We all need food

Flamingos hunkering down in a restroom

Miami Zoo, 1988

It seems like the natural disasters are coming fast and furious these days.  Good heavens, could this be the new climate normal?  Living under a fug of wildfire smoke sure adds to the gloom and anxiety. 

Plus the weather forecast technology gives us advance warning of hurricanes, which is both wonderful and terrifying.  Who could take their eyes off images of this horrific storm barrelling across the Atlantic all week?  And now, right at Florida's doorstep, exactly as predicted.

Not to minimize the upcoming human hardship, but I've been wondering about all the rare animals down there.  If you've been to Miami, maybe you've visited their beautiful botanical gardens and wonderful zoological attractions, like the old Parrot World theme park.

CNN ran a story about the preparations to protect birds and other endangered creatures.  Basically, they are staying put, most of them locked inside their concrete night houses.  Some of the biggest animals will just have to hunker down and ride it out. The stress of moving them is worse than the storm risk, and there aren't enough special facilities to take them in anyway.  The zoo keeps about a month's worth of food on hand, so everyone gets fed.

Well, we're not going hungry, as The End of Days approaches. The gnocchi I made Wednesday turned out pretty good. I left the BeeBo in the cupboard and went with the old "by hand" method.

Men do like tools and gadgets, and John (never having seriously used one himself) still thinks the hand-cranked gnocchi machine is some sort of labor saving device.  However!  The dough-making process (boil and rice potatoes, mix the semolina, hand form into strips, cut, flour, roll, etc, etc.) is the same, then add the hassle of dealing with a cranky machine and cleaning it afterwards.

Thoughtful man, he bought me a wood "gnocchi board" at the CIA gift shop (Culinary Institute of America) in the Napa Valley.

The board makes little ridges on the pieces of raw dough.  It worked fine, but of course you could also use the simple fork method.

John said the gnocchi was excellent this year.  I'm not into eating big lumps of starch, so had green pasta instead with a fresh sauce I made in the food processor with our roasted Roma tomatoes. And of course, a piece of sausage. And a fresh plum kuchen for dessert.  And that's it for another birthday.