My cooking skills, which I have now spent many decades perfecting, are … sorta okay. If the subsistence level of chef-craft is a score of 2, and this means that you can reliably serve food that will not sicken your guests, I am perhaps at a 4, maybe a 5 on a good day (on a scale of 10). By the amount of time I spend talking about food preparation you would expect a much higher score, else why am I daring to speak about it at all? My problem is that I truly enjoy messing about in the kitchen, even if the output is not always legendary.
It’s very much like it is with my poetry, or my prose-writing. I can clearly SEE the enormous gap between myself and a Leo Tolstoy or a Robert Frost in those areas, and yet I enjoy doing what I can do very much. So I’m thinking that makes me a chef de peuple, rather than a chef royal. With a smile on my face and a Michelin 0.000005 star to boot.
Remember way back in time when I told you that my favorite meal, the one I would ask for on the eve of my hanging, was one of bread, soup, and cheese? It still is. But not just any old loaf, lump, or bowl, nossir.
I would be looking for a crusty loaf of bread, a crumbly wedge of cheddar or gouda cheese (the kind with a flavor that makes your eyes roll back in your head), and a soup that has already filled the kitchen air with amazing aromas all afternoon and now quivers in the bowl in front of you, with here and there a shred of carrot or potato peeping above the broth?
.
I love making soups, especially those that force me to drag out the seasonings that I use so seldom that dust has collected on the caps of their bottles. I can dice and slice and chop all afternoon, watching small piles of onions and potatoes and celery and carrots rise in front of me. If I am careful, there is now a 99% certainty that I can do this prepping without lopping off and adding parts of my own body to the mixtures. (If you come to my home for dinner, just ask me to show you my hands. A complete lack of Band-Aids should reassure you on this subject. You might also count the fingers just to be certain).
My favorite soup recipe? There is no such thing. That honor is divided between so many as to be meaningless. My favorite so far this cooler season? That’s an easier question to answer. Last week I made Hungarian Mushroom Soup . Robin and I spooned up our portions and then shamelessly licked our bowls and spoons clean. It’s that good. I came across the recipe many years back and the soup has never failed to inspire.
I provide here the stovetop directions and the Instant Pot version of them.
******
******
******
I don’t ordinarily just post others’ photographs, but this one caught me and held on. It was taken in Yellowstone National Park by photographer Tom Murphy. The title given was “bison at 35 below.”
What extraordinary animals these are! I have seen them by the thousands driving through the Black Hills of South Dakota over the years, and have stopped hundreds of times to admire them.
(I have no photos of my own like this one, and I never will. Because at 35 below zero I would be quivering indoors and wearing anything warm I could get my hands on.)
******
******
Mark Twain was a man of so many parts that I didn’t know about at the time I first read about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Later in life I ran across a bit of his writing so startling that I had trouble reconciling it with the humorist I thought I knew. But Twain was vigorously opposed to war, and wrote The War Prayer, which I now recommend to those of you who know of him only as a teller of amusing tales.
Like I said, it was startling.
******
MUSHROOM NEWS
A reminder from the state of California that unless you are well trained in identifying fungal species you should not eat them. Some twenty-odd persons were stricken when they ingested death cap mushrooms, with fatalities.
Amanita phalloides is the most poisonous of all known mushrooms. It is estimated that as little as half a mushroom contains enough toxin to kill an adult human. It is also the deadliest mushroom worldwide, responsible for 90% of mushroom-related fatalities every year.
Wikipedia: Amanita phalloides
When I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where its forests were a sort of wild mushroom paradise, I learned how to safely recognize a half dozen species that were safe to eat and were delectable as well. There were many more species that were delicious as well but were difficult to pick out from the unsafe ones, and I was advised not to take a chance on them.
My teacher taught me this categorization, which I have kept in mind all these years even though I no longer go wild-gathering for fungi.
- Safe to eat but inedible
- Safe to eat and tasty
- Sickeners – those which made one briefly ill, often with beaucoup vomiting, but not lethal
- Killers like the death caps, which typically did not make one feel ill for several hours, and by that time one began to have symptoms one’s fate was pretty much sealed
***
A group of hikers in New York state decided to combine walking in the Catskill Mountains with ingesting “magic mushrooms” containing psilocybin. They were, need it even be said, young men in their twenties, one of the least cautious subspecies of humans in existence.
Eventually they had to be rescued because they had lost their way. Instead of following the clearly outlined trail, they made the group decision to travel in a straight line back to their car, which included crossing a bridge that one of the members of the party could see but could never get them to (and which did not exist).
This episode falls into the category of Type 2 fun. (It might be Type 3 for some people, depending on how embarrassing it would be to admit what an idiot you’d been.)
- Type 1: enjoyable both at the moment and in the retelling
- Type 2: difficult or uncomfortable while you are doing it, but can produce great stories to relate afterward
- Type 3: no fun when occurring, and you don’t want to talk about it later
******
******
The button picture today is of the monarch butterfly, which has become a symbol to many immigrant communities. The butterfly migrates freely between Mexico and the U.S.
The artist has incorporated images of a family moving cautiously within the wings.
******
Little Home In The Valley 