pea soup

I rarely eat canned soup these days, but once in a while, I must have me some of that Campbell's Green Pea Soup. I have never tasted anything like it. Warm and fuzzy green love best slurped out of a mug.

The recipe will always remain a secret, I guess. Ingredients listed include green peas, flour and spice. Spice? Not even a hint? :(

I like soup. I've always liked pea soup. But I didn't realize how much I liked pea soup until I ordered Erwtensoep three times in the Netherlands and thought "man, I could never get sick of pea soup!"

"Never say 'never', San!"

Of course, food options seemed limited in the eateries we visited in Maastricht and Amsterdam: meat stew, omelettes, open-faced fried egg sandwiches, pancakes and of course, pea soup. Yes, I suppose I could have ordered a salad. But seriously.

I'm hosting a soup swap in a few weeks and I have decided to make pea soup. So far, I have tried one recipe, the Spicy Yellow Split Pea Quinoa Dal from The New Whole Grains Cookbook by Robin Asbell, and it turned out quite bland. With all the spices (mustard seed, ginger, cumin, turmeric and coriander), it was quite fragrant. But the minced jalapeño (I used a big one!) was completely lost and the soup was missing a whole lot of personality. The lemon juice and sugar added in the end helped a teensy bit, but I think a more generous portion of lemon juice could have been used.

"Well, it sure tastes healthy," remarked Ingo.

This reminded me of the time I made dinner for my cousin Steve in Taipei, linguine with roasted garlic and clams. As he slurped up the noodles, he said "this tastes so healthy--like your mother's cooking--bland!" Neither Mom nor I use a lot of salt in our cooking; but if I am to be a better cook, I can not fear the salt.

If I were really ambitious, I'd join a food blogring and present to you 52 Pea Soups in which I blog about 52 different pea soups -- I may take a break once in a while and review canned/cartoned/restaurant-served pea soups. But I am not so ambitious, not looking for a book deal, not ready to profess my undying love for pea soup by eating it once a week for a year--and really not quick with the photo uploads. (I've got pictures from a trip to Chicago in August still sitting in the camera.)

Nah, instead of starting a whole new blog--I can barely keep this one up--I'll just track my soupy details here. Not a pea soup challenge, just a pea soup chronicle. An idea, for now.

how to kill set the mood on your wedding night

"Wait here while I shimmy out of my Spanx."

"OK. Feel free to say no... but would you be interested in seeing the Kelly Clarkson show tomorrow night? None of us really know anyone in Toronto, so I'm sure we can get you on the guestlist."

"Oooh. I do love Massey Hall! But I've got crochet class."

"Crochet?"

"Yeh. I'm choosing crochet over Kelly. I hope that's OK."

"Dude, that's awesome!"

Thanks for the hook-up Jan! Now we'll know who to bug about food when we head to Hoboken next month :)

Punkinpalooza's coming up and I have offered to make something vegetarian-friendly in a big pot. Made the curried butternut squash soup last year, which went over quite well (how can anyone say no to the butternut?); I wanted to make something different this year.

Did a test run on chili on Monday night, using TVP to bulk it up. Still suffering the brutal brutal effects of what D calls "fart sponges."

Great.

Guess I'll be making soup again.

So we've decided to break up. Amicably. M is being sensible and moving home -- I've toyed with the idea of doing the same. But that's it -- just an idea.

I came up to Unionville tonight to feed Annie while the parents were gone. From the door of SSCH to the door of our house, it took me two hours and twenty-five minutes to get home.

Moving back up here in December is definitely not an option.

It's been a busy time, churning out proposals.

Some of these applications require bios from key employees. The last lines of this submission from one of our Housing Workers squeezed my heart a little.

One of the sadder tasks in my employment with SSCH is to deal with clients who have passed away. Sometimes I am the only person at their funeral. It is important for me to make sure that a client feels that he or she feels that they matter.

The 32nd Toronto International Film Festival is officially over. Every year, right around this time, my life feels a little emptier. This has been my busiest festival yet -- working the day job, volunteering at RTH and entertaining a visitor from NYC -- yet I still managed to fit in ten screenings ^_^

Films seen in order of awesomeness:

The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin - Germany/Turkey) *Baki Davrak, I want to bear your children.

The Band's Visit (Eran Kolirin - Israel)

Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi - France)

Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike - Japan)

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee - Taiwan)

Chacun son cinéma (An omnibus film celebrating Cannes' 60th anniversary, featuring three-minute shorts from a slew of international filmmakers. Wong Kar-wai's was rather disappointing. Favourites: Theo Angelopoulos' Trois Minutes, Bille August's The Last Dating Show, Alejandro González Iñárritu's Anna, Zhang Yimou's En regardant le film, Walter Salles' A 8,944km de Cannes, Wim Wenders' War in Peace, Lars von Trier's Occupations, Nanni Moretti's Diaro di uno Spettatore, Takeshi Kitano's One Fine Day, Ken Loach's Happy Ending, Tsai Ming-Liang's It's a Dream, Ethan & Joel Coen's World Cinema, Abbas Kiarostami's Where is my Romeo?, Claude Lelouch's Cinéma de Boulevard - France)

Sleuth (Kenneth Branagh - UK)

Across the Universe (Julie Taymor - USA)

Glory to the Filmmaker! (Takeshi Kitano - Japan)

I'm Not There (Todd Haynes - USA)

Cinematheque Ontario starts up again in less than a month. Yay.

*********

After all those late nights, and countless hours spent in dark movie theatres, my body knew it was time to get caught up on sleep. I slept in this morning, and almost missed out on the Picnic at the Brick Works fundraiser for Evergreen and Slow Food Toronto. You know you're completely zonked when you would rather sleep than sample treats from the city's top chefs and wines from around Ontario.

But D, with her charm, managed to convince me to get off my ass and catch the shuttle to Brick Works. I got there an hour and a half before closing, with just enough time to try a decent amount of food without stuffing myself silly. But with the back-to-back screenings the night before, I didn't get a chance to eat dinner (unless a small pack of Nibs counts as a full meal) and when I arrived at Brick Works, all I had in my belly was a latte from the morning. The food samples (Elk Tartar, Chicken Liver Mousse, Blackberry Sorbet, Sheep's Cheese tarts, Wine-marinated sausage, New Potatoes encased in pastry, oysters, Cured Duck, Rainbow Trout, Beef Cheeks, Grilled Goat, etc.), yummy as they were, just weren't enough to keep the wine from rushing to my head almost immediately.

I could barely keep my eyes open while shopping for dinner in Kensington -- yes, despite all those goodies at Brick Works, I knew I'd be hungry for dinner eventually. Managed to pass out for a few hours as soon as I got home -- which meant a very late dinner AND that the things I'd hoped to accomplish this evening would have to be postponed for another night.

There's a pile of clothes on my bed. The various pieces I'd contemplated wearing this weekend, and tried on, tossed off, replaced with another outfit. It's a huge pile. Putting them away was also one of my planned activities for this evening. Guess I'll just burrow my way under the pile again tonight. It's cold in this house anyway.