1. snackin'2. My still-life self portrait from Painting 1 class in college... my class definitely thought I was a weirdo3. "Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!" 20104. My coat. I was recently told while wearing it, "You look like a blueberry!" My reaction? A happy one, I think I even responded with a thank you, but now that I think about it, I don't think it was a compliment.
With great care, I raised my eyes to the level of the windowsill.A woman not five feet tall, with a grotesque, protruding stomach, was wheeling an old black baby carriage down the street. Two or three small children of various sizes, all pale, with smudgy faces and bare smudgy knees, wobbled along in the shadow of her skirt.A serene, almost religious smile lit up the woman's face. Her head tilted happily back, like a sparrow egg perched on a duck egg, she smiled into the sun.I knew the woman well.It was Dodo Conway.Dodo Conway was a Catholic who had gone to Barnard and then married an architect who had gone to Columbia and was also a Catholic. They had a big, rambling house up the street from us, set behind a morbid facade of pine trees, and surrounded by scooters, tricycles, doll carriages, toy fire trucks, baseball bats, badminton nets, croquet wickets, hamster cages and cocker spaniel puppies--the whole sprawling paraphernalia of suburban childhood.Dodo interested me in spite of myself.Her house was unlike all the others in our neighborhood in its size (it was much bigger) and its color (the second story was constructed of dark brown clapboard and the first of gray stucco, studded with gray and purple golfball-shaped stones), and the pine trees completely screened it from view, which was considered unsociable in our community of adjoining lawns and friendly, waist-high hedges.Dodo raised her six children--and would no doubt raise the seventh--on Rice Krispies, peanut-butter-and-marshmallow sandwiches, vanilla ice cream and gallon upon gallon of Hoods milk. She got a special discount from the local milkman.Everybody loved Dodo, although the swelling size of her family was the talk of the neighborhood. The older people around, like my mother, had two children, and the younger, more prosperous ones had four, but nobody but Dodo was on the verge of a seventh. Even six was considered excessive, but then, everyone said, of course Dodo was a Catholic.I watched Dodo wheel the youngest Conway up and down. She seemed to be doing it for my benefit.Children made me sick.A floorboard creaked, and I ducked down again, just as Dodo Conway's face, by instinct, or some gift of supernatural hearing, turned on the little pivot of its neck.I felt her gaze pierce through the white clapboard and the pink wallpaper roses and uncover me, crouching there behind the silver pickets of the radiator.I crawled back into bed and pulled the sheet over my head. But even that didn't shut out the light, so I buried my head under the darkness of the pillow and pretend it was night. I couldn't see the point of getting up.I had nothing to look forward to.-Sylvia Plath "The Bell Jar" 1963
In celebration of my first Thanksgiving as an “official” vegetarian (I don’t really know what that means) and to satisfy my mom’s desire to have a classy soup course with dinner this year, I decided to cook me up some butternut squash soup. I was a little intimidated at first, not only had I never cooked with, or even tasted a butternut squash before, but Thanksgiving is quite the time to debut a new experiment. Pressures on!
Making the roasted butternut squash
2 medium butternut squashes (yes squashes is a word) peeled, seeded, and chopped. Coat lightly will olive oil, season with salt and pepper
2 cloves of garlic
Bake @ 425 F for 30 minutes or they soften and caramelize (the garlic will be done earlier)
*** highly suggest throwing the squash seeds on the baking sheet, I flavored them with salt and red pepper and let them get brown and crispy, they were so good I was tempted to grab the rest out of the seeds out of the garbage... but I didn't I promise.
Squashy Soup
Coat bottom of pot with a few tbs of olive oil
Chop & add 1 large white onion and 1 stalk of celery
Season w/ 2 cloves of roasted garlic (finely chopped), 1 sage leaf (also finely chopped), salt & pepper, red pepper
Deglaze the pot with a splash of apple cider vinegar and a splash of white wine
Add a large carton of veggie stock, 1 tbs maple syrup squash, and your roasted squash. Let simmer & mingle for a few minutes.
texture
Creamy or chunky? Up to you! Use whatever fancy kitchen gadgets you might have to work the soup to your desired texture. Even if you just have the basics, like me you still have options... I decided to transfer half of the squash (use slotted spoon) to puree in the blender, and mashed the rest of the squash in the pot with a potato masher. Result? smooth and thick, not completely liquified perfection.
Let simmer for another 10-15 minutes with a thyme sprig and sage leaf, remove them and serve with a scoop of sour cream!
If you are feeling adventurous, there are a few ways to give standard butternut soup a kick! Try adding potato and heavy cream for a hearty creamy soup, or a chopped apple and apple cider for something on the sweeter side... mashed white beans to get in some protein... the options are endless!!
Although I have concluded that butternut squash soup is not my favorite, this eazy recipe makes an elegant soup with complex flavors, how sneaKY!
