Another Soup (Search) Day

This cold is being a real stubborn set of symptoms. I'd suspect allergies except for the fever, sore throat and cough (and aches and brain fog and etc.. ad nauseum (and 'add nausea').

It is frustrating, I had just written Wednesday to Mindy at Freshfiction saying I would be sending in several reviews this week, but only managed to finish one (and a half, but that doesn't count).

I am also struggling to design a crocheted shawl. I have often sat down, crocheted whatever I wanted, then used it, but other than a simple afghan square, this is the first actual crochet pattern I've tried to write down to tell someone else how to make something. I am on the 3rd (or 4th) attempt, and I know I have at least one, possibly two more attempts to go before I will be satisfied with the shaping. I have learned it doesn't save any time to try and work on anything logical while I feel crappy, though, it just needs to be re-done.

It is however a very good day for watching Batman and knitting a very simple scarf. I need to keep going for at least one more skien of yarn before I can send it in to Knit Picks. :-}

On a more positive note, the sun is brilliant today, and the yard has lost the last of the winter taupes. The green seems to be shouting, it is so vivid, and the redbuds are like tiny bubbles of joy. The temperature is still a bit nipply (as Oscar likes to say) but the sun is so bright I prefer to throw on a lap blanket and shawl and keep the window open just a bit.

So, today would be another good soup day.

On a whim, I did a Google search asking for the best soup in the world. There were about 71,600,000 results. So I switched to "best soup in the world" recipe and got a more manageable 5,250.

Out of those, one of them leapt out at me. Well, not literally, but for some reason my eyes skimmed down until they saw Harira, (a soup often served during Ramadan) It looks like a stunningly good chicken soup recipe(although you may also use beef or turkey) with lentils veggies and saffron. It also calls for lemon and tomato (allergy alert), so I skimmed on.

Then I clicked on Soto Bandung; a Spicy Soup Bandung Style, an Indonesian recipe. Also yummy looking with beef and radish, and pepper, but it required me to fry soybeans, which I am not up to most days.

The Columbian Plantain Soup sounds great too, but would require a trip to Hiller's (my favorite store in town) as I think bananas would be too sweet.

Then I saw it. It was part of a'best soup' discussion on roadfood.com .

A name I could not resist looking into; Cullen Skink, a Scottish delicacy. A quick and hefty search found a recipe on one of my favorite sites, Rampant Scotland.com.

Hmm Haddock, potatoes, cream, onion... yep, I'll make this for myself some day (wonder if I could use tilapia?) but it is too dairy-heavy for me today (dairy and colds do not mix) and way too dairy heavy for Oscar any day, and he doesn't like fish very much, either. Still, It does sound lovely when I'm feeling better.

I had a good time searching among all the recipes, what a huge variety! I feel like I went on a mini vacation, and it was calorie free, as well.

I think I'll just make more of my old stand by, chicken broth with good stuff in it.

(photo above is of one of my favorite flowers int eh garden right now, dotted violet)