morsels & sauces

There is not much at all  to this soup. In fact, even my photographs are a little stupidly simple. But I have always been a fan of potato and leek soup. And I like stupidly simple from time to time. Usually on a weeknight. Oil. Leeks. Potatoes. Liquid. Salt. Dairy. Parsley. Do you really even need a recipe?  Given that this is a food blog, I am going to provide you one. But, seriously, change every amount to fit your palate, your taste, your proclivities on a random Tuesday night. Throw this recipe to the wind. Sure, use it as a guide if you want, but you should play and dabble and change this one for yourself. But let me tell you a little secret about this recipe. Even though I don't fully believe in it, I have a soft spot for the recipe and for its cookbook. But I am about to donate this cookbook to the l ittle free library  in my neighborhood.  I loved this cookbook in the 90s, and I have waxed nostalgic about it...

So it went like this: Upon crossing the threshold of Greens* , I see a chef, complete with white coat, speaking to a couple.  I recognize her face, but consider that I may be mistaken.  She sees me as I quickly glace at her left lapel, to discover, indeed in a lovely script, the name Annie Somerville .  I look back at her face, now with a giant--if dopey--grin on my own.  She sees that I have not only recognized her, read her name, and had my recognition confirmed, but that I have fully entered into pure fandom.  She looks away.  I do not.  I try to act cool.  I practically skip to our table.  I try to pull myself together. *After a round of drinks at The Interval at Long Now , and people, that place is awesome. Besides the very tasty daiquiri that I had, I was delighted by the Clock of the Long Now and an inspiring library. View from our table.  Not bad. That was how I spent my 40th birthday at Greens....

It has been raining north of here, which means many, many mushrooms.  Of course, we are not eating personally harvested mushrooms.  No, no.   Without our transplanted back to the Mid-West  mycologist-cum-farmer  to guide us through a forest foraging,  the husband trusts himself to gather one mushroom and one mushroom only--the chanterelle. I applaud his restraint.  However, that doesn't mean that we don't delight in finding (and photographing) mushrooms of all sorts.  And lucky for us, the redwoods up in Fort Bragg provide plenty of opportunity: While I recognize that all of those mushrooms are probably poisonous, I once had a friend who owned a mushroom farm in Pennsylvania.  I met him while I was in Ireland, and upon my return to the states, he invited me to his mushroom farm in, I kid you not, the Mushroom Capital of the World (or so the Wikipedia page proclaims).  Sure, I was fascinated by all of the growing r...

Spring!  Spring!  The farmers markets are slow to bring out the bounty but it's true--spring is trying it's hardest to be here.  Dull roots are stirring.  Lilacs are breeding.  How I love April, if only because I get to read Eliot: April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering          Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there yo...

It's cold out there tonight.  There's talk of snow for tomorrow.  Snow.  Snow near sea level!  Snow in San Francisco! So I did some searching around and discovered on Peter Hartlaub's blog that the past sixty years have seen three snow falls in San Francisco--February 28, 1951; January 21, 1962; and February 6, 1976.  And The Chronicle records that there were two other snows in December 1882 and February 5, 1887.  I love this 1887 photograph of Shotwell Street (between 22nd and 24th).  Besides the absolutely lovely lamppost, I love the ladies with their umbrellas.  Hartlaub, Peter. "A Century of Snow in San Francisco : The Poop." San Francisco Bay Area — News, Sports, Business, Entertainment, Classifieds: SFGate . The San Francisco Chronicle, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. Tonight to keep warm, I made one of my favorite soups.  Celery and wild rice were quite simply made to go with one another.  Wild rice, as you proba...

Continuing in my squash-related posts... I love risotto.  However, I didn't grow up with risotto, as my (single) mother (of three) often opened a can or a box, added sauteed hamburger, poured us a glass of milk, and called it a meal.  She had a lot more to do than stand at a stove and stir constantly, as risotto demands that you do.  Further, she wasn't taking any chances on whether we would like dinner.  She stayed with what was tried and true--chili, tuna tetrazzini, tacos, and spaghetti.  She made the mistake once of letting me choose my dinner for myself. Imagine with me: my mother's first birthday celebration after her divorce from my father.  Younger than I am now, she was taking her three children (ages 9, 8, and 2) to the nicest restaurant in town.  For something special, she announced that we could order anything we wanted--what joy for a seafood-loving, land-locked, midwestern girl.  I scanned the menu, quickly passing over the p...

  Most of the country is again digging itself out of snow this week.  Here, in the Bay Area of California, it is drizzling rain and fogging up--my favorite kind of weather only to be found in January, February, and August (minus the rain).  I spent the day with longtime California friends, and I am grateful that I have come to a point in my life where I have longtime California friends.  The husband and I have lived here nine years now.  I remember when I told my Colorado friends I was leaving for San Francisco; one said that she remembers her residency at UCSF as one of the most wonderful times of her life.  I thought such an utterance to be hyperbole, which it may well have been.  Nonetheless, there is something about this city in the fog that is more than charming or romantic; it is mesmerizing, even haunting.   Such a day calls for a warm soup, something hearty, something comforting.  So I took inventory of the refrigerator,...