#38 Sweet Corn Soup

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My gal and I went out to dinner at a newly opened Seasons 52 in Rockville, MD with friends this Saturday, and we were moderately impressed with this chain’s efforts in the upscale use of seasonal ingredients, but in the end it came off as just another chain restaurant with interchangeable staff rather than a serious restaurant. The calorie, and even sodium,  counts on the menus, and the thought that has gone into making it possible to enjoy restaurant dining without binging are good points, but the experience lacked focus. I may have rolled my eyes when our server included her business card with the bill so that we could request her whenever we dined with them.

Actually, we do have a personal server in a restaurant, even though we don’t eat out that often. Bar none, the best server we’ve ever met was Daniel at the Capital Grille, and his attention is probably what pushes them over the four stars for us.

Of course, I had to have the soup of the day, which was a fresh corn chowder. The flavor was ok, but they’d added in whole corn kernels at the end to give it texture, and they were actually a bit tough. My assessment: I can do better than that.

Hence this week’s Corn Soup.

Links / Sources

First Bike Outing of the Year, Somewhat Belated

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Riding down a covered sidewalk in DC

I just got back from the latest first ride of the year I’ve ever had. Spring was wet, the summer has been brutally hot and muggy, and this is the first Saturday it was cool enough for a morning ride.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It makes me a bit crazy that I live two miles from work and drive to it every day, but I’m pretending to be a grownup, wearing suits and ties and all. Not that anyone (except EJ) cares. Granted, I’ve abandoned ties for the summer, except for special occasions.

The part of the future I’ve always been sad that never arrived is future clothes. Granted that my Permanent press dress shirts and microfiber stain resistant slacks have perfectly good tech in them, but my favorite gear clothes are my zip-off nylon cargo pants. They’ve been to the Mojave to watch Spaceship One launch, along on my Route 66 expedition, are a regular feature when I go to do event network setups with Alex and the TechKnowledge crew, and the only thing I’d wear to do bushwhacking at Paul and Gayle’s in the summer heat.

Even on casual friday though, they don’t make it to work much. They’re just too geeky.

Which is to say that they’re functional and practical, something clothing evidentally isn’t really supposed to be. Jeans are a statement of solidarity with the working class, as well as a of the refusal to leave our childhood playclothes behind, but they’re not all that nuch more functional than dress slacks.

I do love mine though.

Back to biking.

EJ wanted to get her bike out to go rowing on the Potmac, riding up to the Thompson Boat Center where she rents a scull. I gamely accompanied her the first year because I’ve always liked rowing, but getting in and out of the little things wasn’t nearly as much fun for me as for her.

Since her bike has been laid up for the better part of the summer heat as well, I knew it would need air in the tires, which is my job, and as long as I had to go down and pump her bike up at 6:30 am…I might as well drag mine down the three flights of stairs as well.

THere’s no exercise to be had in pumping up our tires, since I’ve got a $10 air pump that runs off my car’s 12v system. It’s pretty sweet, if not especially quiet.

EJ followed me north up the Washinton Bike trail, which actually runs through our parking lot, until she couldn’t take it anymore, then zoomed on ahead with all the other speedy bikers with their drop handlebars and zoomy ways. I’ve never been so much a zoomer, as a noodler, cranking along in my own space, poking into places to see what was there, dropping my gears low on hills.

I’ve thrilled to speed on a bike, but have now fallen off enough, broke enough things, and lost enough vison, that noodling works just fine for me.

I noodled my way up to the fourteenth street bridge, across to the Capital, west past the tidal basin and the Jefferson monument, up almost to the Lincoln, and then down the mall to Air and Space. Somehow there seem to have been a number of monuments added to the mall when I wasn’t looking, and I’ll have to go back with my camera to get some of them. Back from Air and Space and across the 14th the other way my legs weren’t aching at all…but despite my shock absorbing saddle…

Back at the parking lot I pulled the front wheel off and slid the bike into the back of the wagon under the delusion that I’m going to take it places and do biking.

