Whole Soups

Despite the intense disappointment brought about by New York Magazine's list of New York's 50 tastiest soups, I realized that their soup list was from actual restaurants. I choose - for the most part - to cover quick lunch soup spots. Soups for on the go New Yorkers to grab and slurp with a vengeance. This way New Yorkers will have a complete - a whole, if you will - soup experience. Which leads me to my liquid thoughts on Union Square's most grab and go food destination: WHOLE FOODS.

In addition to having a fabulous salad bar, Whole Foods, has a really awesome soup bar. They have eight selections which change regularly. You can scoop the soup yourself into a variety of sized containers. Unfortunately, they don't have re-usable soup bowls for customers who stay, the way they do for the salad.

On Tuesday, I scooped up a small bowl of butternut squash soup and a small bowl of apple pumpkin soup - I couldn't resist. The butternut squash was pretty much prefect. The only better I've had was from the Harrison, and they topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds. I wasn't sure what to expect with the apple pumpkin soup as I've never in all my soup eating days encountered such a liquid concoction. It was darker in colour than the butternut soup, and milder in flavour. It wasn't actually any sweeter, but it was more dense and thicker. On the whole I preferred the butternut squash and probably wouldn't buy the apple pumpkin again. But if I ever crave squash submitted to a blender I would definitely indulge the craving with this butternut squash soup. This soup really is a whole 'nother thing.

Reflections in Soup

If you've ever tried to look at your own reflection in a bowl of soup, you know what a messy affair it is. If you haven't tried, don't, you'll wind up with a carrot in your eye and a noodle coming out your nose.

This Tuesday I shuttled myself and my cohort in soup down to Katz's deli on Houston. Yes, the famous Katz's, where I've never managed to haul myself before. I was also meeting a friend and her friend from Scotland. So on the whole I was excited about this lunch excursion.

I got the matzoh ball soup. A soup I've been craving since I got back from Scotland. Which is actually kind of strange, because I never much ate it before. But I think in my mind matzoh ball soup came to define everything I couldn't get in Scotland - except for my friends who I could telephone. It's very difficult to call a bowl of matzoh ball soup and have a conversation with it.

I find the problem with matzoh ball soup is that it is always one giant ball of matzoh. I always want it to be like two or three smaller balls floating in my bowl of chicken brothy goodness. It was oily, but not salty, everything you could ask for in a deli chicken broth.

I rounded out the meal with a mozzarella grilled cheese, a combination you could probably only in New York City. It was perfect.

In other news, I never did find out what she was having.

Solace

Why is it that no one can offer me words of comfort that stop my brain from turn and wheeling and stumbling over the biggest stress of my life? Why do I feel like I'm falling but not going down? And there are no resolutions in sight. No places for me to sit, and rest and dream of something else.

I recently finished reading W.S. Merwin's translation of Dante's 'Purgatorio'. It's a poem so full of hope and action on longing, and yet I take no solace from it. Dante might find his Beatrice after seeking her through Hell and climbing the mountain of Purgatory, but I cannot see over the next ridge of the journey and I am no where near to Dante's trial. While Dante seeks his answers among the dead, I keep living. And keep looking to live. And keep working at life. And grabbing at new pieces of it. Perhaps searching for something. Perhaps...

I know why I went to Scotland now. It took too long to figure out. I was looking for something. I didn't think I was yet old enough for a quarter life crisis, but that's the thing about life, you don't really know how long it is or how much you've really lived. I fought through a year of knowing that everything I went searching for I had actually left behind. But the thing about a wild, mad, desperate search is that even if you don't find what you want, or realize you've already lost it, you do find other things. I would not give up the things I found for anything in the world. And I think the pain was part of the finding. And I'm not just saying that because I'm an artist. The true conundrum is that you can't have the things you found and the things you left behind together. By definition that must remain apart. And no amount of wishing can bridge the distance of a year.

