keeping it real

Today, I'm proud to offer you Cauliflower Soup. 

Each day gives us something, I said when I started this blog, wanting to write about it all.  I think I've uninhibitedly done so and once this recipe is proofed, I'll be posting my two-hundredth entry.  

200!

A decadent dessert would seem more celebratory but today gave us cauliflower not cake, and I once again chose to make soup.  Really good soup.

Hope you'll try my recipe. 

Hope you'll like it. 

Most of all though, I hope you've enjoyed FROM3906 and that you'll come back for more.

Cauliflower Soup

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped

1 medium size head of cauliflower, trimmed,
and florets cut in half if large 

salt

white pepper

10 very small white potatoes, (the size of new potatoes) peeled

4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 pinches of dried red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

6 cups vegetable stock *

water
1 large or 2 small ears of corn, kernels cut off the cob
2/3 cup diced red bell pepper
leaves from several sprigs of fresh thyme

In a large soup pot over medium heat,
cook the onion in the butter and oil.
As it begins to lightly brown, add the cauliflower florets,
and season with salt and pepper. 
Cook several minutes until the cauliflower starts to soften. 

Add the potatoes, garlic and pepper flakes, and bay leaf, stirring to heat for just a minute.  Add stock and enough water to almost fill the pot.  Boil softly, adding water as needed, until the amount has reduced and the vegetables are tender.

Transfer 2 cups of the soup (mostly vegetables)

to a bowl and set aside.

Puree small amounts at a time in a blender, transferring each batch 

into a new pot or puree with an immersion blender in the same pot.

  Add the corn kernels, red bell pepper, the cups of soup set aside,
thyme, and additional salt and pepper.  
Simmer until the corn is cooked.

* vegetable stock posted
   "in four acts"  12.1.11





autumn, day one

friends and strangers

There's instant gratification for those who enter the Dallas Museum of Art from Harwood Street; the Jackson Pollock painting Cathedral, 1947, hangs on the left wall.

I've a fascination with Pollock's work; how the method in the madness produced such intricately balanced paintings.  In Cathedral, lace meets lunacy in my mind's eye.

My friends and I talk about such things when we get together, our enthusiasm making up for our limited knowledge.  Such fun it is though and how often these interesting conversations seem to take on a life of their own and continue in time, in wonderfully unexpected ways. 

At Ann's on one of our wine sipping evenings together, I brought a magazine article which featured a painting by Edouard Vuillard titled The Little Restaurant.  I had been instantly and intensely drawn to the painting the night I saw it, my socked feet resting on the coffee table, Jeannie Bryson singing softly in the background. 

My attraction was puzzling for aside from Madonnas, angels, and one sketchy Picasso drawing, there are no people in the art on the walls of our house.  I'd see them as strangers and though senseless, I can't bring myself to welcome them into our home.  (I may one day make an exception for Renoir's Dance at Bougival because my mother loved it and when I look at it, I think of her.)

Passing the magazine to them, Cindy thrilled when she recognized the artist's name and she then told us of an excursion she took many years ago with her cousin Monta who is a very talented artist.  It was a clubby bus tour of private homes in San Antonio and though some details have faded, Cindy recalled the striking presence of a huge painting by Edouard Vuillard in one young woman's home. 

That was interesting enough and the coincidence might have ended there but as seems to happen with our trio, it didn't. 

A few weeks later, I was in the Dallas Museum of Art gift shop, passing time before an event by stocking up on correspondence cards.  They've a great collection of cards, some featuring the museum's own collection and some of world famous art.  I mail the cards to friends for all occasions but I also like to prop a few favorites around the house. 

That night I spotted in the rack, a card from the museum's permanent collection; The Little Restaurant by Edouard Vuillard!

I couldn't rush to locate the painting that night but I bought three cards, one for each of us.  Mine rests on a kitchen counter ledge, a muted peek into a lovely cafe, diners' faces (thankfully) blurred but a clear reminder of how connected I feel to these dear friends.

Edouard Vuillard, The Little Restaurant, 1894
Dallas Museum of Art, oil on board
The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985

the postman

The hearse moved slowly down the narrow street where small brick houses lined each side, large shade trees hovering over their roofs.  My grandparents had lived in a house looking very much like these and not so many streets away.  

A stately magnolia consumed their front yard and in the back, a rose garden neatly sectioned, bloomed in full sun, for my grandfather, the man in the coffin, tested hybrids for a rose company.

Placed near the front walkway was a statue, a red-vested, lawn jockey.  Though still common in the south at the time, even as a child I found the fixture offensive and escaped it by entering the house through the back porch which smelled a bit musty but also of fresh peaches. 

This house is where my grandfather remained until age required he move, by then widowed and well into his nineties.

I enjoyed that plush ride to the cemetery.  In the deadly quiet, I had time to observe unfamiliar streets in the city of my childhood.

