Garbo Blogs

It's been so long since I've written here that the title might be "Rip Van Winkle blogs." It was so long agp that you had to load the photos to PhotoBucket or some other wretched photo site, and then keep them there...oh, never mind. Blogspot now does you a favor and allows you to upload them directly from the files. ("Where have you been?" I can hear some readers mutter. That's a good question.)

The occasion of this posting is the convergence of Sara's birthday and the Shafrir family's return last night from Israel (via Japan, for Shai). I was thinking of some of the things I would have made for Sara for a birthday dinner and I remembered a carrot soup we had at Le Pain Quotidien in Brussels three and a half years ago. We liked that it was not totally pureed, but there were still discernable pieces of carrots and onion in it. I had the same soup with John about a year ago at Le P.Q. on First Avenue in New York. It was, unsurprisingly, quite similar. I made a very large quantity and dropped some off at the Shafrir's as they slept off their jet lag. Ivry, who is two and a half, was pleased to hear it had been made by the Jackie half of what he calls "JeckieJohn."

(Ivry had the monkey call his father in Japan)

2 lbs carrots, cut up in 1" pieces
1 medium potato, " "
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup celery, " "
2 t. olive oil
vegetable bouillon
skim milk
1 tsp cumin

Put the carrots and potato in a pot and cover with water. Add some cubes of vegetable bouillon. Bring to a boil and then cover. Lower the fire so they boil but don't boil over, and check to see if they need more water.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the onion and celery until they are translucent. Then add a cup of boiling water and a bouillon cube. Cook over medium fire, adding water if necessary, covered, until the onion and celery are soft enough to be put in soup.

When the carrots and potato are soft, remove from the fire, and mash them in the water until there are no large pieces. At this point, puree about half of the carrot/potato mixture in a blender with milk until the you can pour it. If you don't have a blender, you will have to mash for a while longer. It's good upper-body exercise. Add the cumin. (At this point, I would normally add some ginger and Tabasco sauce, but since it was going to be consumed by a child, I left it out. ) Add milk, put in the onion and celery and heat. Salt, pepper, more milk if it is too thick.

For the second Moose Murders rehearsal tonight, I made a hummus I would have served for Sara's birthday but not to Israelis since that would be like my making pizza for a Neapolitan.

1 can garbanzo beans (keep a few out for garnish)
1 can cannelini beans
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup tahini
lemon juice
salt, pepper
zahtar
olive oil

Put everything but the zahtar in the food processor except the salt, pepper and zahtar. Puree until smooth. Add a little water if if is too think but you don't want to keep adding lemon juice. Don't worry about amounts. Just tast it until it is right. Garnish with zahtar, garbanzo beans, a teaspoon of olive oil.

The white beans mix well with the garbanzos since they puree better.

That's all for today.