Summertime Soup

It's been a strange month. Unlike last year's and many previous June's, this month's weather has been mostly moderate with a lot of rain. Usually it's just hot, humid, and miserable. We got a taste of normal June weather mid-week last week, which put me in the mood for some of my summer recipes. I made a batch of fresh-squeezed limeade (which is easy if you have the proper lime-squeezing tool). I also made my first bruscetta of the season.

For this week's soup, I made gazpacho. Some day, I'll have to tell you the story of how and where I had my first, perfect bowl of gazpacho. I've yet to recreate something similar, and probably won't ever do so, but it doesn't stop me from trying. I found this recipe last week. Here's my variation.

Ingredients

4 cups low-sodium V8 juice
6 ripe tomatoes, seeded
1 purple onion
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded
1 sweet yellow bell pepper, seeded
2 stalks celery
1-2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp chopped fresh chives
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small can of tomato paste (to thicken)
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons sugar
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
Hot sauce to taste
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Decide how pureed or chopped you want each of the ingredients. Put the veggies you want completely pulverized in the processor first, adding the rest in descending order.

So this is what I did, emptying each batch into a large glass bowl as I finished it, since my processor isn't big enough to hold a gallon of soup.

Batch 1: onion, celery, chives, parsley, 1 cup of the V8 juice
Batch 2: bell pepper, oil, vinegar, garlic
Batch 3: cucumber, tomatoes, 1 cup of the V8 juice
Batch 4: tomato paste, 1 cup of the V8 juice

Add the last cup of V8 and the rest of the seasonings and stir well. Use a spoon with large slots to pull out any large chunks of veggies and pop them back into the processor, if needed.

Store and chill overnight. Serve cold.

Serves 8.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Writer's Day

Last week's Booking through Thursday question was: Sharon Lee has declared June 23rd Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Day. What might you do on the 23rd to celebrate? Do you even read fantasy/sci-fi? Why? Why not?

I *love* to read fantasy novels. This is my "go-to" genre when I'm looking for something to read. I think it started with a love of fairy tales. I read some science fiction, but not the really hard core stuff. It's all about the quest for me: quest for identity, quest for knowledge, quest for gold, quest for true love.

Since the day is a celebration of writers, here's a list of some of my favorites. They're listed in alphabetical order by last name.

Lois McMaster Bujold
David Eddings
Madeleine L'Engle
Ann McCaffrey
Robin McKinley
Elizabeth Moon
Robert Silverberg

I couldn't decide whether to include C.S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling to the list. I'm too new to Pullman and Rowling to know if I'll love their books over time, but I suspect I will. I haven't read the Narnia novels over and over again the way I have the works of the other authors listed.

An honorable mention needs to go to Sharyn McCrumb for writing one of the funniest books I've ever read - a murder mystery set at a sci-fi convention. If you've ever been part of Fandom and haven't read Bimbos of the Death Sun, go now and find a copy.

Sadly, this post will probably be the extent of my celebration of the day.

How Not to Have a Vacation

Last week, we went on vacation. I've taken to calling it not-a-vacation. In short, we had 3 trips to urgent care, 2 ear infections (the girls), 1 sunburn (me), 1 case of bronchitis (hubby), gloomy weather, a flat tire, and an overall lack of sleep by all 4 of us. And we came home to a dead phone line.

On the plus side, we had funnel cake, really good food overall, a bit of outlet shopping, excellent automotive service, a nice walk along the boardwalk, and one afternoon at the beach. DH completed his biennial shoe shopping (4 pairs of Clarks at the outlets).

The highlight of the trip for me, besides introducing the girls to the ocean (they were a bit overwhelmed by the openness), was stopping at a LNS (no website). I bought four charts, some 32 count linen, and some overdyed threads. The charts are:

American Chronicles by Liz Navickas (I'm planning on stitching just the flag.)
Flag 1998 by Bent Creek
Spring Medley by Elizabeth's Designs (I'm planning on stitching the tree sampler.)
Summer Welcome by Sam Sarah Design Studio

It seems I was in a bit of a patriotic mood.

So while the trip wasn't complete misery, it certainly wasn't the vacation we had expected.

Happy Father's Day

Wishing a Happy Father's Day to all.

Sunday Soup

Recently, the food offered by the cafeteria at work has gone down in quality and up in price. I also find myself buying fried stuff way too often. Therefore, I've decided that I need to bring my lunch more often. Given everything else going on in my life, I've realized that the only way that this is going to happen is if I make soup every Sunday. I might add some other leftovers in here and there, but rather than coming up with more complicated entries, I'm going to stick with soup for now. It's cheap, it's easy, and it makes a big batch. What more could I ask for?

This week's soup is a recipe that my MIL gave me several years ago. I make this a couple of times a year. My MIL likes it served cold with dill. I like it warm with lots of ground pepper and croutons. It's a very flexible and forgiving soup, and you can flavor it anyway you'd like. Just add the seasonings at the end, after you've pureed the soup.

Pureed Carrot Soup

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 leeks (or onion, but it's better with leeks)
a couple of cloves of garlic, to taste
1 lb. carrots
3 med. potatoes
1 box of fat-free chicken broth (or veggie broth)
1 bayleaf

Chop all the vegetables. In the bottom of a soup pot, heat the oil. Add the chopped leek and saute until almost soft. Add the garlic and saute another minute or two. Add all of the other ingredients. Add enough water if needed to cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Cook until carrots and potatoes are soft.

REMOVE THE BAY LEAF.

Using a hand blender, puree the soup. Add a little more water if the consistency is too sticky. Serve hot or cold.

