You Look Like You Are Going to Cry

My children are excellent eaters. They love veggies of all sorts. Others are often amazed at the kinds of vegetables they will eat and the fact that they will choose veggies over more typical "kid fare". Right after Mr. Garvey, Mary, and Miss Almanzo came to live with us, a friend cooked a meal for us which included baked chicken, mashed potatoes, a salad, and kale. When they saw the kale they went crazy yelling, "channa, channa, channa"(their name for cooked greens). Pa and I portioned out the kale and needless to say neither of us got a bite of kale for ourselves.

On Saturday I took Mr. Laura and Miss Almanzo with me to run some errands. While out, we stopped for lunch. Mr. Laura and Miss Almanzo both ordered water. The waitress stood there in disbelief. "You really want water for them to drink?", she asked. "Yes", I replied. Next Miss Almanzo decided that she wanted broccoli instead of french fries with her meal. Again the waitress was dumbfounded. "She really doesn't want french fries?" she asked. "No" I replied. In the waitress's defense she was young, probably in high school and no kids of her own.

This morning I was in a cooking mood. I made "yellow soup" because Mr. Garvey has been requesting it for days now. It is a yellow split pea soup with coconut milk, garlic, ginger, turmeric, and cilantro. It is really creamy and tasty.

Mr. Edwards started looking through his cookbooks and wanted to know if we had the ingredients to make another kind of soup. This particular recipe came from his cookbook called "The Soup Bible". Honestly soup is practically a religion for Mr. Edwards. He is that serious about it. He has very discriminating tastes when it comes to soup. He could eat good soup for every meal every day. Some of you may remember the Seinfeld episode about the "Soup Nazi". In these parts Mr. Edwards is our "Soup Nazi".



The soup Mr. Edwards chose was a spicy carrot soup with garlic croutons. After simmering the carrots until tender, it is spiced with cumin, coriander, and cayenne pepper and then pureed. Pa had made some sourdough bread last night. We cubed a bit of it, tossed it with olive oil and garlic and toasted it until brown and crispy. We then topped the soups with the croutons.

I asked Mr. Edwards how he liked the soup. He replied, "It is WON-DER-FUL". With every bite he took, he moaned "MMMMM!" Mr. Garvey started laughing and said to Mr. Edwards, "You look like you're going to cry". He really did. He was thoroughly savoring each and every spoonful. <>