Alysa Liu.....the 13-year old new face of ladies, skating.......

America's 'hope'....a 13-year old! And....such superior skating/choreography than the clunky Tonya Harding......Does the U.S. have a chance to defeat the adolescent army of Russian 'Girl Skaters'? I was impressed by Alysa's choice of music, having gotten totally over all the disjointed hodgepodge of pop vocals that so many young skaters 'emote' to......Personally, I wish that pop vocal music collages would just be eliminated, leaving the skaters to 'dance' to instrumental ....even humming, drumming, droning sounds.... rather than the constant barrage of unrelated trite pop songs, with very little if any, other than rhythmic or 'on the beat' jumping relevance to the choreography....

The Maggot-Bearing Stapelia finds its nomenclature.....

I've had a strange succulent....thornless cactus....that, in summer, erupts with huge, rotten flesh smelling...but beautiful....flowers, that attract golden flies that lay their eggs within the bloom, thus...hatching the flies maggots......Today, looking through some late 18th C hand-colored engravings, by happenstance, came across this picture of the plant, which now has a nomenclature......THE MAGGOT-BEARING STAPELIA (Mixed method engraving, including aquatint, mezzotint, stipple and line engraving, printed in color and finished by hand)   

Indo-Cajun Black Bean Fishless Gumbo

Black beans, in a soup of hot pepper seeds and skins, sliced smoked turkey sausage, chopped cilantro stems, ground orange and purple peppercorns, bay leaves, fresh green thyme, sliced pickled Jalapeno peppers and pepper jelly, oyster sauce, mango chilli, ground coriander seeds, sliced whole scallions, "Pain Is Good" habanero sauce, diced garlic and sweet chilli/garlic sauce over pink sushi rice (addition of beet powder or a tsp of pickled beet 'juice'), washed 5 times in chicken bouillon. I thought about Nancy VanDevender Ferguson as the taste moved in a Cajun direction.....New Orleans style with an Indonesian accent.....although there are no 'sacred shrimp', lifeless in this broth......