Sunday morning

Sat outside on the steps, the coolness of the morning lingering, listening to the sound of church bells calling someone to worship.  Sometimes a voice calls out from up the street, sometimes a car goes by, once a crow cawed, but otherwise, quiet.  The air has been hazy since yesterday morning, the winds shifting this way, carrying the smoke from all of the fires burning.  All the childhood places, burning.  Burning out of control.

Got up early-ish to finally roast the tomatoes (I picked half of them before we had the rain storm), threw those in the oven, and started going through the produce drawers.  Found some onions that needed salvaging, peeled off the outer layer, and sliced the sweet one thinly and tossed onto the pan with the tomatoes, then a few cloves of garlic and salt for good measure.  In the end it didn't amount to much, and since it was paste-like, I ended up adding it all to the soup instead of freezing it.  I peeled the skin off after roasting, all my tomatoes have very thick skin this year, not sure if it's the weather or the variety.

This is the soup, so I can find it again (and I never really measure anything.)

Two ears of corn, kernels cut off and reserved, cobs broken in half and tossed in a pot with enough water to cover by maybe a half inch.  Bay leaf and a few slices of dried mushroom I had sitting around; poured the tomato liquid from the roasting pan into it as well.  Covered and let simmer.  Chopped what remained of the small, red onion fine, chopped half of a padrón pepper fine, small celery rib (fine), and a clove of garlic.  Browned the onion and garlic in about a Tbsp of butter and a little olive oil, added the remainder of vegetables once the onion had softened.  Salvaged a zucchini (by salvage I mean other things had started to melt in the produce bags) by rinsing and then peeling for good measure.  Chopped about the same size as the corn kernels, threw that in the pan.  Added a pinch of saffron, salt, pepper, and a bit of pimentón  When it had cooked for about 10 minutes, decided I might as well add the tomato, onions, garlic from the oven.  Stirred and let it dry out a little.  Removed the bay leaf, cobs, and mushroom bits from the broth, added the vegetables.  Simmered to reduce it some.  Tasted pretty good at that point.  Added probably 1/4 lb of the salmon (the thick, west coast type of smoked salmon) and probably 2 Tbsp of fresh dill.  Let simmer.  Added cream at the last minute because I had some I needed to use.  Turned out pretty good.

If I were to make it again, I'd add something like fennel (fronds, bulb, seeds, pernod?) to it, and omit the cream.  But it's fine.  Now only another 1/2 lb to use up.  When I went to the library to pick up a hold yesterday, there was this tome of a French cookbook on the counter, so I checked that out as well, and lugged it home.  The recipes seemed doable, not overly complicated.  Might make rillettes with some of the salmon (like a fancier version of tuna salad, omitting the mayo.)  I was told I might have two weeks before it went bad, but I'd like to use it up sooner, generally don't do well with old food.

Still need to write, but at least I did something with my morning, can not say that much lately.  Need to go meet someone from the buy-nothing group to loan her a Spanish phrase book for her Camino.

And write.

Finally, the weather moves

Spent most of the morning obsessed with thoughts of soup: what I should put in it, how I should cook it, etc. Finally, it's simmering on the stove at the moment (chicken, celery, carrots, butternut squash, wild rice, herbs, for the record.)

After all the quiet, stagnant weather, it was a nice surprise to wake up to rain, by the time I got to the sheltered bus stop, there were showers, could hear it hit the roof, then this man started asking me if I knew what a seance was, and why they don't teach this in schools. I answered that we don't really teach religion or spirituality in schools, and then some friends stopped by in a car and offered me a ride so I got out of the conversation...I've encountered him before, he remembered me, too. Usually, he just wants to get into talking about Tesla.

Walking back home, the breeze had kicked up, but the rain had stopped. The leaves, ready to fall, suddenly filled the air, and dropped, dropped, dropped down like massive snowflakes, the ground now covered.

I watched The Way again last night, for the millionth time. I was thinking that it seems like a secret club, but that just even attempting it, includes you as a part of it. What made me think of that was when Tom encounters that cross marker in the Pyrenees and realizes that's where his son died, and someone had marked it, and you see those all over the place on the route. Also, in John Brierley's guides he makes the comment quite often about places "being friendly to pilgrims" which always made me feel a little like a subversive, that there were "secret" places to pass through for support (whether or not that's actually true.)

It also makes me think of the way Gypsies are treated, there's a scene in Burgos where a Gypsy boy steals Tom's backpack and the father makes the comment about the rest of Europe "seeing Gypsies as beggars and thieves," which makes me think of the incident in Greece. How the Gypsies were telling the truth about the girl but still remain in custody, and how the media immediately seemed to resort to the spreading stereotypes of "child stealing" without getting the facts first. It's an opinion, not a fact, and frankly, it's bit racist. And even though it turned out not to be the case (they didn't "steal" the girl) repeating it as if it were truth, fans the flames of fear and hate. It may be true that there are people that would prefer not to be assimilated into the host culture, but there's still got to be a way to build bridges between us and them. (This violence against the "other" happens daily, it's not just the Gypsy's, but whomever we are threatened by because we come to believe our "truth" can only exist if we can erase someone else's, or at least subjugate them to our way of thinking...the more people that believe what we believe, the less insecure we will feel, I guess. And we all do it, especially when we are unsure. It is difficult to stand alone with the threat of being singled out for thinking differently than the dominant culture-whatever that happens to be at the moment, and it's constantly in flux.) Where is the threshold?

And on a somewhat related note, because it's Reformation Sunday, I was thinking about Luther, and how his love for the Church demanded that he try to set it back on a truer path, but how in doing that, speaking what he believed to be true, he was sent out and lost the thing he loved.  And how we need reformers and truth-tellers in the world, but who wants to choose that path of isolation? Standing up for what you believe is right because you have to, and losing everything for that is a tough road. I don't  know that I have it in me, thankful for those that do.