I found the following in a footnote to Purgatorio. It is the second most beautiful thing I've read in years. The first still being 'The Girl with Glass Feet'.

I have seen the bright star of the morning

that appears before the break of day

take the form of a human figure shining

above all others, as it seems to me.

A countenance of snow colored with scarlet,

eyes shining and full of love and joy-
I cannot believe the world has in it

a Christian girl so full of good and beauty.

And from the love of her I am overtaken

by so violent an attack of sighing

that I do not dare say a word before her.

If only she could know my desire

without my speaking she might show compassion

and so reward me for my suffering.

-Guido Guinizzello (1235-1276)

I usually don't hold with writing about my personal stress in such a direct way, and yes, this is as direct as I'm going to write about my personal stress on this blog. But sometimes I just need to spill, even when nothing directly references the stressor. This is by way of an apology to anyone not interested in this post at all.

Pride and Prejudice and ZOMBIES!!!

I would probably have never read 'Pride and Prejudice' without the ZOMBIES. I hadn't yet, and my opinion of the literature from the period, written by women is not very high. But throw in some Zombies, and hot damn, sign me up.

However, I probably would never have gotten around to actually buying 'Pride and Prejudice and ZOMBIES' (emphasis mine). But I would have tried to borrow a copy. Lucky for me, there are wonderful people in the world, who also think I would enjoy this book - without the two of us discussing it - and think it an appropriate birthday gift. And they were right.

And it really was just as exciting as I had personally hyped it up to be. Austen should never be read without the inclusion of ZOMBIES.

A Lack of Soup

Sadly, my December first had a distinct lack of soup. However, if I had not been running around doing errands at odd intervals, I would have made soup.

I'm sure some of you still have a turkey carcass sitting in your fridge, with really not enough meat to make a sandwich. Have I got a solution for you. Turkey Soup.

Take that turkey carcass and chop it into more manageable pieces (halves, quarters, you get the point). Dump those puppies in a pot of water (any size you want, depending on how much soup you want to end up with). Boil that sucker for an hour or so. Then turn off the heat and let it cool down a little. When it's cool enough scrap off as much of the left over meat off the bones as possible. Throw out the bones, give the broth a stir and put the whole thing in the fridge.

Let that sit in the fridge for a day, or until the fat has solidified on the top into a gross white layer. Scoop that layer off and throw it away. It's gross. You don't want to eat it.

Now that you've de-gross-ified your broth pop that pot back on the stove and start bringing it back to a simmer. While that's doing its thing. Start chopping up the other stuff you want to put in that soup.

My recommendation for soup contents (in the most random order possible):
- carrots
- sweet frozen corn
- white onions
- scallions
- thyme
- rosemary
- oregano
- frozen peas
- rice or barley
- potato (although I'm aware that some people feel cheated by potatoes in soup)
- broccoli

Now chop up that onion and that scallion and saute them together in butter. Yes, butter, lots of butter. Throw some oregano into that saute pan (or frying pan if you don't have fancy pans). Pour the whole thing - yes all that melted butter - into the broth. Give the broth a stir.

Chop up your carrots and potatoes and put those into the broth. Add in the rosemary and thyme or whatever herbs you fancy. Let that simmer for about an hour. Or until the carrots and potatoes are just about soft.

Now put in the broccoli and rice or barley. Let that continue cooking for about 2o minutes or so.

About 15 minutes before you're going to serve it put in the frozen peas and sweet corn. You want to keep them fresh. That's the reason you don't put everything in the pot at the same time. Particularly the rice or barley, which can get way too over cooked and just melt into the broth and do horrible things to your soup.

When you put in the peas and corn, taste the soup. Actually taste it all along the way. But if the soup doesn't taste "finished" or like "something's missing" you have two options. 1) chop some bacon into small pieces and fry it in lots of butter, the pour it all into the soup. 2) or just put in a chunk of butter. Yes, seriously, just add some butter. Give it a stir. Let simmer a little longer and serve.

