Tropicana Park orchid. Forum photo. 2/25/21 Southwest Florida. Blogfinger photo
Eileen Goldfinger House and Garden Editor at Blogfinger.net
There is a very large tree at the corner of Jasmine and Coconut. All the streets here are named after plants.
Two orchid plants are growing on the bark. Orchids are epiphytes which can anchor themselves where the right conditions of light and moisture occur. They like textured bark.
They are considered a type of “air plant.”
The pink orchid in the photo is a Dendrobium, a plant that prefers shade. Over on the left side you can get a glimpse of a white one.
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA finds orchids thriving in romantic settings; “Orchids in the Moonlight” from his album Evening in Buenos Aires. And the magic is amplified because this song is a tango, and the moonlight casts its own spell.
George Held, a guest poet on Blogfinger, seems to be channeling a past where pennies were more important than they are today. In fact, will pennies go the way of the half penny? Does George still have a few pennies clattering around in his pockets?
George doesn’t categorize the two penny pieces below. He refers to them as “shorties:”
Penny
Penny was sixteen and wore penny loafers, a shiny copper penny in each slot. Twelve, you were infatuated by her – her pleated plaid skirt, bobby sox, and those penny loafers. How you wanted to kiss her, but she just laughed when you blew her a kiss across the school yard.
Penny Loafers
Karl, wearing penny loafers, challenges fifth-grade classmate Jorge, in Keds, to pitch pennies against a wall by the gym. But Jorge has a knack for leaners and beats Karl in their “pitch off.” Karl doesn’t mind losing twenty-five pennies, but he can’t bear losing to Jorge. “I’ll get you yet,” he thinks in his devious heart. Jorge becomes a surgeon, Karl a banker.
Gucci penny loafers: $416.00—41,600 pennies– try taking those into Gucci’s.
BRENDA LEE made a “fortune” collecting pennies from heaven:
Note: George Held is a retired professor at Queens College. He has written children’s books which are quite wonderful (look them up) as well as other writings. We know him on Blogfinger as a poet.
4 cups fish broth
1 cup water
6 ounces halibut, cut in 2 inch pieces
4 extra large sea scallops
7 ounces cooked lobster meat
1/2 32 ounce can San Marzano whole tomatoes, hand crushed
1 sweet onion, diced
1 Anaheim pepper, seeded, diced
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
pinch of sea salt or kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
10 large leaves of Swiss chard, remove center stem, slice leaves in 1/2 inch strips
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Use a heavy 5 quart Dutch oven with a lid. Heat oil on medium heat, then add diced onions. Cook onions until they begin to soften, approximately 10 minutes. Add the Anaheim peppers, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper; stir and cook for another 10 minutes. Lower the heat to medium-low, add the garlic and cook for another 3 minutes. Add the crushed tomatoes, return the heat to medium and cook for an additional 10 minutes
Remove fish from refrigerator and allow it to reach room temperature.
Add the broth, water and Swiss chard to the pot, stir, bring to a boil, cover the pot, lower heat so the liquid simmers and cook for 45 minutes.
Taste the soup and adjust seasoning.
Add halibut to soup and cook for 5 minutes. Next add scallops to soup and cook for 7 minutes. Finally, add lobster and cook for 2 minutes.
Serve with grilled Ciabatta bread and sautéed slices of polenta.
Serves 2
Cook’s note: A more economical version could substitute any solid white fish such as cod loin for the halibut. The lobster could be replaced with shrimp. A good wine with this is Cavit’s Pinot Grigio (from Italy) served chilled. It is inexpensive and quite delicious.
Editor’s note: This recipe is 100% heart healthy. Fish is a nutritious protein source which contains no saturated fat and very low amounts of total fat. Lobster and scallops are shellfish which contain only small amounts of cholesterol. All these fish components are heart healthy due to their fish oils. Note that the cooking oil chosen is olive oil, which is a “good oil” high in monounsaturated fat. Swiss chard is high in anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals. This recipe originally posted on Blogfinger in 2011. PG
MUSIC: To play while you enjoy your Italian Fish Soup by candlelight : Puccini, from La Boheme, “Musetta’s Waltz”–Kiri Te Kanawa:
Ralph Bunche in 1963 at the Civil Rights March on Washington. Internet photo.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger. Re-post from Jan. 2020. For Black History Month.
Ralph Bunche (1903-1971) reminds me of Paul Robeson because both were involved in the civil rights struggle for African-Americans long before the “Civil Rights Movement” actually began. Bunche wrote books about that subject and he became the first black to win a Nobel Peace Prize–he won the award in 1950 for his work in Palestine during the ’40’s. He grew up in Los Angeles, graduated UCLA summa cum laude, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard.
During WWII he worked for the OSS (the precursor of the CIA) and he also was instrumental in the formation of the United Nations. For over 20 years he was the chairman of Political Science at Howard University.
In 1963 he marched with Martin Luther King on the occasion of the “I Have a Dream” speech. He also was on the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Ralph Bunche walked the walk and talked the talk, and society valued him greatly during his lifetime.
We remember Ralph Bunche today on Blogfinger for his role in racial justice, but also because he was a great man who performed good deeds all over the world; and I have my eye on his memory specifically for the work he did in mediating peace–an “armistice”– in 1949 between the new State of Israel and the Arab side—Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
He said, “I have a bias in favor of both Arabs and Jews in the sense that I believe that both are good, honorable and essentially peace-loving peoples, and are therefore as capable of making peace as of waging war …” – Ralph Bunche, 1949
In Fort Myers, Florida, there is a lovely beach dedicated to the memory of Ralph Bunche. Ironically, it was the site years ago of a segregated beach for local black citizens.
JOHN BARRY “Coney Island” From the motion picture Across the Sea of Time
2020 addendum: There was a historic separate beach for African-Americans in Asbury Park (see Helen’s comment). This photo from 1908 refers to “Negroes” at that segregated beach. It is from the Internet: (“history in photos.blogspot.com.)
Paul Goldfinger photograph. Bunche Beach, Fla. 2019.
Re-posted by popular demand from August, 2017. By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger
A wise man once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” (attributed to Yogi Berra).
Mounttabornj.org
In 1869, when Ocean Grove was founded, another New Jersey campground was also incorporated. It was Mount Tabor located in the Parsippany-Troy Hills area of Morris County. It was formed by the same Newark Methodist Episcopal Church which started Ocean Grove, the jewel in the crown of a series of Methodist summer camp grounds.
As with OG, it had a religious basis and went through familiar territory for us, with tents becoming Victorian cottages and a Camp Meeting Association running the place. The cottages were close together with lot sizes of 16×25. Some of its historic places survive today.
Mounttabornj.org 
Photo by Pinterest Mt. Tabor Victorian. 
