Open Season for Soup Hunting
It's getting to be my favourite time of year. I love Autumn. It makes me feel invigorated - I know that's weird - most people think that way about springtime - but not me. I love cool, crisp evenings and the deep blue of the sky and how the autumn sun is a burnt orange ember rather than a blinding white summer fireball. I love clothes for cool weather. I get busy in Autumn!
I must be part squirrel or something. I am a super-gatherer in Autumn. I stock my cupboards with more tins of tomatoes, tomato puree, bags of rice, orzo, beans, lentils, stocks, spices, dried herbs and all sorts of capers, olives, pickled baby onions, relishes and currant jams. I am preparing for my favourite cooking season.
Hearty, warming soups and stews and warm roasts slowly braised with root vegetables and caramelised sweet onions. The welcome smell of wine and shallot sauces simmering on a back burner. Roasted baby hens with rich, red currant sauce. Roast pork shoulder with apple cider and potato pancakes. My mouth is watering!
I have already warned my butcher that I plan on making plenty of braised lamb shanks and to set aside the best meat for stews in the coming months. We have a good relationship - my butcher tells me when his holidays are so I can plan accordingly. He assumes I won't be cooking meat while he's away - of course not.
Late September - I am a woman on a mission.
October is two days away - and it's still a bit warm. Summer is truly over, but I feel like I am in limbo. It's not cold enough for a stew, but cool enough to crave hot soup. I know what I want! Mom's fish soup. I love the simplicity and elegance. Perfect for a dinner party.
Thinly slice a large fennel bulb and a medium yellow onion. Saute in olive oil in a deep, heavy pan until soft. You're not looking for colour, but to release all the fennel essences and the sweetness of the onion.
Add two cans of good quality Italian tomatoes, whole or crushed, no difference. Add a tablespoon and half of good tomato puree and saute for a few minutes. Add your liquid - I use at least 2 pints of liquid depending on how much fish I will be cooking because it needs to be reduced. I use a great fish stock (fond) made by a French company and available in every supermarket over here. Those of you who have the benefit of shopping Whole Foods can get it at your fish counter. Also at good fishmongers of course. Anyway, if you get a salty fish stock, you may want to cut it with vegetable stock or water. I usually add a tiny splash of Vermouth - a good and bad habit depending. A dash (and I mean a dash) of Ricard or Pernot wouldn't hurt either. Add the liquid and simmer on low heat for at least 20 minutes. You are looking to reduce the liquid and condense the tomato and fennel flavours.
Once reduced by a third, put aside and let cool enough to strain in to a bowl through a very fine strainer, pushing with the back of a ladle to get all the essential juices out in to the bowl. Once done, transfer the liquid back to your pan. You can set this aside until serving time.
I say this is perfect for a dinner party because you can have all the liquid done ahead - you can even make it a day in advance if you need and refrigerate. The day of the party I bring fresh fish home, clean it and cut it in to nice pieces so everyone gets a bite or two of each fish. I lay it out on a plate and cover with cling film and put in the fridge until I am ready to serve.
About 10 minutes before serving, bring the liquid back up to the simmer on medium heat, taste and add salt/pepper as needed. Once simmering, gently add your fish. I tend to use a combination of 2 or 3 firm fish - like monkfish, cod, haddock, plaice, ray etc. Of course, add your larger pieces first and in a minute or two, add your smaller pieces. Do not stir or break up any of the fish pieces. Cook until each piece is just cooked - slightly firm and opaque in the middle but not hard. About 3- 4 minutes depending on the amount of fish in the pot.
Extras and alternatives : Mom sometimes adds tiny potatoes when available. She cooks them ahead and just adds a couple to the bowl before adding the soup. This soup is good with toasted bread and aoili sauce - the traditional accompaniment to Bouillabaisse. Once, to flavour the liquid, I used sun-dried tomatoes instead of tomato puree - I blitzed a half jar of them in the food processor - this gave the soup a darker, richer flavour. If you do this, use more fennel bulb because the smokier flavour of the sun-dried tomatoes can overpower the fennel.
Serve in wide, low bowls with slices of mini baguettes toasted with Gruyere cheese on the side. I sprinkle a tiny amount of chopped parsley across the top.
A perfect soup for the season - a nice way to slide into cool weather.
Who's coming for soup?
For the Love of Family, Friends and Dan's Cafe
I went to DC to visit my father who has been ill. I didn't have much time to see friends over the week, so Sio orchestrated a girl's night out - well actually, it was intended as a Dan's Cafe reunion - not necessarily a girl's night out. Charlie and Mike did show up - but it was mostly the girls - the coolest chicks ever.