Serve in a bowl - cause it's soup moron - with perhaps some croutons on top, or some cheese and croutons. It depends on what you like.

Best wishes. Hope your Dec 1 was filled with more soup than mine.

Cobbles

Has anyone else ever noticed that cobblers are people who fix your shoes and cobblestones are things that ruin your shoes.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Returning to Soup

This week's adventure in soup brought my cohort and I back to an old steadfast: Karen's on Astor place. As I spooned warm broth into my mouth, I spooned memories into my soul. memories of weekly lunch dates with close friends where we tipped out the problems of the week, and filled ourselves with warm soupy goodness.

This time was not too much different. I had the broccoli rabe and white bean soup and my friend had the chicken and vegetable. Now, in years previous, I have loved all Karen's soups, but today it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. I added a small packet of salt and that seemed to help. I also felt the same about my cohorts soup, but I couldn't force him to add salt to his. Mind you I was a girl raised on Campbell's soups, where the sodium content is through the roof. So I've come to believe that salty soup is the norm. Although this was never a complain on previous visits to Karen's.

All the vegetables in both the broccoli rabe and the chicken vegetable were perfectly tender and holding their shape until crushed. And the brocoli rabe's tomato broth was the perfect balance between watery and think. The chicken vegetable was a golden shiny chicken broth.

Ultimately, if you like not salty soup Karen's is for you.

The Professional

I have now entered the realm of professional writer. I got my first writing check in the mail yesterday. I'm writing for an as of yet not launched website. My editor tells me it will be launched in Russian first. So when I become a professionally published writer it will be in Russian. Yes, that's right. I'm going to be published in Russian. I know exactly 3 people who will be able to read it. And then 2 more who might be able to read it. I am in neither category. It will give an entirely new meaning to not being able to read what I've written. Normally, my handwriting is just too sloppy, but this time it will be in a foreign language. I wonder if my wit translates into Russian.

I would also like to point out to all my dramatic writing friends that because this is not a dramatic writing gig I do not need to get a tattoo as per anyone's deal. Just in case anyone asks. No way no how. Unless of course I get some wicked cool phrase in Russian that I'll never understand, cause then the tat doesn't really count.

Adventures in Soup

Apolegizes for the late review. My tuesday become incredible full.

For the premiere of Adventures in Soup I headed over to lower Chelsea and picked up my partner in soup from work and we went across the street to Rocking Horse Cafe. (8th Ave and 19th st) It's a cute, hip and sexy Mexican restaurant that aims at making mexican food haute. It was rather empty for lunch when I walked in, but it was a little late for lunch.

They only have "soupa del dia". They had a cauliflower soup and a spicy chicken. We ordered both. The cauliflower soup didn't look like too much in the bowl, but it was a creamed spoonful of cauliflower goodness, topped off with crispy duck. It was also topped with some sort of oil something, but the waiter spoke too fast for me to catch what it was. It didn't add any flavor and being a New York female my first thought was of my thighs. So if you can, order without - if you worry about things like thighs. Behind all the flavors of the soup was the slightest hint of anise. Intriguing. It's the kind of soup you'd want to curl up into and watch a snow storm.

The spicy chicken was indeed spicy and full of chicken. But not too full. It reminded me of a cross between torilla soup and minestrone. The heat lingered in my mouth a little too long, but the avocado on top helped cool that a little. I liked it, but the whole time wished it wasn't quite as lingeringly spicy. And I'm a fan of spicy.

If you want Mexican-ish soups I'd go here. But if you just want a really good soup I'd go somewhere else. Hopefully I'll find that place in the coming weeks.

The Girl with Glass Feet

One of the perks of my life is getting copies of books before they are released. This book was the best thing to come out of this life perk.

