Dinner, and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Many of us learned Christian Cooper's name when he suffered a racist attack while birding in Central Park, and it went viral.

Cooper's memoir, Better Living Through Birding Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World, describes that experience, but so much more.

His longtime work as a writer for Marvel Comics, and the way birding can teach us to be better humans.

I'm April Lidinsky filling in for Gail Martin, and I'm delighted to be joined by Saint Joseph County Parks interpretive naturalist Jan McGowan.

Welcome, Jan.

Thank you.

April.

I'm so glad you said yes to this.

I am glad you asked me to.

I had not read the book yet, and I'm really glad I did.

Oh, that's wonderful to hear.

So.

You have described yourself as a bird nerd, and so it is Christian Cooper.

So let's start by defining that, and then we'll talk about what we'll be making today.

Okay.

Bird Nerd is usually something a person declares about themselves.

because they enjoy watching, listening to, finding and learning about birds.

They don't just enjoy it, they're kind of hooked on it.

Okay, which I can hear your enthusiasm that infuses the book as well.

And it's about birding, but it really is about, so many other aspects of what it means to be human relationships.

being in the natural world and the way paying attention to that can really help us in our own relationships.

So we've got some bird themed treats to make.

So tell us what you're making.

And, and then I'll take a turn.

So.

Okay.

So, the author, Christian Cooper, lived in New York City, and Central Park is where he birds most of the year.

It's pretty predictable and banal.

What birds you're going to see there.

But during migration, fall and spring migration, it's a migrant trap, which means birds that are migrating at night.

As the day comes, they're looking for a green space.

And amidst that concrete jungle that's going to be Central Park.

So in the spring, he pretty much forgoes everything, right?

laundry, sleep.

going to the.

Gym, going to the gym, being on time for work.

to get out and bird really early before work.

but he doesn't like to bird on an empty stomach.

So I have here, what I call the basic birding breakfast bar.

It's a granola bar.

Five simple ingredients, so it's reasonably healthy, quick and easy to make, easy to store, and easy to grab and go.

Okay.

Awesome.

And made with wholesome ingredients.

Some of which birds would would eat.

That's true.

So while you get started on that, I'll say just a little bit about my, what I'm making here with the egg theme.

So this is Jacques Pépin's eggs, Janet, named after his mother, and it's a twist on hard boiled eggs, or on deviled eggs that you make, with some garlic and parsley and, a little bit of, mayonnaise and, a little bit of milk in this one.

And, then we'll fry it and make a make a sauce with some of the filling.

So, that's the that's the bird theme here.

So this memoir, begins in Central Park, but it's not what we expect.

It's not the viral, act the news.

Instead, it's a bird's that he's excited to see.

Yes.

And he talks about, what he calls a spark bird that many birders get started with.

And maybe you could talk a little bit about his spark bird and your own.

Because I know you got hooked at a very young age.

I did.

So he.

When he was, nine years old, his parents enrolled him in a woodworking class.

And given the choice of making a stool or a bird feeder, he just sort of randomly picked the bird feeder, took it home, put food in it, and looked out there.

And the first that appeared was this black bird with a pointy beak but red on its shoulders.

And he got all excited.

He thought he discovered, is this nine year old kid a new kind of crow?

But he soon discovered that it was a different kind of bird called a red wing blackbird, and that ignited his interest.

What else is out there?

How can I bring them to my yard?

What are they called?

So he started reading bird books and learning the names of birds and trying to bring them to his yard.

All right.

And and some fresh water is often involved.

Fresh water?

Yes, yes.

My sparked bird wasn't so much a specific bird when I was just barely able to read.

So five, six years old, I found these two books in my parents house.

So these are falling apart now.

and.

There's this one.

Yeah, I bet, lots of the viewers have that book at home.

Yes.

This is copyright 1956.

Anyhow.

But I started looking through these books and and thinking, who knew there were so many different kinds of birds?

So I distinctly remember where I was standing in my room looking at them and saying to myself, I want to know these.

I want to know these birds.

So I studied the books and learned the names of birds and, watched for them outside in my suburban backyard.

later that year, my family took a spring break trip to Sanibel Island, Florida, which is 40% National Wildlife Refuge mangrove swamps.

We get there in March.

The place is filled with large, beautiful, conspicuous wading birds.

And I was hooked.

Those were my spark birds.

Wonderful.

And as you said, you know, your experience really does, parallel Cooper's and that is that birding can bring together generations, multiple generations in a way that few other things can because it's accessible.

So, you had a, park guide who suddenly saw you as a serious somebody seriously paying attention.

A few years later, we were back at Sanibel.

My parents had figured out that it was kind of a bird nut, and so they signed us up for my parents and I, and I don't know where my brother was.

Maybe he was there, maybe he wasn't.

and we get there for this early morning bird bird walk.

