Super Soup!

While summer isn't exactly the best time for hot soup, it's been requested that I pass along my recipe for Super Soup, or Kitchen Sink Soup, or Five Minute Soup.

 I also call it Whatever Soup because it can have, like, whatever, in it.

Anything you've got laying around, animal, vegetable, or mineral.  

Well, maybe not rocks, diamonds, wood, rubber bands or hair clips.

I tend to focus on veggies - you do what you will.

So, get a saucepan and knife and start digging.

Begin with the broth.  I use the Imagine brand, but any kind will do.

Even plain water works.  Or those cubes or powders, or soups in cups which I sometime just throw in, usually half a container.  I try to get organic whenever possible, not only because it's organic, 

but they're not usually as salty as the regular brands.

So, first,

pour some broth in the pan and turn on the stove.

Then cut up what takes longest to cook first.  I start with carrots, cutting them on the bias (which means on a slant for those of you who don't sew) because that makes them cook faster.

Add stuff as you chop it.  

My soups are sometimes made of cauliflower, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and kale as you see here.

But broccoli, onions, cabbage, corn, turnips, parsnips, peppers, you name it, can go in.

I'm not big on potatoes, nor do I add pasta, but one could if one absolutely felt one had to.

I have been known to throw in a leftover piece of last night's fish.

Cover and cook at medium heat for five minutes.  Really, that's all it usually takes.  When the carrots can be pierced with a fork, it's done.  But they shouldn't be mushy.

When you cook it too long, things get soggy and 

the color goes down the drain.  

Like those gray canned peas that graced American tables in the 50's.

Also you don't want to cook out all of the nutrition that builds your body 12 ways.  

At least!  Probably more! 

(What were Wonder Bread's so-called 12 ways, anyway?)

After the fork piercing test proves favorable, pour the wonderful concoction into your favorite bowl, 

and eat!  I sometimes use a little tamari or soy sauce

if necessary.

Totems, Flowers, Fish, Smith and Mapplethorpe.

Bernie and Tina come up to dig and spade and plant and voila!  A flower garden!

Aaron, Frank and I take a boat ride (with electric motor) in the morning stillness.

I have heard that the idea for totem poles comes from reflections such as these.  

Turn them on their head, and you get some strange creatures.

The beavers have built a massive lodge.  They keep their house at 60 degrees F. throughout the entire year, I hear.  We imagine a solarium, split level rec rooms, kitchens and nurseries.

There is a herd of small fish that wait for us at the beach every day.  They are used to being fed by the long shadows that loom over the water and toss down bits of white bread products, those nutrition-less pseudo-foods that make up 90 percent of the American diet.  

I balk at feeding wildlife, but these guys are hardly wild anymore.  

Aaron throws them crackers that have gotten soggy.  The fish crowd around, 

snapping and foaming the water until the crackers are gone, unaware that it will be their last supper because when Aaron leaves tomorrow, so goes the shadowy god throwing down golden yellow discs.  

Three flour-less days later, oddly, they have become individuals, each hanging in his or her own lonely little space, not clustering together as they had done.

When we are not cruelly staring at the sullen fish, Frank and I take on a major project, that of cleaning up the "girls' room" with its corner of tools and various other items.  I omitted taking a "before" picture, so to give an idea of the chaos in that corner, I have conjured up a photo-collage of what it felt like before we started.

"Before"

After.

Frank installs shelves in the otherwise unused closet - voila!  A new toolshed.

Wow!  

(Note the lone fish on the wall.)

This trip brings me bizarre technological issues.  I laboriously set up my old laptop with a new battery, making a special trip to TekServ because it's my only computer with a port for dial-up.  Yes, dial up. Yes, I know there are other options, but I decided to do this.
But I find I've forgotten one of the cables for my hard drive which I could have used to enter a film competition that I find out about five minutes after arriving and setting up the dial up, which works.
But the missing cable turns out not to matter because a short time later, my computer stops working altogether.  

My 17 inch Powerbook G4 up and dies!  I can't believe it!  It's only five years old!
Of course in computer years, that's so last century.

For several days I use Aaron's iphone for email, but I am a fish out of water.  

The computer gods have deserted me.

Frank and I go to the public library one day and use their bank of computers, but the next 

day when I have IMPORTANT things to do, the library is closed!  

HOW CAN THIS BE?

We roam the streets of Pascoag,

looking at the pretty stream with its gorgeous leafy plants that happen to be another nasty invasive species called purple loosestrife, which spreads voraciously, stifling every other plant in sight, making it impossible for wildlife to survive.  How can something so pretty be so ugly?

I read even more than usual, finishing three books during the vacation.  The last one is the story of Patti Smith and her tender life-long love affair with Robert Mapplethorpe.  A beautiful, if at times harrowing story of New York City in a creative hey-day where people could get massive spaces in Manhattan, clean them out and work like devils at their art.  And just happen to run into folks like William Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg.  This story points out how hard artists work, how dedicated they are to their diverse crafts, and how difficult the life is.  Also how art evolves slowly and often suprisingly, diverging into unexpected pathways because of some small random thing that is found or happens.  Also how good artists are for city infrastructures, going into abandoned buildings and neighborhoods and fixing them up so the real estate people can move in and kick them out.

While I'm not particularly into either Smith's angular edgy music or Mapplethorpe's silky imagery, whether his too-perfect flowers or odorless S&M rituals, the book is a touching story of trust and friendship.  

I end up liking both of them very much.

Alas, it's time to go.  The morning we leave is raining and soggy, unlike most of our trips where we suffer through gray days until the last morning which dawns sunny and beautiful. 

This time, oddly, it's been just the opposite and we've been blessed with perfect summer weather.

The rain comes down so hard we can hardly see the road, no thanks to the massive trucks kicking up blasts of spray.

Home again, 

home again.

At last, back in Brooklyn where I am able to stare deeply into my computer screen!  

Yay!

Third of July

Here's a day that needs few words:

After the party was over, Scott and his friend Dax stayed for a while, so they were able to observe a miracle of sorts - a Fourth of July without an bevy of loud and raucous motorized vehicles tearing back and forth on this too-small lake.  Instead, drifting softly across the water, floated a raft and rowboat filled with July carolers singing folk songs in 12 part harmony.

Dax said that this was his favorite third of July ever.

There was plenty of noise later, when the fireworks started.

And at last, the rapture!