11th Grade Books

Ah, the 11th grade. It was one of those years. I started school having had a complete makeover, and no one really noticed. It was also the year I landed in Miss K's English class. I can't say it was a completely miserable year, but it also wasn't very fun. Miss K was also the advisor for two of the afterschool clubs I belonged to. I couldn't escape her. I remember getting into a nasty fight with her about some activity (not course-related) during the year. I'm not one who gets into nasty fights, but she just rubbed me the wrong way.

11th grade was the year we moved further away from the course compendium volume and into more full length books for class. We read 8 or 10 that year. We read Alive. We read the Merchant of Venice. We read a bunch of books. We even were allowed to chose, as a class, one of the readings. That's how we ended up with Rebecca, and not Lord of the Flies. We were the first class in many years to read Rebecca, because our class was 1o girls and 2 boys (my entire h.s. class was only 100 students). After reading Alive, we weren't going to touch Lord of the Flies.

I read Rebecca straight through in two days. Why? Because I wanted to know the second Mrs. DeWinter's first name. In case you're wondering, it's not mentioned anywhere. I was *horrified* that she wasn't named. Even then, I knew that names were important. She had no identity except as an attachment to some other person. Looking back, I can see how reading Rebecca was my inaugural feminist moment. I still cringe, although less visibly now, when somebody calls me "Mrs."

To Kill a Mockingbird - one of the great masterpieces of American literature. A powerful book. An amazing movie. I'm always stunned when I discover friends who haven't read it. I've given it as a gift on more than one occasion. Despite all that, part of the reason it will always stick goes back to Miss K. You see, she got her revenge on us upstart teenagers. After we read the book, she showed us the videotape in class. There we were, on a Friday, watching the 2nd or 3rd installment, when she stops the tape a few minutes before the bell's to ring. And about 3 seconds before we get to see Boo Radley behind the bedroom door. Argh!!!!

The end of 11th grade was a different type of turning point for me. I spent the summer abroad as an exchange student and learned that I could escape the labels and the roles into which I'd been cast in the 4th grade and become someone I wanted to be. Senior year was bearable because I knew I'd be going away again soon.

Books I Read in 7th Grade

If 4th grade was the year I became a reader, then 7th grade is the year I began to devour books. It's the year that I branched out from reading children's chapter books to reading more young adult and adult novels. I don't think that there was any one event that triggered this, although I can think of several contributing factors.

7th grade is the first year that I really remember having specific assigned readings that were books. The Hobbit was one of them. One of the others was And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. I read Ice Castles for a book report. (There, I just dated myself!) I didn't really enjoy the assigned readings, and truly did not get into The Hobbit. But I did enjoy another book given to me to read by the same teacher - A Separate Peace. This is one of the first "serious" books I read, which is how it made the 15 list.

What's odd about me not liking The Hobbit, is that I read a lot of fantasy. Many of the Tolkein's followers are authors that I love. Because of my dislike of The Hobbit, I didn't read The Lord of the Rings Trilogy until shortly before the movies came out. I didn't enjoy reading the LOTR trilogy, either, but I love the movies.

In any case, A Wrinkle in Time was a fantasy I read in 7th grade that I loved. I've read nearly all of L'Engle's work, including the nonfiction, and she's one of my favorite all time writers. I couldn't believe it when I was able to meet her when I was in college. She was the first really famous person I'd ever met. (I just thought about the number of children's book authors I've met in person. Given that only a couple of the meetings were at book signings, it's actually a fairly impressive group.)

Books I Read as a Small Child

In my post on 15 books that have stuck with me, I included Little Mommy by Sharon Kane (a Little Golden Book), the Little Golden Books' version of Jingle Bells (pre-school), and the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Why do I remember these?

Jingle Bells is hard to forget. This made my list, though, because of a photo. One year, probably the year I turned four, my mother took a photo of me in my rocking chair reading this. Despite the fact that the photo was taken during the summer, Mom sent it out that year with our Christmas Cards. I still have several copies of this.

Little Mommy was one of my favorites. I can still recite it, if I think about it hard enough. So can my mother. Imagine, then, my surprise and horror the first day of my undergraduate children's literature class when the instructor (Patricia MacLaclan) holds it up as an example of absolutely horrid children's literature. It is bad, I can't disagree with her, but that's my childhood she was mocking.

The Little House books made the list for two reasons. They are among the first books I read for myself and not as a school assignment and signal the point at which I really became a reader. They are also among the books I re-read every summer until I was in college.

May Cards

I'm a little late in posting this. Here's the card I made for May. May is always a busy month for me now. Between Mother's Day and all 3 of my sisters-in-law having birthdays, I need a lot of cards. I'm in the process of working on my June cards for Father's Day and male birthdays. At least the guys' birthdays are spread out throughout the year. Then in July, I need to work on cards for kids birthdays, as all of the children to whom I give cards have birthdays between August and December.

Stuck on 15

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is: “This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

Here are mine in the order in which I remembered them. I've included information about when I read them, because there are patterns. I plan to do a follow up post to discuss why some of these stick.

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (11th grade)
2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (7th grade)
3. Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier (11th grade)
4. Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie (post grad school)
5. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (college)
6. A Separate Piece by John Knowles (7th grade)
7. The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (college)
8. Patriot's Dream by Barbara Michaels (college)
9. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes (post grad school)
10. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (grad school)
11. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (7th grade)
12. The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4th grade)
13. Little Mommy by Sharon Kane (pre-school)
14. The Little Golden Books' version of Jingle Bells (pre-school)
15. Gabriela, Cravo e Canela by Jorge Amado (college)