking self that no one is laughing at her for having feline herpes virus in her eyes, and providing [moist] warm flannel to apply to Bianca Castafiore's inflamed throat.

Dobby is watching me like a hawk, but not lifting a paw to help.  Buddy is watching my every move as well, believing that I have plastic bags of frozen shaved tuna flakes stuffed in my bra or taped to my lower leg.

Oh, yeah, my leg is leaking again.  I see MDVIP Go-To-Guy this afternoon to find out, possibly, why my right hip has gone to hell.  He can check out the leak and also advise me whether the pain in my chest might kill me, maybe sometime before ManorFest 2012 Prep goes into high gear.

Recipes, people, I need recipes -- what can you do with endive?

But who are the Dutch?

Pink Submarine courtesy of The Bunny Hop

Yesterday was a better day.  I am hoping today will follow suit, but I've been too busy putting out small domestic fires around The Manor to have the time for even a rapid assessment. 

A submarine and five sub satellites surfaced in the moat, and we are waiting for what I suppose might be First Contact, except that we're fairly sure it's Captain Haddock and the Miniature Badminton Team dropping by to stock up on supplies. 

Then the rugrat, Buddy the Kitten, managed to chew through what turned out to be an important data cable.  I know it was a data cable because it sported a green tag labeled "data cable." Sven Feingold (whom we recently discovered was the biological father of Marlinspike Hall's Cabana Boy -- which brings on a host of migraine-inspiring genetic issues... but let's leave that for another time, shall we?) -- Sven Feingold, working tirelessly on a new section of the labyrinth in preparation for ManorFest 2011, happened to be leaving La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore's Very Private Apartments as I was lecturing the Bit O'Fuzz about his propensity for chewing electronics, and after a brief search in the left cargo pocket of his faded denim overalls, triumphantly pulled out four condoms, a feather duster, and a neatly bundled bit of cable, complete with the sweet green tag. 

Sugar-free banana-flavored yellow glow-in-the-dark condoms.

He's something of a Boy Scout, is Sven.

Fred and I spent a harrowing afternoon in Captain Haddock's vessel, The Schvitz, back in 2005 -- quite the feat in an area designed for single occupancy.  We made a quick run from The Moat to Le Havre, across The Channel.  We made it back to the manor in under a half-hour -- our introduction to his patented Corkscrew Technology™ that transforms the distance between large-mouthed rivers into... well, private little connecting Chunnels. 

The Captain's sub was built by Pierre Poulin of Québec and is slightly larger than his Guinness World Record model, weighing in at roughly 1500 pounds (sans Haddock).  If Fred and I could cram ourselves in there, the Miniature Badminton Team could've wedged themselves inside, no problem.  Even so, the guys have chosen to do their underwater traveling in pairs, comfortably nestled in tiny quilted goose down-lined living units that closely resemble conjoined oven mitts.  The Australian National University was *this* close to trashing their slightly defective Serafina units (the world's smallest autonomous subs, roughly 40 centimeters in length, with pink plastic hulls, and 5 size-C battery powered propulsion systems, complete with seven cute little propellers) when Haddock swooped in and purchased them for a song.  The renovations probably cost more than than the total purchase price for the five underwater crafts, originally destined for the offshore oil industry.

Did you know that a Dutchman built the first submersible in the early years of the 1600s?  Can anyone tell me who the Dutch really are?  Bonus points for pointing out the vast Dutch homeland, with a 100-word essay explaining its primary physical attributes on a contemporary, topographically-detailed globe.  Remember:  "Globes are... symbols of wisdom and you can often find them on the desks of great scholars."


Anyway.  (I wonder how long I can blame this blogging catastrophe on my penchant for ketamine?)

While waiting for The Team's laundry and List of Needed Sundries and while Buddy the Kitten is taking a well-deserved nap, I'm trying to get my head together.  If the ketamine treatments have anything to do with my improved sleep, I am already grateful.  I just need to remember how to wake up, as I usually go from a half-awake state to slight somnolence and back again in 40-minute cycles.  Now I am stringing 4, 5, and even 6 hours together without waking, time enough for well developed dreams and some restoration of spirit.