"The Girl with the Glass Feet" by Ali Shaw is probably the best book I've read in the last 10 years. When it finally hits the book shelves in January everyone should buy a copy. EVERYONE. I'd buy everyone a copy for Christmas, but it wouldn't be out so you'll have to either a) buy it yourself. or b) tell me you're willing to wait. Mind you if you tell me you're willing to wait you're making the assumption that you're on my Christmas gift list. So think before you send that email. Just kidding. If you're not on the list I'll pretend the email never made it to spare the awkwardness. I promise.

What you need to know about this book is that my best friend and I agree that it is the most beautiful kind of sad and "gorgeously painful".

As the title makes obvious the focal character has glass feet (I'm loath to say main character, because it's not that easy). The book explores the inhabitants of a small Northern island as the girl with the glass feet searches for an answer to her peculiar physiognomy. Through her journey she forces the people who she seeks out for help to confront the solidarity of the lives they have built themselves.

This book will make you both want to grab life by every piece of its existence; drink it up, slurp it down, chew it up and roll around in the glory of it. It also makes you want to stop and notice the flowers emerging from the winter snow, a fish jumping through the ocean's waves and the crinkles around the eyes of your best friends when they laugh just so. And make you cry for the joy and beauty even in the most sad of times.

Gay Marriage

In an article on Gay Marriage - or as my friend has taken to calling it "Genderless Marriage" a term I have decided to adopted - Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are called Ms. DeGeneres and Ms. de Rossi. Normally I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But they're married. It didn't seem like the right titles. Mind you I'm not a big fan of titles generally in newspaper articles, I think all readers will understand who is meant by "DeGeneres", rather than "Ms. DeGeneres". Which, as a side note, completely relates to our cultural obsession with forcing gender identities on to living things. I mean who cares if that PERSON walking down the street is "male" or "female". Does it matter? Really? In the larger scheme of things? As long as they've found someone they can happily get freakly with in their own bedroom I don't care what pronoun may or may not be referred to using.

Returning to DeGeneres and de Rossi. Why are they "Ms. DeGeneres and Ms. de Rossi" rather than "Mrs. and Mrs. DeGeneres and de Rossi"? Did the writer think their readers would assume they were married to other people, even when the entire article was about their marriage to EACH OTHER? "Mrs." is the married female title. They are both married females. They just happen to be married to another female. So what? They're still married. They can legally commit adultery.

But let's just get rid of titles. How about it? We don't officially recognize soveriegn titles, so why these? Mind you I see no problem with academic titles as they are already genderless.

Down with gendered titles. Down with them.

Tuesday is Soup Day

As of this coming Tuesday, the 17 of November every Tuesday is Soup day. Which means Tuesday night a new post will go up reviewing my Tuesday Adventures in Soup. Now why would I want to review soup EVERY week. Well my friend, I'll tell you.

As fall descends upon us - and then bounces back into the clouds and then tries falling again, because he didn't quite do a good job the first time - the diets of New Yorkers become more liquid based. The intake of soup in the city nearly doubles during these colder months. And if you're eating that yummy liquid goodness so much more often you want to know exactly which soups are worth your time to slurp.

As a preview of what's to come, I stopped by Hale and Hearty Soups on Bryant Park yesterday, just to test run my tasting abilities. I had the Tomato Basil with rice soup. On the whole it tasted like eating tomato sauce. Which it kind of is. So if you're really into tomato sauce, then this soup is for you. You could stop into any location fo Hale and Hearty and get yourself a bowl full. However, I'm more into my soup not tasting like tomato sauce. Mind you I'm not much of a tomato sauce person when it's supposed to be tomato sauce. It did have the consistancy of soup. Soup with chunks of stuff in it, which is good for a soup. If there's not stuff in it, really it's just broth and that's such a tease. I'm not a fan of being teased by soup in this way. There are other ways soup can tease you and I'm totally down. But not like this.

I look forward to seeing all your eye balls back here on Tuesday for another addition of Adventures in Soup.

Plays I wanna see soon

In the Next Room; or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl
Superior Donuts by Tracy Letts

And these because I I'd much rather see a play than read it.
Oleana
Brighton Beach Memoires
Our Town

If you're interesting in seeing these with me let me know.

