Deep corals, tiny plankton and other recent pubs

I've had a few articles come out that I wanted to mention.

• The cover feature of Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine's December issue is on the Gulf spill and Texas. It is a two-feature series, written by myself and my colleague and friend Melissa Gaskill. My article is
  The Forgotten Deep: The Gulf’s little-seen deep-water ecosystems may bear the brunt of the BP oil spill’s damage.
  
  I focused on the deepwater corals that so few people even know about and they have received scant media attention. The feature also includes a sidebar on "Texas' forgotten spill" about the Eagle Otome which dumped over 400,000 of crude oil off Port Arthur in January. I wrote this piece in January just after the Texas spill occurred, but right before it was to go to press, the Gulf spill occurred and it seemed almost irrelevant while so much oil was gushing into the Gulf on a daily basis. But the Eagle Otome was a substantial spill, and I'm happy that we got to use an updated version of it for the Gulf oil spill article. Melissa's article is The Pain of the Spill. (Remember we went on the Great Gulf Coast Road Trip - day 1-2, day 3, day 4 and day 5)?
  
  
• The Tiniest Catch: Marine scientists are prowling the Bering Sea to learn how climate affects minute sea creatures and the lucrative fishery that depends on them.
  
  This is the feature I wrote for Nature on research I learned about on the Bering Sea trip - it finally came out! You may remember that in June through July I spent a month in the Bering Sea, during which I blogged for Nature. I have another feature coming out in BioScience Feb 2011 issue on the Bering Sea.
  
  
• Putting Numbers to Nature. My piece on the Natural Capital Project for Momentum Magazine's Fall Biodiversity issue.
  
  
• The "Wendee Holtcamp Report" on Adventures in Climate Change has reprinted some of my older articles in new ways, and they look great.




• Silence of the Pikas -Will the American pika become the first species in the lower 48 states to be listed under the Endangered Species Act owing to global warming? This is only part I and the other two segments of the article will be posted soon.
• Mimicking Mother Nature. A feature on biomimicry, the concept of learning from and being inspired by nature's designs - via evolution - to create innovative, sustainable products. Originally published in National Wildlife Magazine.
  
• A Grass Roofs Effort. A piece on rooftop gardens, aka green roofs, originally published in Sierra Magazine.

oil, shrimp & cauliflower soup

Coastal marsh at the J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area near Port Arthur, Texas. This type of marsh in Louisiana is going to be impacted severely by the oil spill, and right now is prime nesting season for shorebirds, ducks, and other critters.
Copyright (c) 2005 Wendee Holtcamp

Wanted to do a quick update. Have been researching the heck out of the tragic oil rig explosion and spill in the Gulf. I'm in Houston and the trajectory has it going to New Orleans and Louisiana and Mississippi's fragile coastline, but the whole thing is not a good situation. I reported a piece for Adventures in Climate Change that you can read here: Shrimp & Oil Really Do Mix?

I'm leaving Thursday for the Writing Away Retreat in Breckenridge, Colorado - and I absolutely can't wait! I will be meeting with book editors, agents, and other writer-authors. I am very much looking forward to it. And Doug gets back from 10 weeks offshore either Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on weather, so it's going to be a busy week!

Meanwhile, here are some pics of a yummy soup recipe I made - Curried Cauliflower Soup.

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)
1 medium tart apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped (1 cup)
1 Tbs. curry powder
1 clove garlic, sliced (1 tsp.)
1 large head cauliflower, chopped into 1-inch pieces (6 cups)
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 tsp. honey or agave nectar
1 tsp. rice wine vinegar

Directions
1. Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté 5 to 7 minutes, or until soft and golden. Stir in apple, curry powder, and garlic, and cook 2 minutes more, or until curry powder turns deep yellow.

2. Add cauliflower and vegetable broth, and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 20 minutes. Cool 20 minutes, then blend in food processor or blender until smooth. Stir in honey and vinegar, and season with salt, if desired.

Chopping up the Cauliflower. The soup also has agave nectar, olive oil, and rice wine vinegar. I didn't have any rice wine vinegar, so I used another type. Honestly I don't remember if I used balsamic or apple cider vinegar but those are the two types I have.
Next, you boil the cauliflower in the vegetable broth. After this, you blend it or in my case I used my Cuisinhart food processor to blend it all up. The finished product! It was tastier than it may look in the photo - ha ha! It's hard to get a good photo of a pureed soup. I topped wiht freshly ground pepper.