Regarding Family Recipes

It was my intent this evening to make my favorite soup, my grandmother's vegetable soup, a staple of Easter and Christmas dinners.

Or whenever I begged.

It's a good soup! With many vegetables for a particularly nutritious Tuesday dinner. Or it would have been had I not forgotten myself and used an entire stick of butter.

Damn. That was some tasty soup.

Also advice from Grammy when making this soup - "if it doesn't taste good, just add more bouillon!"

Bouillon FTW team. For the win.

NEXT UP - MEYER LEMON MORNING ROLLS - like cinnamon rolls, but with a delicious, lemony filling.

EDIT: I realized this post would be infinitely served if I ACTUALLY POSTED THE FRIGGIN RECIPE. So that all the internet can glory in its deliciousness:

2 cups lettuce, chopped (I used half of the heart of romaine head)
2 cups celery, chopped
2 onions, chopped (tears running down my face, per the usj)
1 carrot, chopped

Saute veggies in
1/2 stick of butter (of if you are, you know, slow of wits, an entire stick)
until you feel like the volume has reduced by approx 20%.

Add 2 cans of diced tomatoes and 4 cups of boiling water (electric kettle = awesome)

Simmer for 30 minutes.

Add 4 cubes of bouillon, salt and pepper to taste. Allow the bouillon cubes to melt and then the soup to simmer up again.

My grandmother says to keep adding bouillon till it tastes good, but this usually happens around 4 cubes.

Carefully ladle into bowls, making a minimum of mess, and present proudly to roommate. The Mav politely inquires as to how much butter is actually in the soup, declares it similar to eating a cookie, and happily consumes for 2nd dinner.

Cheers!
Frances

Ok So Here's What Happened

This post has multiple parts:

Thursday - Chez Panisse

Friday - ZOMBIELAND

Saturday - Alternative Press Expo

Sunday - Chaja

CLEARLY ITS BEEN A BUSY COUPLE DAYS.

So Thursday - it is the Man and my 1-year anniversary (balloons). I'll wait while you go throw up from emotional overload.

...

Although the two of us are both very bright, we are both very broke, so choosing to go to Chez Panisse was kind of a big deal. Luckily, Ms. Waters totes delivered. I had never been to this excessively fancy restaurant before, but I was well pleased. It's a very warm room - the lighting almost reddish, reflecting off the hammered copper lamp shades and sconces. We sat in the back corner against what looked like a mirrored wall, and the light shone off the sconces and lampshades and warm polished wood and made the food look amazing.

First was pate de campagne, with mustard and carrots and beets and green beans and cornichons. My experience with pate is...limited, and my palette is comically inadequate but it reminded me of the way you kind of always wished cured salumi would taste - wild, but softer.

I screwed up my courage and took pictures for the rest of the courses with my dinky lil point and shoot camera:

This was probably my favorite - 3 soups combined into one awesome party: spinach, corn, and pepper. Now, looking at that list o soups, you would think they would be all jostling for attention: corn is always sweet, and spinach is unmistakeable, and pepper is...pepper. Instead it was like they all came to the party and were like "hey, what's up..." and that was IT. They MELDED and as you swallowed they made themselves heard in different parts of your tongue. Also, HOORAY FOR MARBLING.

Ok, so main course: Grilled Sonoma Liberty duck breast au poivre with chanterelle mushrooms and gratin dauphinois. A fairly traditional way to do au poivre, but the duck was perfect. Melting meat is a curious sensation, but there you are. The potatoes were delicious - not heavy at all (quite the feat for gratin) and sort of tangy. It was awesome to have au poivre a different way, seeing as the Sinks usually rock the venison au poivre (only in our family its venison + black goop. Yeah.)

To finish up, a Tarte Tatin with the first Pink Ladies of the season, with a scoop of housemade creme fraiche ice cream.

Yum.

Dissecting a meal like this is definitely out of the ordinary for Sweetness (I am sooo not Ruth Reichl), but it was a special occasion.

This post is getting long, so I will leave you with these one liners:

Friday - ZOMBIELAND. Go see it. Rule #32 Yo.

Saturday - Alternative Press Expo. I got the BEST ART EVER. I love meeting creative people, even though this is how most of the conversations went:

Artist - Thanks for checking out my stuff! You guys artists too?

B - I draw on the side, but I mostly do a lot of writing.

F - Nope, just jealous.

I suppose I have baking. I have reasonable assertions that I'm pretty good at it, despite the incomprehensible messes.

Sunday - Chaja. Dad's birthday + Excuse for making DECADENT Brazilian dessert. Unfortunately, this is really not a dessert suited for photography. Like, at all. In the words of the Mav, it's a hot mess. But it has dulce de leche! And that is enough for me. Recipe will be posted after it has been translated from the odd blend of Portuguese and Spanish that is the peculiar language of the Fernandez-O'Keeffe's.

I love it when my life has the sweetness.