Oyster Mushroom and Spinach Pasta

In our never-ending quest for Something Different to do during these dreary days, my family headed to Big Brook last week to find fossils. It was our first trip there, and the place sounded too good to be true: could any rather sad woman, months overdue for a haircut and sporting a face mask, just wade in to the stream and pluck out fossilized prehistoric creatures? The unlikely answer, my friends, was YES.

Anyone else experimenting with unusual hair choices during quarantine? Note the pink streak.

While New Jersey had plenty of dinosaurs and other prehistoric critters, the fossils you find at Big Brook originated elsewhere, and were ferried into what is now the stream bed and banks by long-ago glaciers. In the space of around an hour, we found a lot of remains of small prehistoric squid-like animals, and one triangular lump that we think is a prehistoric shark tooth, and a lot of triangular lumps that turned out to be just rocks. Triangular lumps are everywhere when you are looking for fossilized shark teeth.

My backup dancer found some fossils too

Fossils are fun, but you had to know I was eventually going to make the depressing conjecture that climate change could be propelling Earth toward its next mass extinction. Sigh. So let's talk about "Oyster Mushroom and Spinach Orecchiette with Garlic and Lemon" (The Mushroom Council), which is anti-climate-change because it doesn't have meat. Farming meat and dairy products is more resource-intensive and greenhouse-gas-generating than farming plants, and so focusing on plant-based foods is one simple way that any person can take action against climate change. (Telling your friends is another way!)

Not only is it earth-friendly, but this dish is delicious. Quote from a backup dancer: "That was really good. Light and good for summer." I threw some fresh yellow tomato chunks on top, because I will throw fresh summer tomatoes on pretty much anything. And you will note I used small shells instead of orrechiette.

Guten Tag! Another unconventional quarantine hair style

Want to go to Big Brook and get your share of 66-million-year-old cephalopods? Here's my guide:

We went last Friday afternoon. You park along the street and walk a very short distance (we probably only went 100-200 yards; you could go further) along a path, choosing a spot to go down into the stream, which is very shallow. There were other people there when we went, but there was plenty of space for us to be doing our own thing. 

I recommend studying the pictures of shark teeth etc online before you go, so you know what you're looking for:

    http://www.njfossils.net/cover.html

    https://www.fossilguy.com/sites/bbrook/index.htm

We had a trowel and a cheap plastic sifter from a kids sand castle set, and they were good, but I found I preferred grabbing a handful of muck from the stream bottom and letting the current wash away the dirt, leaving rocks and fossils. That's not great for the fingernails, though!

We did not have a problem with mosquitoes or ticks. We all wore waterproof boots; you'd want some sort of water shoe. You could wear a swimsuit; I was fine in shorts.