How can Tolkein and Soup be relevant?
Tolkein and Diana Krall? Well, there you are, reading and wondering, and here I am, knowing and typing. I have the answer. Read on. (Notice the unmentioned, slightly concave muffin. I’ll save that for last, claiming my feminine right to Be Mysterious).
It was a Dark and Stormy Night. The windows rattled in their cages, the children cried with cold and hunger. So, mustering my chutzpah, I slung my knapsack over my shoulder, coiled a length of good rope over my arm, and took the most direct route to Scarborough. In pursuit of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. Barefoot. I hoped also to unearth a coney (that would be a rabbit completely out of time) and a few taters along the way.
Well. I got to the airport, only to discover that my JFK connection was cancelled, due to snow in New York City. So I returned to reality, put some water on to boil (thank you, Questar Gas Co.), pulled some venison (thank you, Dad) out of the freezer, and gathered random vegetables from the refrigerator. While I had Master Sam’s bunny soup in mind, I was forced, under this modern duress, to digress (once again).
I’ll belabor that point (the fact that I digressed once again) while I hold you in the thrall of this epic tale. First, there are stark differences between rabbit and venison. Rabbit (I am told) tastes like chicken, while venison (I’ve decided) tastes like a mountain-air-breathing, free-spirited goat. Who nibbles on huckleberries. Another digression: the taters. Maurya hates potatoes cooked in soup. She’d had an emotional day. So no taters, in her honor. And digression the third: the sage, rosemary, and thyme. I’ve always grown those in my gardens. Which naturally makes me an herb snob, and like any sincere herb snob, I hate to use them dried, especially when they were always so available fresh. Sadly, I don’t have a garden right now. So no sage, rosemary, and thyme. But I did have fresh beet greens, fresh garlic, and fresh Italian parsley (thank you Smith’s). And dried onions (I’m not an onion snob), broccoli stems, and carrots. And a dash of pepper, and… cinnamon. There’s something warm and wonderful about cinnamon, something both fantastical and down-to-earth. Cinnamon resolves dissonance. It heals rifts, it ends quarrels (and sometimes even stomach aches). The cinnamon, along with a hearty squeeze of fresh lemon once the soup was arranged nicely in little bowls, took me right out of the Middle Earth Outback with Tolkein to Frim Fram Sauce with Diana Krall.
And there you go. I told you. The relevance of Tolkein and Krall. And while I loved the soup, and the kids (no longer cold or really very hungry) ate it well enough, I don’t think I would serve it to innocent passers-by. Unwitting guests at my table. Except maybe Erin and Elaine, but then, they are not unwitting guests; they have been all sorts of places with me, culinarily speaking (I can hear Erin’s polite “thank you Lynaea, that was…interesting”, while Elaine becomes so absorbed in the possibilities of indoor avacado tree culture that she leaves her bowl half finished). I think all of my sisters but Julia would like it well enough for a small second serving, but my own husband (he got leftovers yesterday) thought it was weird, too swimming with vegetables to really enjoy.
Nevertheless, I loved it, as I said before. The sourness of the lemon, the warm, magical comraderie of the cinnamon, the earthiness of the beet greens. Even the elegant goat-wildness of the venison. My once in a lifetime not-Sam’s soup.
And the muffins? Well, they’ll remain a mystery. But I’ll titillate you with this: they had freshly ground brown rice in them, along with the corn and whole wheat flour. If I had world enough and time, I might dispel the mystery more, just enough to start a concave muffin trend. But I don’t (have world enough and time) . Tomorrow, it’s Shrimp on Penne Pasta and some sort of Cherry Tart for Valentine’s Day.
