All posts by Dona

Groningse Mustard Soup

Food, , , ,

Back in December one of my Facebook and Twitter friends — a birdwatcher from The Netherlands — posted that she was going to have Mustard Soup for lunch. After a bit of discussion where I expressed disbelief, then awe, she posted a recipe and when I wondered where to find Groninger Mustard she offered to send me a jar and I accepted (and offered to send her a local spice in exchange — she chose Old Bay seasoning).

Before too long I received not one, but two jars of Groninger Mustard and set them aside until after wrestling season when we could enjoy the fat and calories with Andrew.

One day, a couple of weeks ago I purchased the ingredients for the soup and followed a recipe I found online (I’d lost the link that my friend sent, but assumed all recipes would be similar).

I was sure that I was going to love this soup, it sounded so delicious (mustard, bacon, cream — what’s not to love?) and even took a series of photos while preparing it à la The Pioneer Woman.

I know enough about cooking to become concerned when I saw how much flour in relationship to how much fat was in the recipe — of course I didn’t thoroughly read the recipe before I was well into making the soup (that would have been the prudent thing to do) — but plowed ahead anyway. I also knew, as I was pouring in the cream that I had not cooked the roux enough and that the soup would taste floury.

While the soup was lovely to look at, especially sprinkled with newly sprouted chives from our herb garden, it tasted more like it should have been the base for biscuits and gravy (a dish I dislike) instead of the delicate cream soup I’d envisioned.

I’m going to assume I used the wrong recipe and undercooked the roux and maybe try again sometime. We still have a jar and a half of Groninger Mustard left. I sent a FB message to my Dutch friend, asking her if it was supposed to be so thick, but she didn’t respond. She may have overlooked the message; she has a lot of friends. Either that or I insulted her by not liking the soup. Nah — Not Gwen.

Plans

Musings

I’d planned to post a short and sweet blog entry about my mom and Mother’s Day and maybe what we did here in Bethesda for the day. I was going to post a photo of my mom and me when I was about 4. Then I was going to talk about how we went to Lilit today for lunch and how I asked for nothing for Mother’s Day except for Andrew and Dean to get some columbine from Bob’s no-lawn garden because he invited me to take some. Then I may have told about the rest of the day and how Clare called asking if we’d take care of her roommate’s calico cat while the roommate was in New Orleans for the summer and how I wanted to shout “YES!” because I like calicos, but had to discuss it with Dean (who said yes, but as long as we’re Plan B).

Yes, I was all set to have a selfish Mother’s Day until my neighbor Amy told Dean (who told me) that another neighbor, Jerry, died suddenly while on a road trip to pick up his daughter from college.

I didn’t know Jerry well — he served on the Board of Directors for our neighborhood and his wife is the community liaison between our neighborhood and NIH. Whenever I saw Jerry we’d always speak — usually about our children, sometimes about the Midwest (Jerry was from Wisconsin). He was always very easy to talk to — probably the Midwest influence.

Jerry was our age and doing a something that we’re about to do in a week — picking up a child from college. I know people die in their mid-fifties. It used to happen more often, but it still happens.

Life is brief — I’m pissed at myself for forgetting that until something like this happens. I need to follow Indigo Bunting’s lead and tell my husband that I love him when he leaves in the morning. Or just tell him I love him. Period.

I think I’m in love

Humor, Life, ,

If you know me or read my blog, you may or may not be aware of my love-hate relationship with Bethesda. We moved to Bethesda from a friendly neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia. I was a relatively new mom, staying at home for a while with my toddler and infant. I found it impossible to make friends here — the two local parks, where I’d hope to meet like-minded women with their own young children, held either perfect-haired women that always traveled in pairs (plus kids) or their nannies, most of whom didn’t share a common language with me. The few women in the neighborhood with similar-aged children worked long hours, and didn’t have time to make new friends.

It took until the kids were well into their elementary school years and hours of volunteering for school and community organizations before I began to finally lose the feeling of a “fish out of water”. I think that part of my problem (and I fully accept it was my problem) was that I was the first in my family to not be a blue-collar worker. While that would not have been a problem in an area with other folks like me, Bethesda is a white-collar town.

I still like finding people with a similar backgrounds to me. That’s normal, right? I also like finding people who have the same feeling about Bethesda I do. When I mention that I don’t love Bethesda, most people give me a look of disbelief — how can I not like living here? What about the restaurants? What about the schools? What about the neighborhoods?

So, when I discovered the brand new publication, Bethesda World News (via Susan Coll‘s blog) I rushed to the library where I found the last copy.

Bethesda World News is sort of like The Onion, but features stories about Bethesda. Funny stories about Bethesda. Funny and not-quite-real stories about Bethesda. I especially liked the story titled, Bethesda Elementary Discovers First Ungifted Child. The article describes the taunts other children chant to the child: “Johnny reads on grade level. Johnny reads on grade level!” Another headline, Woman Spotted on Woodmont without Pedicure, made me laugh out loud.

While there is little on the website for the publication, I’m hoping they’ll put up their stories. I also hope that they don’t run out of ideas — but that could take a while. There’s a lot to make fun of in this town.

If you’re on Facebook, you can find them here.