And the guide, my dad said I didn't notice this looked at me, went, oh, geez.

Yeah, some kid going to ruin the bird hike.

So we were partway through the hike.

I think I was pretty well-behaved.

I was very interested.

And my mother pointed to a bush and said, now what kind of bird is that?

And he said, now that is a toki.

And my little boy said, I wish I had a toki, which he looked at me.

My parents looked at me.

It is now called an eastern Toki, by the way.

They changed the name.

but that was when my family really took my hobby seriously.

And Christian Cooper had a very similar experience out west when he declared the presence of a black billed magpie.

So here I am with my my granola.

Here I have a beautiful cup and a half of oats, and I use gluten free oats.

because I'm gluten sensitive, I have one cup of chopped roasted salt free almonds, and I've just pitted a heaping cup of dates which I now have to chop up into little bits.

So in just a moment, I will be making some noise.

All right.

We have to kind of use whole whole dates because we want them to have that gooey consistency to help hold the granola bar together.

Lots and lots of minerals.

Forgive me.

I'm gonna add some noise right.

Okay.

And I'm mixing a little bit of, egg yolks with just enough whole milk to kind of bind it a little bit.

and I've made a, Jacques Pépin recommends this, putting this on almost anything fresh parsley mixed with a, finely minced with, one clove of garlic.

You could put that on fish.

You could put it on almost anything.

but this is going to go into the yolks here with a little bit of salt and pepper.

And again, just enough of the, just enough of, of the, just enough milk to kind of bind it together here.

So, and then I'm going to stuff the eggs and then put them face down in a pan to kind of fry them.

so while I'm doing that, let's talk a little bit about, you know, one of the it's a, it's a personal book as well as a book about birding.

And Cooper tells us fairly early that he realized, that fairly young, he realized he was queer.

Oh, from the age of four and worried about that a great deal.

Yes, yes.

He warm up my pan.

He never.

And it was he was in college before.

He had felt like he could possibly safely come out to anyone.

And Amy referred to it not as coming out of the closet, but actually, like, dis-entombing himself.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so those descriptions were really, really helpful for me.

Has not having had that experience to get a sense of how that all feels.

But he also talks about, how when he couldn't escape outside into the birds and the connection with the natural world and the very kind acceptance he had from the birders that he would, join, he would talk to, to escaping in internally to science fiction and fantasy.

Right.

So a reader.

Good.

And that that gets him interested in, tall tales in Tolkien, in, imagining a world with, with justice.

And, you know, it's connected also to his interest in, in birding in that when you would pay attention to the natural world, you notice that there are there's enormous diversity.

So I'm putting these eggs here in a hot pan.

They're going to cook for four minutes and it looks like you're about to.

Yes.

While you can and mix the, the dates and everything.

But I've got this nice dough feature on my new toy here.

So I'm going to use that just to mix the, the almonds, the dates and the oatmeal.

Coffee cook.

Little differently.

All right.

And then while those are cooking again for about four minutes, this just gives them a nice crispness and color on top I'm going to make a sauce.

You reserve about two tablespoons of the rest of the filling.

and I'm going to make a little, a sauce with the rest of that, thinning it with a little bit more milk and olive oil.

And then we'll put that on the plate, so that we can, have a beautiful background there, sizzling nicely here.

And in the meantime, I'm taking a quarter cup of nut butter.

I have chosen almond.

You can choose whichever you like.

And then I'm also going to take a quarter cup of the sweetener.

Now, the recipe says you can use agave nectar, honey or maple sirup.

At Bendix Woods county park.

We have sugar bush.

Where we teach people about tapping trees and about the birth of spring and we make maple sirup.

I do not have any of that today.

We are sold out as of right now, but I do have sirup.

that is local from Niles, Michigan.

So we're going to take a quarter cup of each, put them in a saucepan and warm it just so I can blend the two.

It will take not long at all.

30 okay.

So and while you're doing that and you can see I'm getting a nice, thinner sauce here, I'm going to put some olive oil in it.

And we're going to take a little break so that you can see some of the birds mentioned in the book, and also hear some of the beautiful songs.

So we'll be right back.

So we're getting set for our next food.

Jan, how do you finish up those granola bars?

They look fantastic.

Very simple.

The almond butter and the maple sirup melt together in about 30s.

You mix that in with the mixture of the oatmeal, the almonds and the dates.

And then you put them in a pan lined with parchment paper so they don't stick.

And then you get another piece of parchment paper and just press yep.

Until you've got them nice and firm.

And then you just stick them in the fridge for 20 minutes and you are all set, and.

It looks like real food.

Is real food.

They're really good.

Looks delicious.

And I, this, the end of the, eggs.

Jeanette.

really clever strategy of reserving just a little bit of the filling to make a sauce.

You can see that in four minutes, the eggs get beautifully brown.

