Category Archives: Food

Tea for two. Or three. Or four.

Food,
tea for two

I’ve written before about my tea stash. I may have also mentioned my teapot collection. I like tea. I like tea but I rarely drink it. I was thinking about this fact the other day and wondered why that was and came to the conclusion that, to me, drinking tea is not a solitary undertaking. I like to drink tea with others.

See, I don’t necessarily use tea to wake up. I drink coffee in the morning — and often do it alone since I’m not all that social in the morning. When I drink tea it is usually in the afternoon or evening.

When I’d spend time in England we’d always have a cup of tea and cookies before bedtime. To this day, thinking about those moments in front of the gas stove, drinking PG Tips and eating digestive biscuits makes me feel all warm and cozy inside.

When Clare was in middle school and high school we’d often sit down to a cup of tea when she got home from school, before she began her homework. It was a great time for her to decompress from her day at school and for me to catch up on what was happening in her life. I looked forward to those few minutes we shared over a cup of tea.

Andrew didn’t join us in our tea drinking until after he’d been to Ireland twice in the same year. He went with his rugby team during spring break and then again that summer with us. We all got into the habit of having a cup of tea together in the evenings after dinner and carried it home for a few months. Even today, if I ask Andrew if he’d like a cup of tea he’ll often say yes.

So, I rarely drink tea anymore. Not because I don’t like it, but because I see no reason for it if I cannot make a social ritual out of it. Dean doesn’t like drinking caffeine after noon and doesn’t particularly like herb tea. He sometimes joins me in a cup of tea, but I suspect he only does it because he knows how much I like to drink tea with others.

Last night, as the Steelers lost the Superbowl, my friend Maria asked me if I’d like a cup of tea to warm me up. I did and together we drank cups of green tea and it was good.

Suburban gardening

Food

Lali wrote a post about Wendell Berry whom she calls  “the guru of the sustainability movement”. I know nothing about Berry, but her post got me thinking…

My parents have had a garden in their backyard since the summer I first went to England. I remember it was that summer because, in order to remove the shade it caused, they cut down the apple tree (which I’d named Charley)  in whose branches I’d spent many summer days. There is still a garden in the backyard of my folks house, but neither my mom nor dad tend it anymore. A friend of my mom (who turns 80 this year) planted tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and many other vegetables in the garden. The deal is that, instead of charging the friend for use of the land, mom can pick what she needs from the garden.

We used to try to grow vegetables, but our yard is too shady. Next year we’re going to plant outside the fence in raised beds — after we cut down the Siberian elm the kids used to climb (but didn’t name). It was a volunteer and has been oozing some sort of slime for about 5 years. I won’t feel guilty cutting it down.

I do grow herbs though — they are not quite as  picky as vegetables are about how many hours they spend in direct sunlight. I always have basil, thyme and rosemary. This year I’m also growing licorice mint that was given to me by a neighbor, dill and Thai (or Holy) basil.

This year my friend, Alison, gave me a tomato plant she grew from seeds she’d harvested from tomatoes of an unmarked variety her son brought home from his job at a local plant nursery. I planted it in a small container, then moved it to a much larger one a few weeks later. The move broke the branch that the one tomato was on, but the rest of the plant was okay. The tomato ripened, possibly knowing its food supply was about to dry up, and Clare and I shared it one afternoon as part of a caprese sandwich.

I really don’t know where I was going in this post — I started it over a week ago.  It began as a comment on Lali’s post, but would have been too long.

Anyway — happy summer.

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.