All in all I biked for about an hour and a half, which I could fit in before work in the mornings, but there’s no way to hang a suit on the back of a bike. Well, we’ll see.

#27 Chilled Avocado Soup w Lime and Cilantro

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Though the summer is more than half gone, I’ve only made one chilled soup, the Vichyssoise I made two weeks ago. I know half the folks (or more) cheated and heated it up…at which point is became a very tasty leek and potato soup. Though I used a 50/50 mix of potato and cauliflower to keep the carbs down. But I digress, before even starting.

The idea of an avocado soup for summer is as natural as guacamole…but trust me, this delicious soup isn’t guacamole with water added. As my wife says, “It’s like what you wished avocados tasted like, but they never quite do.”  The reason is that the citric acid from the limes, zest from the various peppers and lightening from adding water all take away the heaviness that avocados have, leaving you with a lighter version of this lovely green fruit. Yes, like the tomato, avocados are a fruit. By the way, the most common avocado eaten in the US is the Hass, and like all varieties, it’s descended from a single “mother tree.” The tree was planted in La Habra Heights, California. by Rudolph Hass, a mail carrier in the 1930s.

Chilled Avocado Soup with Cilantro and Lime
Yield: 10 8 oz servings.

  • 8 ripe Hass avocados
  • 1 Poblano pepper
  • 1 Serrano pepper
  • 1/2 large white onion
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 1 medium cucumber
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes
  • 2 limes
  • 1 1/2 tbs kosher salt
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 can (7 oz) Salsa Verde (Green Mexican Sauce – I use Goya’s)
  • 1 bunch fresh cilantro
  • 4 cups water

For Garnish:

  • sour cream
  • cilantro

Split the avocados in half and scoop out the flesh with a soup spoon. Collect it in a large bowl or soup pot. Remove the seeds from the peppers and chop coarsely before adding to the soup. Chop the onions, garlic, tomatoes and cucumber up and add them all as well.

Add a tbs kosher salt, a tsp cumin, and the Salsa Verde. Yes, take it out of the can first. Are we having fun yet?

Rinse the cilantro and separate it from its stems. Add about a 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro to the soup. Squeeze both limes into the soup.

What am I forgetting? Oh, the water. Add four cups (1 qt) water. Lots of recipes call for chicken stock here, but it’s totally not needed, and anytime you can make a great soup vegetarian I say go for it.

Ok, everything’s in the pot that’s going in the pot. Get your immersion blender out and make it smooth. How smooth? Medium smooth.

And now…you’re done. Well, chill it for two or three hours until it gets cold. How cold? Don’t worry about it being too cold, short of freezing, remember it’s being served in the summer.

This is a pretty rich soup, so keep your servings on the smallish side. One recipe I saw suggested avocado soup “shooters”…which is a brilliant party idea.

This soup lends itself to garnish really well. Anything from crumbled tortilla chips, croutons, chilled crab, shrimp, little strips of chicken breast, or a dab of sour cream with some cilantro mixed in, which is how I served it.

The soup is ridiculously easy to make, requires no heating, and will surprise your friends with how good it is.

Links / Sources

  • [amazon_link id=”B005F5KB4U” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Goya Salsa Verde (Amazon) [/amazon_link]

FenceGate or: How I Spent My Summer Weekend

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A small section of the tall wooden fence in our back yard fell down, and rather than just put back into place and add a few more deck screws to it, EJ wanted me to turn it onto a gate.And by the way, could I replace one of the treads on the front porch.

Which all sounded like a a pretty good idea, and didn’t look too hard, so I took some measurements, made some scribbles on the iPad, and headed up to Lowes Friday after work to pick up everything we’d need for the job.

Almost everything anyway.

Final count: Two trips to Lowes, one to Home Depot, and one to the nearby hardware store where they didn’t have 2″ deck screws.

The tread was pretty easy, since all I had to do was rip up the old one and screw in a new piece of 2×12 pressure treated lumber with three inch deck screws. It’s not going anywhere soon. Granted the color’s a bit off, but a little weathering will help that, and the whole porch is getting rebuilt within a year.