You've got a nice little contrasting, crispness on the top there.

And this sauce, acts a lot like a hollandaise sauce, so it would be delicious, really, on almost anything.

beautiful little dish.

There from Jacques Pépin.

And now we are making food for birds.

So both of these start with lard.

I've melted some over here, and I'm going to be mixing in some millet and raisins and sunflower meets.

What are you doing over here?

And why is lard so.

Important for birds?

If anyone tells you you should eat like a bird, please do not.

Birds are metabolically very active.

They have a body temperature of 105 degrees.

Flying takes a lot of energy and especially in the winter, just to keep their body temperatures warm and keep them from starving to death.

They have to gain about 10% of their body weight every day just to get them through the night.

So these foods that we're showing today are really good cool season food.

You don't want to put them out in warm weather because that stuff could melt and, weight on their feathers.

But calories, fat very important.

So I have here, solidified vegetable oil.

I also have peanut butter, which is also high in fat with some protein.

And while you're melting and mixing, I'm going to take my beater and just, combine these two.

All right.

And this is just a, once you mix everything together.

Couldn't be easier.

I put this in a little pan lined with parchment and chill it or freeze it, and then it will be exactly the right shape to fit into a, into a suet feeder, which, I will do, a little.

Well, I can do that right now here.

So you can see this will be easy to, put out for the birds.

and if you've ever wondered what goes into suet, now you know what to feed the birds.

Yes.

So I'll move this aside and chill it.

So, what are you adding?

Peanut butter.

Equal parts of that solidified fat.

And then maybe, equal parts plus some of some cornmeal just to turn it into a dough.

Something that you can handle and, spread.

And then if you like, you can do additives that will bring the birds in as well.

birds, even just this.

But I'm going to be adding some sunflower meats and a few shelled sunflowers.

sunflower is a really good bird food.

It's 37% protein and high in fat, so it checks a lot of boxes.

even when birds are laying eggs.

And they need a lot of energy for that.

Nicely done.

Oh, you're very welcome.

So once you're done with this, it should be a dough that you can handle and you can spread.

I like just to spread this on to tree trunks.

I'm just going to add a little bit more cornmeal.

So it's a little less sticky.

I'll spread it on to tree trunks.

watch the birds come to that.

you can put it in a suet, container or suet cage if it's cold enough.

or the handy dandy pine cone would be a nice, easy way to.

Yeah.

just place it on something and hang it somewhere where the birds find it.

so you.

Can make it very kid friendly.

Yeah.

Something friendly.

It's also very bird friendly.

It's also very.

You can make a big batch and freeze some of it friendly.

So once you make your kitchen messy, messy, you can just take some batches and freeze them.

marvelous.

And that intergenerational aspect is, really important to the book.

We've said that a little bit about how birding communities can be younger people and older people as well.

but a lot of the book is also about, Christian Cooper's own relationships, particularly with his family members.

And, it's quite moving, I think, to see how, his early relationship with his father, which was, pretty difficult.

He learned sort of patience how to attend.

I think a lot of birding is learning how to pay attention, how to value diversity, how to empathize.

You have to kind of think like a bird in.

Some ways, yes.

also, even I have to give his father a lot of credit.

Once they discovered they had a birder kid, his father took him out on Sunday mornings to go on group bird hikes.

and from the get go, Christian Cooper says birders are insanely nice people.

Yes.

Yeah.

I did not see.

And you still don't see enough African-Americans out in nature in birding with us.

but back then, in the early 70s, he said, if we were the first black birders, the only black voters they'd ever seen, you never know it.

You felt very welcome.

Right?

It is intergenerational.

It's a good mentoring place, and it was a good place for him to feel welcome and normal amidst all those storms of of insecurity and doubt that he was dealing with.

Being knowing he was gay.

And not feeling safe with it.

Yeah, closeted for a very long time.

Yes.

And then later on, when he realized this great gift that his father had given him, he, he had more empathy for him.

And it became the foundation.

Birding and travel became a foundation, right?

Recovering his relationship with his father.

Yeah.

Nicely put.

Yeah.

So one.

So I'll just say a little bit about what I'm doing here.

This is a wonderful spicy twist on deviled eggs.

mashed egg yolks, salt and pepper.

Got to put a little pepper in here.

a little bit of hot sauce.

This is going to imitate the kind of buffalo wing flavors.

You can use any kind of scirocco or hot sauce that you like.

My brother in law, Doug Ross, makes what he calls Ross sauce.

so this is, gives it a nice little spice, and we'll use some of that for the, for the garnish as well.

we're going to stir all this up a little mayonnaise in here.

and a little bit of blue cheese to give it a little bit of extra flavor too.

Little bit of, just a little more salt and pepper in here.

and then I'll, I'll show you how to make that.