I spotted a postman.  At home, it seems we've a different mail carrier each day and those afternoons we'd offer shelter from a sudden summer downpour or leave a note to ring the doorbell for hot coffee on frigid mornings, are a thing of the past.  Is it here also, I wondered. 

He saw us too and I watched, a few seconds in slow motion as he turned, positioning himself on the slightly rounded hill of green grass to face the funeral procession.  He then removed his hat. 

I then cried.

That was a July day but I think of the postman each Labor Day, the federal holiday which sometimes falls on but always near, my grandfather's birthday. 

If the postman is still working, I sincerely wish him a very happy day off.

a line was drawn

Baby did a bad bad thing, Baby did a bad bad thing
     Baby did a bad bad thing, Baby did a bad bad thing

It was an argument I still remember, Spoke and I firmly on opposite sides. 

As avid patrons, we tend to like the same films and we enjoy after the show, critiquing each element and dissecting all the juicy parts.  This was true for Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick film which I suspect if you watched, you either loved or hated. 

There are many early scenes with beautiful and handsome people in lush and gorgeous settings, the most stunning to me and the focal point of our bitter division takes place in the couple's bedroom; an intimate scene back lit in mesmerizing, blue light. 

Spoke and I had agreed on much about the film before our battle of the sexes slowly emerged, then escalated, each of us defending our gender fiercely, accusing the other of having watched with their own eyes shut.  We were dug in, truly unable to understand the other. 

I believe this to be the first and only time we were so vehemently opposed and agreeing to disagree was laughable.  As marriages do though, and not unlike the film's characters ultimately did, we let it go. 

I still listen to the soundtrack, a chivalrous, surprise gift from Spoke some year long after and I sometimes watch the film if it shows up on cable. 

I watch it late at night, by myself.  It's just better that way.  





Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick, 1999
"Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" Chris Isaak, 1995 

the other bitter half

"Beans, beans, good for your heart,

     The more you eat, the more you..."

If you're a FROM 3906 reader with children, and for some sadly, this includes a few husbands, you've heard these lines sung whenever you've served up bean soup. 

Let's be frank; there is some truth to the song so despite how delicious the last recipe, you may find yourself wanting Escarole Soup but not always with beans.  Here's a nice alternative version which I cooked with the remaining half head of escarole. 

It's a light soup though rich with corn and served over a mound of cooked rice.  With a hint of lingering heat, this one might just have your family singing a different tune.

Escarole Soup II

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 large, sweet yellow onion, peeled and diced

5 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped fine

salt and white pepper

1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes

8 cups vegetable stock, divided

12 cups water

2 ears of fresh corn cut off the cob or
1 fifteen-ounce can of shoepeg corn, drained and rinsed

1/2 head of escarole, leaves and stalk shredded

salt and black pepper

cooked rice

In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil and add the onions,
seasoning them with a little salt and white pepper. 
Cook until the onions are soft and golden. 

Stir in the garlic and the dried red-pepper flakes,
cooking a minute longer. 

Add 4 cups of vegetable stock and 12 cups of water. 

Bring to a boil and cook until the soup has reduced.

Add the other 4 cups of stock, the corn, and the escarole,
seasoning with salt and black pepper. 

Simmer until the soup has cooked down and is a bit denser. 

Serve in a bowl over a large spoonful of cooked rice.

this little piggy

A most unusual gift is this piglet, given to me by a good friend.  He's not like the pot-bellied pig Elizabeth raised which she eventually gave to a good home because his rooting required constant repainting of her home's walls.  

No, this pig is to be eaten! 

He lives at Corley's, a small, commercial farm which raises, butchers, and stores the pork product for clients.  Here's how they operate...  Piglets are purchased by individuals, their ears tagged for proof of ownership.  They're raised on the farm where buyers can visit six days a week.  Like other owners, I will watch my pig grow fatter and fatter until he is deemed ready for the slaughterhouse.

Corley's has warehouse-size freezers and your meat is stored for you, included in the purchase price since a home freezer cannot hold an entire pig.  Your section, tagged to match your pig, remains locked, much like a safe deposit box. 

There's a small portion of the meat locker open to the public, sales similar to retail markets.  It is stocked with cuts which have been forfeited; a requirement if one moves or has to leave the farm program for any reason although ownership of live pigs already purchased, may be transferred to another person. 

  

I tried to wrap my mind around the concept and recall details as I entered the kitchen for that first cup of coffee.  I needed caffine!   I needed to clear the fog from my dream! 

"Morning," I said to our cement pig and gave his chin a rub.  Pig sits in a corner to the left of the cooktop, ears alert and a happy smile always on his face. 

It was that smile that caught my eye on the warm and sunny day I spotted him at the nursery sitting among the annuals.  I felt an urge to purchase him, to claim ownership and keep him safe in our meatless kitchen.  

Pig's been smiling ever since.