Seed Hunt report: 2014

[blueadzuki]

Back from Flushing trip, and that store also is all "new" bags.

Tested the "New" brand of rice beans I saw a few weeks ago. DID find one mottled adzuki, so I suppose I may buy the rest over time (especially since the one I found was a red mottled) But compared to this stuff the bags I was getting in Manhattan (which as you recall, were already a lot less bountiful than the orange ones), are positively laden. That adzuki is more or less nearly the ONLY useable seed I got out of the two bags I tested. And there are NO mottled rice beans (one or two tans that are so dark they may just be weak reds and a few with pale spots by the radicle, but that's it) The fact that I am even WILLING to contemplate these is a tribute to how desperate I am for colored adzukis now.

Speaking of those, managed to pull one more out of the mung bean bin at the herb shop, but I suspect that is all there is until the bin gets refreshed (and even then it'd have to get refreshed with the right stuff again).

[blueadzuki]

3/25/15

Went back and bought out the rest of those rice bean bags. There were 11 bags left, and since I had walked in planning to buy 10, I decided I might as well get all of them and save my legs the trip there next week (especially since next week's planned restaurant will be quite a long slog to get to)Not really worth it, I only pulled one more mottled adzuki from the whole pile.

Got two more out of the mung bin. The downside is that now THAT herb shop is no longer carrying rice beans either (I really am beginning to think that this year really WILL be the last year I can get fresh supplies, at least unless I am willing to go to lion (which as I said before doesn't have enough stuff to make it worthwhile). Also one small common bean and (maybe) one black mung.

[blueadzuki]

Long Time since I did one of these. At the moment I'm relying on a pair of stores which are carrying rice beans of the same brand I was using before, and which are still giving some yield (though, as last year the count is still lower)

Also of note, while taking a somewhat different route than I normally do, I found a small grocery store. In their black soybeans (large size) I found two suprises. the first was a sprinkling of black lablab beans which may be an ornamental one, since eating ones are not usually black (well not if they are to be eaten as mature beans, some of the kinds eaten as green pods have blackish seeds) the other (which I did not see until I was sorting is that a few of the soybeans were in fact mottled, making them the first large size with mottle I've ever seen.

[blueadzuki]

Can't grow it (for various reasons) But I do have an interesting seed story from earlier this week.

This previous Monday I was in the Dobbs Ferry area, and picked up lunch at as Asian place called Lemon Tree. As I usually do there, my main dish is was something called Imperial Shrimp (basically fried shrimp in a garlic butter sauce) The key thing about this dish is that it is garnished with a sprinkling of black and white sesame seeds. Well, when I got in the car I opened my container and noticed that, sitting on the shrimp along with the sesame seeds was something a little bigger, about the size of a coriander seed. Picking it out, I discovered it was actually a hemp seed! Obviously there had been some hemp seeds in the bag of sesame they had used! Either that or someone really needs to take a look at what the kitchen staff is doing in their spare time ( I know people eat hemp seeds too, but if the seed was there on purpose, there probably should have been more than one.)