Soup, salad, shrimp and cat
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So, I'm looking out my kitchen window a few days ago, and I see this: Nutmeg scaling the roof of the garage. After this photo was snapped, he considered throwing himself into that forked tree -purposefully and deftly of course- but decided instead to perch on the very spine of that roof and sit a spell. Not two minutes later he was running pell-mell down the slope and then he disappeared. I was worried until a friend said, "Well, you don't often see cat skeletons in trees." Nutmeg showed up at the front door of our home a half-hour later.
Cats. It's all that can be said. And I love them, and him, for that. He is so damn sure of himself!
Hubs has worked late every night since whenever I last saw him. I think that was Sunday. Poor guy caught my cold and then gets slammed. Because I'm Mrs. Silver Lining this week (except for a marginal breakdown yesterday afternoon; different story for different time), I decided to make one of my favorite soups and have a vegetarian friend over for lunch as she would enjoy it so very much more than my carnivorous T.
This Leeky Sunchoke Bisque did not disappoint because it never does. It's just a damn good recipe of which I'm proud, not least because it always reminds me of why I save my Parmesan and pecorino rinds and how wise that is. Mmm...cheesiness! Plus sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes; they are NOT artichokes so this moniker is both odd and misleading.), leeks, shallots, nutmeg, buttermilk and so on.
Unfortunately, this is not a pretty soup, but imagine the inner glow of health and hale you get with each bite. It's enormous!
I also made some bread. Though my friend said it was good, I imagined I'd forgotten to put the dough in loaf pan and had, instead, lined up some soggy hockey pucks. Mon dieu. I brought some to the boys at pick-up and they were thrilled. Until they took a bite.
"Mom, this bread is HARD."
"Yeah, it lacks moisture. Or something."
"Maybe if I hit it with a cheese hammer?!"
What, pray tell, is a cheese hammer? Oliver swears he meant sledge hammer but forgot the first word. The point remains, the bread was a #fail. Hilarious.
Then the breakdown occurred -SOS- and then I made my beloved farro salad with gold beets and pecans and feta and herby oil. Then I made some browned-butter and pimenton shrimp and felt myself settling back into an even keel.
As I sat quietly with my newspaper and this fine meal and some wine, I read about the insane measles outbreak and cursed the anti-vaxxers. I sipped some wine, turned the page and read an incredible essay so as to let the ire go. Nutmeg purred at my ankles and I called it a day.