And in the meantime, what I'm doing over here is if you do feel like you're a little bit like eating like a bird, showing you how to make something with some fat and calories.

It tastes really good.

And it has a bird theme there.

Bird nests.

What's happening in here is I am, melting and combining equal parts you can make this is bigger a smaller recipe, as you like, of butterscotch chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

And as soon as I have that all melted out, I will be pouring them over just about two parts chowmein noodles and covering those well, and that will give it that bird stick bird nest look all right.

And that seems like a great thing for for kids to do.

I'm going to add just, some very finely chopped celery to this as well.

so, so in some of the second part of the book, he does actually take on the viral, that awful experience in Central Park that went viral.

And he includes a lot of history.

I think the, challenge of being a, black man in the natural space part of the title is also just the challenge of being black in America.

And there's a lot of history that he works in there.

the his experience in Central Park happened the same day as the George Floyd murder.

Just a few hours before.

Right.

So there's a lot to reflect on.

And what.

Happened with that was simply it was really a dispute over whether or not this woman should leash her.

Dog, which was in Central Park.

for a number of reasons.

But rogue dogs just do a number on the vegetation which ruins the habitat.

And so she threatened to call the police.

He said, please do.

You'll get a $200 fine.

And she said, oh, no, I'm going to tell, the police that there's an African-American man threatening my life.

And in fact, she did do just that.

She did.

But, you know, he did give him pause, but he decided he is not going to let himself be an instrument in his own dehumanization.

At the at the time, he was videoing her behavior, until she would meet her dog.

So there's 69 seconds of video of him, recording her behavior until she leashes her dog.

Right?

That's what went back viral, right?

Right.

And the coincidental timing really just emphasize sort of the whole difficult, ugly background of why that was a ploy.

She might.

choose.

It inappropriately as she did.

He, he, recommends, of course, not letting your pet cats outside.

There's lots of ways we can take care of birds.

Yeah.

So I'm going to just use this little, clever strategy of cutting the corner off.

little Ziploc bag here in order to fill these.

And I'll show how to top one of these now.

So you add just a few, let's eat little, little hot sauce first.

let's see if I can do this with a spoon.

and then a, a little bit more blue cheese crumble and some, little celery leaf.

It makes these very, very adorable.

They look really outdoorsy.

so, so tips for people who might be interested in, in starting, to be, a birder.

Oh, it's very simple.

Step outside.

Wherever you live.

Birds are everywhere.

That's one of the joys of that.

Wherever you are, they share our human space because they have that advantage of vertical escape.

Okay, we can also see them.

They're big enough for us to see.

We can hear them.

so if you don't even know the difference between a crow and a bluejay, if you get out and enjoy their behaviors and enjoy what they're doing.

You just start to pay attention, enjoy.

Yes.

And just just to finish these nests and putting them in, a lightly greased muffin tin, adding a little bit of edible grass.

And then you can either do, robin eggs or if you're worried about choking hazard, you can lose little eggs like Jelly Belly.

Beautiful.

And we'll take a little break here.

You'll get to hear some of Christian Cooper reading from his book.

We'll be right back.

And with a little help from my friends, I find the right spot in the right tree.

Lock on to the motion among the leaves and raise my binoculars with hands shaking with anticipation.

A bird, slate blue and yellow and smaller than a sparrow, moves from branch to branch with a bump of its tail.

I see a unicorn come alive before my own eyes.

In order to truly appreciate that moment, you must first understand something about this part.

All right.

We're about, to talk about food for birds and for birders.

So tell us about the bird food that we've made.

Well, we have our cool season bird dough, high energy dough.

And April also showed us how to make a suet again used for cool weather only high energy.

All right.

And two different kinds of eggs and eggs.

Janet.

from Jacques Pépin and some blue cheese, buffalo stuffed eggs.

And what have you got here?

Basic birding breakfast bars for those who want to get out and get active and not spend a lot of time worrying about food.

And then if you want to eat a bit like a bird, if you extra fat and calories, we have some bird nests.

All right.

They're adorable!

So how does birding enrich a person's life?

Oh, I think the author, Chris Cooper, really put it well.

He talked about how bird is birding for him was a place of affirmation.

good people.

Bird, a place of discovery.

You discover new things of joy.

It was a window to the wondrous for him.

And that's how it can be for us.

We get outside, whether it's outside of our homes or out to our park systems, like the St. Joseph county parks and anywhere else in green spaces and green spaces are healthy for us.

Whether we know the name of the birds or not, you can make it what you want it to be, but it should be joyful and relaxing.

Thank you.

And this book has really an invitation to all of us to pay attention.

Thank you Jan, for joining us.

thank you to Gail Martin for allowing me to co-host.

Thank you to you for joining us.

We hope you'll, read the book and go outside and we will see you for the next Dinner & a Book This Wnit local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice.

A Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.