Dan's Cafe is not owned, run or operated by anyone named Dan and it's certainly not what one would consider a Cafe. Never has been. A picture of Dan's Cafe interior could be found next to the words -
A Hole in The Wall in any dictionary or directory. It's a pit. Clapboard shuttered windows - a remnant of the riots that swept through Washington DC after Martin Luther King was shot. Inside it's dimly lit with bare bulbs, dirty linoleum tiles and wobbly bar stools from 1974. Wonky booth tables made out of leftover two-by-fours take up one side of the room. A poorly hand crafted, rough-hewn bar with round holes for your beer bottles to rest in runs down the other side of the room. A well worn 8-ball pool table sits in the front of the room. Crooked, busted cues rest against the walls. Dust and grime-encrusted blinking beer signs, old, faded photos, postcards and a solitary trophy line the back of the bar. The trophy a reminder of the Softball team we used to have many years ago. There's no food in this cafe since the old hot dog heater/roller died in 1990.
Dan's serves liquor, wine and beer. If you want a mixed drink - 'Make it yo-self'. You will be given a miniature (airplane) bottle of liquor, a can of mixer and a bucket of ice. Tracy or Victor will encourage you to buy a pint bottle if you plan on staying for a while.
Dan's is owned by a black man in his 70s called Clinnie Dickens. His nickname is Dickie. He has 7 sons and a few daughters. Several of his sons have always worked at Dan's at one time or another. Tracy and Victor being the most consistent. There was a period of time in the early 90's where one or the other was always in jail. Dickie plays solitaire at the back of the bar all night every night Dan's is open. (Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights) Dickie goes gambling in Atlantic City New Jersey the other days. We are extremely fond of Dickie and Vic and Tracy.
Last Friday night - Myself, Sio, Mary, Glenda, Lisa, Moira, Sheesh (Sheila), Margaret, Holly, Mike and Charlie were there. Even Alexandra showed for a few minutes - without a baby-sitter, she couldn't really join us. Her 7 year-old son Enrique waited outside - entertained by Vic the door man. Alexandra in an incredibly short miniskirt - as usual, looking ravishing, sexy and confident.
We were 11-12 people in all. We represented part of the amazing gang that used to hang at Dan's for years and years in the late 80's and early 90's. We have always felt proprietary of Dan's. Our turf. We would snarl at newcomers like we were the Sharks and the incomers the Jets in West Side Story. Mike would always yell 'The Bus from Rockville's here' in his Georgia Southern drawl when strangers came in. Back then, he would scream 'NEXT' at the top of his lungs when they were next on the board for pool games and moving too slowly.
Mike brought leftover tee-shirts from our old softball team - one or two left from each year we played. All the designs totally cool and much sought after by the league when we played. My favourite had a print replica of the sign that used to hang on Dan's front door until some loser stole it. 'No running in and out, No loitering outside, no drugs please'.
En masse, we held on to the back half of the bar as long as we could that night. Until too many frat boys and college tartlets crammed in to the bar and eventually shoved us in to a tight corner. Dan's has been discovered and ruined a bit since 2000 by nasty college kids. We had 2-3 good hours of feeling like we were in charge of our old spot - the place where we spent too many hours, spent too much money and definitely wore too many pairs of beer goggles. (Those dreaded - 'who did I bring home last night' revelations in the morning)
Mike and Charlie disappeared before getting flattened in to the back wall by smart-assed, young kids throwing wads of cash at the bartenders whose names they would never know or care to know. Young pricks showing off for college bimbos dressed like high-roller call girls in halter tops and too much Gucci Perfume elbowed their way around the bar. We finally gave up.
We went to Angles. A subdued, real drinking bar a few doors down. Empty but for a few 'old' people in their late 30s and 40's - too old for the hip, young, stupid crowd crawling by the thousands down 18th St in Adams-Morgan most nights. The new, old, tired version of Georgetown.
We got a corner table and smooshed ourselves in and started on a few more cocktails. After some time, we moved to the table in the window and Sheesh decided she would comment on passersby. Loudly! It was funny. Thousands of college-aged kids walking by in their cool 'going out' outfits. Laid-back boys in their droopy basketball shorts or low-slung jeans leaned on cars and sucked their teeth loudly when a juicy woman walked by. Sheesh was an equal opportunity cat-caller.
Through the evening, I had a chance to have a quiet word, one-to-one, with most of the girls that night. My friends, my women, my people. My strength, my wit, my intelligence, my charm, my style, my knowledge, my beauty - cultivated through knowing these incredible women. Never enough time - but even a moment is rejuvenating. I love these women.
We had so much fun.
The past 12 days with Mom and Dad was tough and beautiful. I was definitely challenged this past week but got closer to them than ever before. My father is an amazingly informed man who is physically defeated at 83, but totally with it mentally. My Mom a generous and caring provider. They have a nurse on weekdays to help Dad from 9 am to 9 pm so Mom can have a sense of freedom. She still cannot sleep through the night for checking on him. She is tired and vulnerable. I hope I gave her a bit of respite and security and relaxation. I left with a heavy heart and tears but I felt better. I know what's going on now. Friends who have taken the time to go out with Mom are angels in training - even though Mom is a pleasure to be around - it's the effort that counts.
I keep thinking of Sunday morning a few days after I got home. Standing in my father's bathroom, helping him tidy up. Gently cleansing him with a warm washcloth and combing his hair. His wrinkled, depleted body hanging off his bones and seemingly hunching him over. He looked at me in the mirror and winked at me. I love that. I love him. I am so lucky.
