The October winds are late this year, by a couple of weeks, but they have arrived with purpose and dogged determination. All those leaves I raked up last week (but didn't put in bags yet) have been blown helter-skelter all over the neighborhood. Yep, ol' Mike-the-Tree-Killer has been blessed with several hundred of them, plus fresh ones that hadn't fallen yet. Heh-heh-heh.
-
The weather changed suddenly last evening from being a "beautiful Seattle day" to weather more typical of November. The temperature dropped about 10 degrees in about as many minutes, the clouds settled downward and sprayed the neighborhood with needle-sharp raindrops, while the slight breeze changed direction and speed from northwesterly to northerly and from slight breeze to knock-you-hat-off.
-
I awoke this morning to a steady, heavy drizzle and wind gusts of 45-50 MPH. I absolutely love, love, LOVE days like this! I love the howl of the wind through the trees and the song the leaves make in it. I love the groans and moans the house makes when some of the gusts wrap around the chimney and tickle the shingles.
-
And aren't I lucky that the winds are here today, my day off. I can stay home and make soup!
-
When I can, I like to make soup from scratch, which means browning bones for broth, peeling and chopping as many of the vegetable ingredients as possible, and simmering the meat (if it's that kind of soup). I am a person of the senses: the aromas of roasting bones, then broth and seasonings; the sounds of simmering stock with wind accompaniment; the sight of the steam rising in a sinuous column to the ceiling; the feel of the vegetables in my hand followed by the action of cutting and chopping. I am, physically and sensually, fully engaged in the process.
-
Today's soup is vegetable-beef. It is made with the roasted-beef-bones broth, chili-ground bottom-round, onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, parsley, tomatoes, limas, corn, cabbage, green beans, crushed garlic, marjoram, chervil, bay leaves and one stinking petunia...no, no...I'm kidding...one parsnip. Vegetable soup isn't the same, to my taste buds, without parsnip. Turnip makes a good-enough substitute for parsnip, but it's stronger and sharper in flavor, and you really have to like turnip (I do) to put it in your soup.
-
I love to cook. Someday, I'll have a home that is mostly commercial grade kitchen with a small bedroom and bath off the back. The rest of it will be dining space for a couple hundred people. I will feed all my friends, family and kind strangers who come knocking at the door.
-
How will I do that, you ask, given that I am nearly broke all the time? I don't know, but God provided all those loaves and fishes, didn't She?
