post for sarah--avocado soup

For enough for two people with leftovers for the following day (for at least two):

2 avocados, ripe but not yukky

2 cloves of garlic

1 large or two medium shallots

2 big limes

2-3 cups chicken broth

large glob of either thick yogurt (like Greek) or sour cream or creme fraiche

salt, pepper, possibly more lime juice

Chop garlic and shallots coarsely, squeeze limes, put garlic and shallot in blender or food processor with salt, mince. Add avocados and lime juice, blend, add chicken broth, alternating with yogurt, add some pepper or tabasco, taste. add more salt or yogurt or lime, to taste. Chill.

If you want to be fancy, put chopped chives or Italian parsley on top to impress people. Or I suppose you could put garlic croutons, but I've never done it.

Love, Mom

back in Kentucky take 2

I'm having some withdrawal symptoms here. While there are things that are in season and should be taken advantage of (is that a proper construction?) like heirloom tomatoes, enormous zucchini (is there actually anybody at my house who will consider eating this? I mean ENORMOUS, they are giving the stuff away sort of everywhere), and green tomatoes, Martin and I have had garlic soup three times in the last four days. Friday everybody agreed it was too thin. Part of the problem was that I browned the first bunch of garlic I put in (it seems to be better if you put garlic in twice). It was pretty good, though. And when I made it again on Saturday, I was more careful. I didn't brown it, just cooked it until it smelled, and then put in salt, some flour, some pepper, and a great deal more garlic. Didn't brown any of that, either. Cooked it awhile, put in water, more salt and pepper, cooked it awhile, put in egg whites mixed with a bit of wine vinegar, cooked it some more, finally put in some egg yolks mixed with a fair amount of vinegar. More salt, pepper. Used rather more flour that time. Also leftover bread. Very good.

This is one of those dishes created to deal with food shortages by poor people, isn't it? You've got garlic growing wild in the garden, some duck or goose fat sitting around, a bit of leftover dry bread and/or some flour. One egg, and a family to feed. What do you do? You stretch the egg (or a couple of them) as far as they will go. I suspect that it got started using leftover wine as well, too far gone to drink with food, but it tasted pretty good in the "potage".

The thing is that it is not only very good, but VERY good for you. Hard to beat. And not worth a **** the day after, as Martin and I learned yesterday (Sunday) when we ate some left over.

My next problem is that I want some of that mayonnaise I had in France that came in that squat jar that was sooooooo good. I was thinking about making some tuna salad today, from canned tuna, and got stuck on the mayonnaise issue. The ONLY mayo in my house here is Hellman's, which is about as good as you can get here in Kentucky. It's NOT the same as the stuff I was getting in France. So what's to be done? I didn't have tuna salad for lunch; I had a can of sardines (I need very badly to lose some more weight, too, but that's another issue). I may have to start actually making my own mayonnaise, not an ideal approach, but...

And then there was the aioli I bought in a jar at the Intermarche. I wasn't optimistic about it at first because I had read the ingredient list wrong, and didn't think it had all that much garlic in it, but OMG, that stuff is GOOD. It makes the aioli I make here taste anemic, and it's a LOT less trouble.

So tonight Martin and I had (a) fried green tomatoes (it's August and we're in Kentucky, so there!), Mexican chicken breasts (chicken breasts with chilis on it, sauteed in olive oil), and Reblochon. So how many food heritages did we hit there?!?

Lillie

Larry McMurtry

I now know that I have more than I thought in common with Larry McMurtry. If the name doesn't ring a bell, he wrote "The Last Picture Show", "Lonesome Dove", "Terms of Endearment" (I hated that book, but the immediate world seemed to adore the movie), the screenplay for " Brokeback Mountain", which won him an Oscar, and a few other things. He's from West Texas, near Wichita Falls, went to Rice University, and was an English professor there when we were undergraduates. Cousin Bob Martin had him for Freshman English.

Turns out he didn't graduate from Rice; his undergraduate career got de-railed there by, are you ready for this?, Math 100. He left and got a B.A. from North Texas State University, came back and got an M.A. from Rice and was eventually a professor there for awhile.

My budding career as a mathematician got de-railed by, you guessed it, Math 100 at Rice University. I skulked off to get a VERY undistinguished B.A. in French Literature.

At least I have good company.

Lillie