It's that time of the Play again

What to call that damn thing that I've just been refering to as 'the surfer play' for almost a year now. While that moniker does have a ring to it, and the play is about surfers, someone its feels like its not quite a real title. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Its a very realist magical realism play, emphasis on the realism and everyone is a surfer. Takes place Venice Beach, LA.

So, the list thus far:

Floating
Drifting
Ripin'
Ripin' (or the surfer play)
This Play is about Surfers (seriously, dude!)
You know, the one with the surfers. And the thing.

As you can see I've been really inspired in terms of titles.

Caribbean

The five of us in a clean Mexican tourist port. Look how santized our surroundings are. Just look. We did get a chance for a quick tour through where the people of Cozumel live. I wish I could have walked through though, it's hard to take photos from a moving bus.

GIRLS ON A BOAT!!! Writers Gone Wild! Look at them they're going CRAZY. on the inside. can't you tell?

I'm sure this picture will look better without me blocking the view and mucking up the image.

Much better. Isn't that a lovely beach. Cozumel folks. Paradise Beach. Just after all the tourists left and the beachside bars shut and the employees when home. So it truely was beautiful.

Caves in Cozumel. Jules, Resa and I were shown these caves on our "Jungle Hike" to explore "Mayan Ruins". Which amounted to a long walk through an overgrown fruit ranch to look at piles of rocks. Mostly disappointing. The only thing we were able to bring back from that trek were hundred of mosquito bites. So I guess it wasn't a total loss.

This was the one pile of ruins that was actually rather interesting. As you could still see the stairs and the shape of the structure. But you could also see the force of the jungle claiming back what rightfully belongs to the wild. The King James bible says "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19). But in truth we are not dust, we are life and to life we will return. tucked into the folds of the earth we move towards to light stretching new leaves sunward wriggling new toes in the same earth.

This truck made me think of Cuba.

PIE ON A STICK!!! What more could you possibly want in life? I mean really? Really? If you have a thought spill it, cause I think I could now die happy. Its actually frozen key lime pie covered in chocolate on a stick. Ummmm Pie on a Stick. I'm also in Key West, so Key Lime pie is absolutely appropriate. As a fan of pie in general, I'm not all that keen on Key Lime pie to be honest, and I was that entire piece. The whole shabang on a stick. I ate it. This girl. First Key Lime pie I've ever one that too. Usually I take a bite and decide "nope not really me cup of tea". At which point my mother reminds me that I'm tasting a piece of pie, which is why it's nothing like a cup of tea. But if you're ever in Key West, seriously, don't resist being the tourist, try the pie.

This movie theatre was so cute I had to take a picture. I wish I had had time to look inside. It just makes me want to pinch it's cheeks.

Three of my travelling friends standing at the Southern most point of the United States. Nothing but ocean for ninety miles until you run ashore on Cuba. At which point you quite to yourself an appropriate line from Monty Python "run away!"

Key West cocks. That's right. I said it. They have a special kind of cock in Key West. They're protected. These cocks don't get caught, shot and eaten. No cream of cock soup is made of these birds. No way, no how. They are left to their own devices all day. Just left to peck around willy nilly as they chose, chasing chicken tail or pecking at holes in the ground. Lucky son of a cock.

Dear Blog,

Oh, I'm so sorry I have ignored you. I have been much too wrapped up, I in other types of words. You see, I discovered reading for pleasure. Its this thing people do when they don't have books forced upon them. They read whatever they want. As fast or slow as they please. I'm having the most marvellous time. But, dear Blog, I promise, I will return to you. I have so many wonderful thought that this reading for pleasure has sparked in my brain. Soon I'll need to share them with someone. And, sweet Blog, why not you?

Two Weeks and Counting

I've officially been a school free adult for two weeks now and what do I have to show for it?

Well, my work keeps paying me. That's something.

