Tag: soup
October 3
I started my Monday by listening to Blood Orange until my ears fell off, which was nice. Then my friend Jenny told me to watch this (old-news) video (that I somehow had never seen before), and with that, my week is off and running. Hi to you.
Now, business:
1. The Guardian kindly invited me to write about a food that evokes home, and I wrote about a dead-simple, bare-cupboard soup that was first made for me by my aunt Tina. That’s her below, on the right, living the early-eighties hot tub life with me and my cousins. Most people thinks that June gets her hair color and texture from Brandon, but world, let it be known that I think she’s got my texture and my mom’s/Tina’s color. I have spoken.
The story came out on Saturday, and you can read it over at the Guardian. I’m also including the recipe below, because it’s exactly the kind of everyday cooking I love to do, and I think you might feel the same way. It makes me sad to think of not having the recipe in the index of this site. So go get ‘er.
2. In other news, my friend Christophe sent me a link to an evocative BBC story on the late American musician Arthur Russell, whose work haunts me. If you haven’t yet heard him, “A Little Lost” will really do it for you.
3. Last, Dino’s is hosting a very worthy fundraiser tonight, October 3, for Jubilee Women’s Center. If you’re up for some carrying-on and dancing on a Monday night, we hope you will join us. The party starts at 8:00 and goes until 2 am, and I’m really hoping that my mom is game to June-sit, hi Mom, because I would like to go do some dancing. You can find more information here, and if you can’t make it, you can always donate to Jubilee directly.
xx
Charlie Brigham Soup
Charlie Brigham, Blanca, Tina Baylis, and Sarah Connolly
Charlie Brigham used Swanson canned chicken broth, fideo vermicelli, egg, and Kraft parmesan cheese – the green‑canister kind that keeps for a small eternity. Today, you might swap in organic chicken broth (homemade or not), capellini and freshly grated parmesan.
Crack the egg into a small bowl, and beat well.
In a small saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Add the pasta, and cook according to package directions, until just tender. Drizzle in the beaten egg, stirring constantly with a fork so that the egg breaks into feather-like pieces rather than clumps.
Divide the soup between two wide, shallow bowls. Top with grated cheese and black pepper. Serve with a fork, for twirling noodles, and a spoon.
Yield: 2 (light) servings
That January thing
Split pea, the ugliest soup! The food whose appearance most closely approximates toxic waste water! The miraculous substance capable of making a home kitchen feel like a military chow hall! Capable of making a person who has never used the words “chow hall” in her entire life suddenly feel like Chow Hall is what she will call her vast, sweeping estate in the English countryside, when she somehow inherits a vast, sweeping estate in the English countryside! Split pea, a voyage for the mind! I have written before about split pea soup. It is apparently a January thing for me: I last wrote about it four years ago this month. Until yesterday, in fact, I wasn’t going to write about this particular version,…
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I have a confession to make. It probably seems like I live and breathe to cook, right? It probably seems like I never get tired of stirring and whisking and chopping, like I go to sleep at night spooning the refrigerator and wake up each morning to find a skillet under my pillow and a rainbow arcing gently, benevolently, over the stove. But the truth is, there are many days when I would rather do anything than cook. ANYTHING. Like, hit-myself-over-the-head-with-the-aforementioned-skillet anything. Anything. Lately, I’ve been having a lot of those days. At first, I thought it was because of my recent run of bad recipes. It’s hard to feel terribly excited about spending time in the kitchen after you’ve…
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