Fall is here. Time for Soup

I love when the weather turns cooler and dryer and it is so lovely outside you don't want that time just before the sun sets all the way gone to end. I had a horrible summer plus I live in the deep south so cool non-humid weather is such a relief, I'm giddy. Suddenly, I want to walk, run, ride a bike, roll in the grass. My husband is eating again, so it's been a pleasure to cook again. He still doesn't have all his tastebuds back, so some things he always loved, just don't taste good. But thankfully, my favorite soup did taste good to him.  I made it last week and this week. I think I'll make it again next week when it's supposed to get actually a little cold and we can light a fire in the fireplace. We have some logs left from a cedar tree we had to cut down last year, so the house will smell wonderful.

After this weekend, which is a big football weekend and we always have a houseful with a big brunch (see Shrimp & Grits) the morning of the game, I have promised myself that I'm going to get the blog thing in order. Like add a profile and pictures and stuff. I started this thing to give me something to do, but got a little sidetracked with husband being sick.

Bean, Kale and Sausage Soup

Soup is something that gives you options.  But that's what makes it so good.  Clean out the larder and the fridge.

I like this soup best with white cannelli beans or lentils. I've also used navy beans, which are a smaller white bean. But I like the cannelli beans best. Use what you like.  I will use canned if I have to, but I prefer the dry beans. I don't presoak them. I haven't found soaking beans makes them cook faster or taste better, and my Mexican mom and grandmother never did, so I skip that step. The white beans will take about three hours total, the lentils only about an hour or so. Canned, about 30 minutes.

Options in the sausage department too. I've used italian, hot and mild, turkey italian sausage,  smoked summer sausage. Again, use what you like. I like italian hot with the cannelli beans and smoked sausage with the lentils. Anduille makes it pretty spicy.

Wash the beans and put them on to simmer using 1 quart of chicken or vegetable stock plus water to cover. Use a heavy bottom pot that will evenly disperse the heat. No seasonings yet. Add water as necessary. Cover with a lid and turn down to low.

Chop two carrots, two celery ribs, half an onion, a big leek or two small ones. Two tomatoes finely diced or a can of tomatoes.  Not too much tomatoes though, it's not a tomatoey soup. Mince a couple or a bunch of garlic.

Leeks are usually pretty dirty, especially the organic ones for some reason. Cut the tops off and rinse. Cut them in quarters lengthwise. Rinse and rinse the cutting board and knife too. Chop  the leek quarters and put them in a bowl of cold water and swish them around. Pour them out into a colander or sieve and give them a good shake.

Brown a pound of sausage in a skillet.  If it's italian, take out of the casings and break it up. If it's smoked, cut each length into quarters and roughly chop.  If necessary, add a little olive oil to the skillet and saute the vegetables, except for the tomatoe and garlic,  with the sausage. When the vegetables are wilted, carmelize them just a little, you don't want burnt onion pieces in the soup. Then add the tomatoes and garlic. Cook them for a couple of minuts and then add a dipperful of the bean stock and deglaze the pan.

Add it all to the bean pot when the beans are about half-way done. Simmer for a while and give it a taste. That sausage will have given up a lot of flavor by now, so Now you season.  Here is a guide: salt, pepper, coarsly chopped basil, a sprig of thyme and more granulated garlic if you like lot's of garlic, a pinch of sugar. For lentil I also add cumin.  We like things kind of hot, so I add a whole jalepeno with some slits in it and then fish it out before serving.

Keep simmering and adding water as necessary. This will take about three Heinekin Lights or two glasses of wine.

I've been able to get baby kale this year and let me tell you, it's a lot less scary looking than that curly stuff.  Which looks like it's going to get hung up somewhere inside of you.  You can add the baby kale right at the end and simmer till it's limp. The curly, more mature kale will need a little longer and need the ribs removed and chopped. See, find the baby kale. After you add the kale, add a couple of splashes of red wine vinegar.

I also got some  yellow squash at the farmers market last weekend. This week I made the soup with lentils, so I kept the small ends of the squash. Cut them into bite size pieces, rolled them in cornmeal and fried til crispy and brown and then topped the soup with them. For an appetizer, I tossed cauliflower florets in olive oil, sprinkled with cumin, salt and pepper and roasted them in the oven at 350 on a foil covered pan.  While they were in the oven I made a dressing of greek yougart, lime juice, more cumin and chopped cilantro. When they came out I tossed the florets in the dressing, but you can dip them in it instead if it's not a crowd favorite.

