let lemons be angry

"I still have vivid memories of boarding school cuisine, which seemed to have been carefully color-coordinated--gray meat, gray potatoes, gray vegetables, gray flavor."

French Lessons, Peter Mayle

It's always like this. When I get too bored, I cook. In the long break before uni and when my parents were away, four whole years ago to this day, I started flipping through the Jamie Olivers in my kitchen and in a week had started a catering business in what can only be a fit of passion. I devoured recipe books from the library and copied every listing of hors d'oevres, main meat, sauce, dessert and bread I could get. I wasn't even interested in cookies and cakes, the kind of thing that young girls love to bake. I was interested in smelling prawns turn red in olive oil, stuffing mushrooms with sage and walnuts, and making variations of aioli.

Now my parents are out of the country again and it has started. It wasn't intentional. I started playing Restaurant City like everyone else, harmless entertainment. Then I picked up a book called French Lessons from my mother's bedside table.

"For instance, just when you think you have mastered the potato, that such a basic ingredient could have nothing new to offer, you discover aligot, a velvety blend of mashed potatoes, garlic, and Cantal cheese. Or you are introduced to the unlikely but triumphant combination of tiny wild strawberries served not with cream but with vinaigrette sauce. Then you encounter roasted figs. The education of the stomach never ends."

That reminded me of everything I once loved so dearly. So I gave in to food shows on tv, food reviews, more Restaurant City, new recipes online, and at long last, the always exciting Grocery Shopping, to go back to my full days of uninterrupted and focused cooking experiments. This time I am curiously passionate about soups, in particular the thick pureed kind of soup that makes one full entirely on soup.

Today I made a Vanilla Pumpkin Apple Soup, that I will rename Leek and Pumpkin Soup because it looks a very dubious shade of green and nothing like the warm orange pumpkin soups I've loved. Aside from being horrified at the amount of butter that goes into soup and scalding my little finger, it was an intensely satisfying affair. The apples and pumpkin are a perfect sweet foil to the leek, just that the next time I make it it will be thicker, like baby food.

On to the next experiments: honey mustard grilled pork and pumpkin potato salad, for a surprise picnic :)