I typed up a scene for my new play and successfully changed all the character's names.

Next week I'm going on a cruise to the Caribbean with my best friends.

I suppose this is adulthood. Life just keeps rolling along, each day passing and being forgotten. Part of it is releaving. No deadlines to worry about. No silly writing assignments meant to stretch my brain. No unsolicited brain stretching of any kind. Lots of reading for pleasure. Lots of sitting home in my pajamas because I don't want to take the bus into the sitting. Lots of free time to let my brain wander over the problems of any of the plays I've ever written (On which note, I think I finally solved a massive problem in a play I wrote four years ago. Now, I'm deciding if the play is worth rewriting at all).

I suppose this is a really long winded way of saying that my life is pretty boring at the moment.

The First Day of the rest of my Life

I turned in my master's thesis on Wednesday. Printed it out, bound it together and mailed it to Scotland. I'm longer a student. Everything I've known for the last twenty years of my life is no more.

It is the most liberating feeling ever.

Despite that I know I'll go back for a doctorate eventually - the most stressful moments of my masters degree are the ones that motivate me towards the PhD - but I can't leave NYC to do it - I feel like a person, in the most complete sense of personhood. If anyone understands that.

I feel free to write whatever I want. I feel some how more... there's not a word for it. I feel like in situations where before I thought I'd be dismissed as a young student trying to find herself, now they might take me serious. Now I'm ready to let them take me seriously. I'm ready to stand up and tell them that I do have something to offer them and that no they will not find a better candidate. I'm the woman for the job. I've seen my friends all around me being real people, being trusted - they've done away with those little girl smiles that get them in doors - now they look that man straight in the face and tell them what's what, without blinking and then they go for it. I'm ready to do that too.

I'm ready to call literary directors and ask if I can take them to lunch and pitch them my play. Ask them what they can do for me, where they think I should point my career's compass. And then I'll do it. Gone are the days when I thought my plays would be swept off their feet and on to Broadway. I'm not usually that naive, but I can dream. Bring on the cold calls and the short lunches. Bring it.

This is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm going grab it and squeeze every piece of it until I have all I want.

America's Best Idea

Last night I had the great pleasure of going to the launch party for the Ken Burns PBS documentary 'The National Parks'. A family friend was interviewed for the documentary because he is a John Muir scholar, a man very instrumental in he creation of the National parks.

A year ago I would not be one to wax poetic about America, but I completely agree with the film's tag line. The single thing that's sets America's wilderness apart of from Europe is the rawness of our wilderness. As absurd as that may sound its the truth. The American wilderness is absolutely wild. So much of the European landscape has been shaped by the hands of people for millenia. In Scotland - my main point of reference - there is only one small section of ancient woodland that has remained, for the most part untouched by man. But here, on our western continent, the new world, so much - pieces the size of European countries - has never been changed and shaped by man. Yes, people have lived with the land, but they never farmed it en mass, tearing down forests, clearing stones, re-routing water. We have swathes of land that are almost as pristine as when the Europeans - and my forebears - imposed themselves on this new world. I am completely in favour of keeping them that way.

Scotland is a beautiful place. Everyone asks and its true. But can you imagine a landscape that has born the brunt of human endeavor for thousands and thousands of year. And I've studied the country. They've been reshaping that land since there were people in Scotland.

But looking past all the rhetoric and politics, the clips from the documentary made me cry a little bit. So if I have the time to watch the full shebang, I know I'll bawl my eyes out.

In other news on that evening, Assistant Secretary Strickland was there to make a speech. Ahead of the performance he was mingling with the crowd, and I thought I recognized him, but couldn't place it (like always) so I just eyed flirted with him. *giggle giggle*

Things I Miss

So I've started to miss a few things about Scotland.

1) My friends
2) Beer, Ale, Lager. There really are some things Americans can't do
3) Thursday night dancing and hot chocolate in Kilau

This list will be slow to populate, but its a start.