Light the fire, put out some bread and relax now.

Good bye summer

This has been the worst summer of my life and I'm glad it's over.

For 30+ years I have loved summer. Summer is beach, swimming, outside cooking. Salty hair. Living in shorts and a bathing suit top. Barbeques. Corn on the cob.

This summer was scary.

Cat scans, PET scans, blood tests, stress tests, exams. Results. Stunned disbelief. The surgeon schedules the surgery out a few weeks to give us time to "process" this information.

During the processing period we are mostly silent with each other. A few times we lie together, but it is too intense, too much emotion that can't be let loose or we might not be able to shut it back down again. A few times we sit holding hands and cry together.  The night before the surgery, we go out to eat and have a few drinks. I drink too much liquor instead of the usual wine, and end up drunk. We argue about that and it gets ugly. I walk the dog for an hour to sober up and so I don't have to come back to the house.

At 5:00 am we drive to the hospital and after he is admitted and taken away from me,  I go to the bathroom and bawl.  There is no other word for it. I bawl like a calf that has lost it's mother. My nose runs and my eyes swell shut and then I puke. And then I wait. None of this is happening like in the movies.  I look like shit and my head is pounding from the hangover. Bad coffee from the cafeteria makes me puke again.

Surgery takes most of the day. There are many people involved, there is a lot to remove.  When it's over, the surgeons tell me we think we got it all, your husband is a lucky man, we followed the nerve all the way back nearly to the brain stem, we saved his eye. The margins are clear. I go back to the bathroom and bawl again.

When I see him in his room I break down again, but I turn my back so he won't see me, but he can hear me.

We haven't told anyone. I am alone. Our college age sons are traveling out of state and one out of the country and we don't want them to worry and not have any fun. There isn't anything they could do to change it. We have a business to run and our customers can't be thinking we won't be around to to take care of their projects. The business pays for our health insurance that has allowed us to bring him to this place that is one of the best in the world. We tell everyone it's just sinus surgery.

He comes home two days later and recovers quickly. We are so relieved we often just look at each other and say, 'We're so lucky." He looks like he's had a stroke, one eye sags as does one side of his mouth. I don't care, I'm just glad he is alive.

I let him tell the boys when they return home, one by one. He downplays it to them and they come and ask me. Will he die? I tell them not yet. Maybe not for a long time, maybe not from this. His chances are 60/40.

Naive, we think it's over. Radiation hasn't started yet.

More tests, more scans, more too much.

A mold is made of his head and chest. It is used to strap him in and hold him still while the radiation shoots into his face. For 30 days, excluding weekends,  for 30 minute each day, he must be strapped in, mouthpiece inserted to protect his tongue and he must not move or swallow or twitch while it burns the inside of his face. He smells a smell like chlorine when it does. He has to take an anti-anxiety medication to get through it.

In a week the side effects start. The first sign is a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon tastes so horrible he has to spit out the first bite. His taste buds will be gone soon. Mouth sores appear. His nose swells to three times it's size. His eyes weep. His nose drips. Mustache falls out. Hair on the back of his head falls out. He gets an infection in his eye and we have to go to the ER on the weekend.  The mouth drys out, the saliva glands are gone. He starts losing weight. I'm told to keep the weight on him at all costs. I go the the grocery store every day and walk every aisle looking for bland, soft, tasteless food. We end up with Ensure Plus mostly and a few bites of something. I feel like I am failing to keep him fed. Like when your babies are small and helpless, feeding them feels like you are taking the best care you can of them. But I can't feed him.

One day, I stop at a green light and don't know where I am going. Cars are honking and I don't know what to do. I finally pull into a parking lot and I call my own doctor and beg for something to blank my mind. They give me the same anti-anxiety medication he takes for the radiation. I finally sleep and feel better. Able to cope again and go on. Because I have to go on. I have to take care of him. And even though we have finally told a few people because it's so obvious something is wrong, I am mostly alone with him.

But I don't want anyone else there with us. This is our journey. We won't make it if there is hovering and mincing and worrying. He won't have it. He continues to work as much as he can. A lesser man would not, he is not a lesser man.

When the radiation is finally over, he is spent. He finally takes a few full days off and sleeps fitfully, only a few hours at a time. He develops thrush. Its an infection in your mouth, babies sometimes get it. Liquid hydrocodone is the only thing that soothes him. But the radiation is over.

Day by day, he's getting better. And summer is over. A new season is here. Cooler weather, falling leaves. Something simmering on the stove all afternoon. Football.

Thanksgiving is coming.