Tuesday, I thought that my hands might hurt a bit less than usual, and was trying to convince myself and every stray medical professional we came across that the infusions were, indeed, working, and that I must be close to the discovery of my personal magic number -- the lowest, most effective dose of ketamine.  Yesterday, I knew that was a bunch of hooey, but as I had already been strutting and crowing about it, tried to let the topic die a natural death.  If only Fred were a disinterested party, because the first words out of his mouth upon seeing my bright and cheerful visage yesterday morning were:  "Are your hands still better?"

So it just completely sucks that I woke this morning, after a sleep that actually qualifies as "restorative," to find my entire right hand a deep, dank purple and frosty enough to put the chilling properties of ice to shame.  Movement seems entirely normal but my perception of that movement is fucked.  My fingers feel *thick* and uncooperative, much like my right leg!

I will not have too much trouble hiding it, as there aren't many moments in the day when my right hand attracts any natural sort of attention.  The hope is that this is a passing change.

When I say the hand is cold?  I mean the hand is COLD -- "cold" capitalized, bolded, italicized, underlined, and colored arctic blue.  It burns like a mo'fo and demands an unduly large measure of my consciousness -- it's hard to ignore.

The only good thing may be that holding it cupped in my relatively balmy left hand actually feels nice.  Usually, my freezing body parts don't tolerate touch, even if logic says that the touch ought to be pleasant.  Hence, people are always annoying me with offers of luxurious socks, cashmere leg warmers, delicate fuzzy blankets, microwave-warmed bags of rice or beans or whatever... none of which can I put up with when put in contact with my body.

But warmth feels marvelous to this right hand.

To be obnoxious -- it's a calling! -- I only seem to tolerate the warmth that comes from my own left hand.

To say that I am tired of the weirdness of this syndrome is a masterful understatement.

So... I'm gonna sit here and hold my own damned hand until Haddock and The Team pop their respective hatches, then whip up some lunch for everyone.  It's hard to figure the right amount of food when the athletically talented but physically challenged miniature badminton team drops in.  I mean, they had a pre-dawn intense practice session, then made an undersea journey of considerable length (and depth)... plus they skipped breakfast, the rascals.  Factor into the equation that The Captain's appetite is famously voracious, and that Bianca has invited Sven to join us at The Captain's Table -- Sven who has mentioned several times, eyes all a-twinkle, how famished he is this morning.

We are letting most of the Domestic Staff have the weekend off.  No weekend guests are scheduled for occupancy.  Abbot Truffatore has been called to Rome (we hope it's nothing serious) and the grounds are really too wet for much earth-moving.  We're weary from running around Tête de Hergé and, since Fred has resigned from the Board of Directors to the Militant Lesbian Existential Feminist Congregation, his schedule is lighter than normal.

So I'm thinking comfort foods, comfort cooking -- baking breads, making one-pot wonders, that sort of thing.  I'm thinking spooning naps, with kittens for needed softness.  I'm thinking maybe a haircut, maybe some light cleaning in the larger ballrooms and salons.  I'm thinking a short but tasteful memorial service for Tobacco Road basketball. 

And I am ignoring my colder-than-a-witch's-tit hand and the likelihood of its lack of cooperation.

A witch's tit (or witch's teat, to use the older spelling) supposedly left a marking that witch hunters and courts would look for on the body of an accused person. Supposedly, witches would suckle their familiars, and sometimes the Devil himself, from this "unholy" body part. To find these marks, as well as insensitive spots on the skin called devil's marks--caused by the Devil's claws or teeth--the suspects were stripped, shaven, then closely examined for any blemishes, moles, or even scars that could be labeled as diabolical. To find marks invisible to the eye, the examiner would poke the victim inch by inch with a blunt needle (called a bodkin) until they found a spot that didn't feel pain or bled. Discovery of these marks or spots--one supposes they would be considered cold since they were a sign of communion with the Devil--would be "proof" of the person's dealings with Scratch, so they would be shown in full court before the execution.

From The Chive:
Amazing ice sculptures before winter’s end