Here’s a recipe and little story about what Mima and PaPa are going to have for dinner tonight in a snow and ice-laden New England home.

PaPa Bo
December 19, ‘07


Julia’s Happy Anniversary Soup

Dateline: San Antonio, Texas, February 21, 2005

In order to celebrate their wedding anniversary and go to a warmer place, Mima and PaPa flew down from the wintry land of steady habits to the sunny land of the Alamo and mooched off Daddy and Mamma, Griffin and Julia at their newly erected yellow and white palace which is situated on the South Central Texas ridge known as Silent Hollow (where the deer and the antelope play—well, the deer anyway).

The day before they marked their anniversary, Mamma and Griff and Julia took Mima and Papa to the zoo. It was a fine warm day, and after visiting their favorite animals (the kangaroos, the lion and tiger, and of course the giraffe), they settled in at the wading pool on the sandy beach, where the management had thoughtfully provided a good number of plastic buckets, trowels and other implements to have fun with the sand. And while the little possums had worn their bathing suits for a bit of wading, they spent most of their time making an imaginary soup that later inspired the real thing. Griffin used the big shovel and provided the stock (sand) for the bucket (soup pot), while Julia provided handfuls of sandy ingredients with PaPa helping with a little culinary advice. It went something like this:

Julia: Should we put in carrots PaPa?
PaPa: Good idea.
Julia: Otay (as she put a handful of sand in the bucket).
PaPa: How about some white beans and chopped arugula?
Julia: Good idea (as she put two more portions in the pot).

And after the soup was completed, Mamma said, ”You know, I think I’d like to have soup for dinner tonight.” PaPa volunteered to make it, which he did, with Julia standing on a chair helping. It was a mighty fine soup, and not surprisingly it had many of the ingredients from Julia’s sandy zoo soup, without the sand of course.

Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. butter
1 pound chouriso, cooked and chopped
1 onion chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced and chopped
1 medium sweet pepper, chopped
a 14.5 oz. can of Italian diced tomatoes.
2 14 oz. cans of chicken stock.
2 16 oz. cans of white navy beans
Fresh spinach, rinsed and chopped.
INGREDIENTS (CONT’D)

Baby carrots, as many as you think there should be.
Salt and pepper to taste.


TO DO

In a pot, cook the chouriso in the oil. Then drain on paper towel and dice.
Add butter and sauté onion, garlic, and sweet pepper.
Add tomato and diced chouriso and simmer, covered, for 5 minutes.
Add stock and beans, bring to boil and then simmer, covered, for twenty minutes. Stir occasionally.
Add spinach and carrots, cover, and continue to simmer until carrots are tender (about 10 minutes).

This produces enough soup to feed the remnants of Napoleon’s army after his winter Russian debacle. Six or seven hungry Americans will also do it justice. Serve with warm French bread.



Soups on!

PaPa Boreegard.