SOUP WX
The return of cold weather to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia calls for soup in thick, stay-hot bowls. That's been the bell-weather choice for the season here at our house for many years. Soup signals the formal start of the new, winter season. Low temperature readings are used for conversation starters and good soups are an overture for a medley of fine gastronomic expectations to come with the advent of winter-time, indoor living.
The featured soup yesterday evening was potato soup with toasted cheese sandwiches. Oh, yes there is always something “with” the soup be it saltine crackers – today's super-market variations are reminiscent of the larger, thicker, tastier soda crackers we used to enjoy as children -. or, our cook – who also serves as wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, great-grandmother as well as baker, candlestick maker and putter-on of Band-Aid patches as needed – adds such enhancements. She has a fantastic of cornbread repertoire - including my favorite which brings into our presence a platter of butter-eager corn sticks fresh from the iron griddle forms. Oh, yes there was a light skim of parsley, dill weed and maybe some basil floating mysteriously on the steaming surface, as if it were needed to augment it.
This soup season usually hits during Halloween week in October although it sometimes holds off into November just before Turkey takes the stage for few weeks.
This year, the Drought of '02 has been an exceptional. We have not had the overwhelming influx of fresh vegetable we usually find on our tables, on back porch and the garage floor at this time of year. Even though we have abandoned trying to “out out” a garden as we grow older and inept at all but eating, we still have friends, neighbors and relatives aplenty to bring in all of their “extra” or “overrun” garden vegetables, corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, cabbage, onion, okra, turnips, and other goodies unknown to all expect the rural-oriented segment of the hungry human race – such as a few rutabaga, some salsify or eggplant.
Some years ago, I personally, found a way to deal with that sudden surge each fall. I washed, sliced, peeled as need be, and otherwise prepared the harvest. I boiled them a bit and put the result into cartons and stashed them away in our freezer. The rather ignoble looking product became known as “Andy's Slurry”. It became the base for soup all winter and often into the spring simply by adding whatever was available. Due to the drought this year, I will have to forgo this facet of good living for a time.
I wonder if there is a federal government program taking care of such drought “losses.” Farmers are receiving such payments. Perhaps? No, they wouldn't do a thing, would they? Any way, it's too late to ask. Election day is next week; not enough time left to work up any political promises on the premise, is there?
I , for one, will remember the Great Drought of “02 and what it did to the soup tradition at our table.
A.L.M. October 30, 2002 [c525wds]