The fence to gate transition was a lot more fun. First I reconstructed the original section lying flat on the ground, then added a diagonal brace on the back and built up the top and bottom sections so it would bear its own weight. The self closing hinge set I picked up at Lowes opened the wrong way, meaning I had to put the hinge on the outside of the gate where an enterprising character with a screwdriver could take it apart even though they couldn’t get to the latch. It would take a while though, and as it’s only a wood fence, really…a few firm boot-kicks would accomplish much the same.

Things were going pretty well on the project, despite the near 100 degree heat. I started at 8 am and knocked off at noon, and all told it took both Saturday and Sunday to do. Saturday I managed to push myself into heat exhaustion regardless, but Sunday I only had to add a few touches, like a slide bolt and upper brace, and though I started later I was still in pretty good shape when I knocked off.

I had a lucky bit of mishap on Saturday, when my faithful magnetic screwdriver bit holder fell off my Ryobi One cordless drill. Into the leaves and vines beyond the fence. Twice.

The first time I found it without too much trouble, but the second time no amount of searching would turn it up. Since it was about noon and I was about ready for fall over from the heat…I took the hint. Really, it had every right to fall off. It had been pretty well worn out for a while, and I just kept putting it back whenever it came off.

All of which more or less brings us to the point of today’s post.

EJ thought I had scrap lumber in storage, which would be handy as I wanted to put something across the top of the gate opening to stiffen the whole thing up. We stopped, we looked, we dropped off half the tools…and didn’t find anything. No worries. An early Sunday morning trip to Lowes, possibly with a stop at the Starbucks next door for a Grande Light Mocha Frap (no whip) was actually kind of fun.

And it was there I found the DeWALT 12 PC Magnetic Drive guide set (DW2089).

Amazon lists this handy little set for $9.99. Which isn’t unreasonable, but at Lowes it was only $3.89, which is a freakin steal. For the money you get two magentic bit holders and a collection of basic bits (two each of the most popular), and a pocketable case that has a handy compartment for the smaller (normal sized) bit holder. But that’s not what elevates this into cool tool territory.

[amazon_link id=”B004Q04Q6E” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]DEWALT 12-Piece Magnetic Drive Guide Set DW2089CS[/amazon_link]The magnetic bit holder has a sleeve that both rotates and extends, slipping over the body of a small screw (or bolt) and holding it straight until it catches. If that doesn’t sound like a terrific innovation, you probably haven’t ever driven screws with a drill/screwdriver.

Sometimes its a good thing when a tool wears out, especially if you get a better one in the bargain.

Afterwards

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Afterwards, he moved out of the house and rented a small one bedroom apartment. He’d seriously considered a studio, but as it was his plan to spend most of his time by himself, he figured that the change of scenery might be needed to keep him from climbing the walls.

There wasn’t a lot of furniture he took from the house, certainly not the bed, which he replaced with a single bed, to remind himself that he wasn’t expecting company, not that kind, anyway. He did take the futon couch, which he’d always liked and was big enough to sleep on without even unfolding it.

He liked having the occasional friend visit, but liked giving them the bedroom, especially if it was a couple, and sleeping on the futon himself. That way he didn’t feel trapped in his own place, and friends were welcome to stay as long as they liked.

He’d noticed that nobody really wanted to stay that long in New Jersey, though.

The first piece of actual furniture he bought was a Morris chair for reading. The Morris is sort of a proto-lazy-e boy recliner, designed back in the late 1800s by a guy named, well, Morris. His favorite feature of the chair was the wide flat arms where a cup of coffee could perch.

After he’d angled it in the corner of the room with a perfectly adjusted reading lamp (that’s how you know this is a work of fiction) for company, he played back Marilyn Monroe’s cover of Irving Berlin’s “You’d Be Surprised” in his mind.

“At a party/Or at a ball/I’ve got to admit/He’s nothing at all/But in a Morris chair/You’d be surprised.”

One can hope, I suppose.

(see…I can write vaguely autobiographical short fiction)