I got up this morning and made soup (over coffee) for lunch

Leave a reply

I got up this morning and made soup (over coffee) for lunch

Sure, I’ve got all kinds of
soup in the freezer.
But I wanted something
I didn’t have.
Ain’t it always the way?

A cup of onions sliced thin
sauteed with some garlic
till soft.
One clove had a green bud
it must think it’s spring.

Into a quart of water with
8 oz of tomato sauce
and a teaspoon of chicken base
(stock purists, get off my case)
for 15 minutes of cheerful open simmer.

Yeah, yeah, so what?
Wait for it.

Two cups of tortilla chips left over
from yesterday’s office party
(Except for the ones I stole
waiting for stuff to simmer)
and 4 ounces of sauteed pork
(I thought it was chicken
when I took it out of the freezer).

A teaspoon chili, 1/4 each of cumin
and cayenne.
Head for the shower
while it bubbles
and thickens.

A call from Daniel
walking his dog
while I blend with the little Braun
I call it Eva.
It’s ground pork now.

You know what it needs?
Besides cilantro
which I don’t have.
A little sour cream
if it hasn’t gone bad
(and it hasn’t).

Hey. This rocks.
Maybe I’ll have soup
for breakfast?

Don’t Be Such A Scientist

Leave a reply

[amazon_link id=”1597265632″ target=”_blank” ]Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style[/amazon_link]In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Spock, poster boy for reason, emotionless logic, and science, goes through a battery of tests to determine if he’s sufficiently recovered from having been recently dead to go back to join the world. Though the cube root of negative infinity comes easily to him, he’s completely stumped by the last question.

“How do you feel?”

In “Don’t Be Such A Scientist,” author/scientist/film-maker Randy Olsen points out that Hollywood knows something that scientists were never taught. Communication needs to convey feeling if its going to have impact, and scientists, in true Spockian tradition, have been taught to divorce themselves from feeling, lest it muddy the data. Continue reading →

#10 Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

Leave a reply

Fat Tuesday’s coming up this week, so the only soup I could possibly consider is a gumbo. I’ve made a few gumbos, but never as good as the ones I’ve had at the Gumbo Shack in New Orleans French Quarter. The weather here in Alexandria is a fine early spring rain, with plenty of buds on the tree outside my window. I’ve got Zydeco on Pandora and andouille sausage in the pan. The only thing that could be better would be if I was in the Big Easy sipping coffee with chicory at Cafe du Monde on the bank of the Mississippi.

This is a simple gumbo, made from the Louisiana Holy Trinity, Onion, celery, and bell peppers, with sausage and chicken, garlic and Zatarain’s seasoning. Oh, and of course a roux made from flour and oil and stirred over medium heat until it’s the color of lightly roasted coffee. Continue reading →

Overheard In Bar: “Your Problem Is That You Don’t Understand Micro-Economics”

Leave a reply

by Ernest Lilley

Alex Pournelle and I were hanging out in a Manhattan Bar down by 17th st having a beer. We didn’t really need a beer, what we needed was sleep because we were in town to do a network installation for a trade show, which means the following morning we’d signed up for a non-stop sixteen hour day full of debugging switches, dragging cable, tracking down unauthorized wifi access points and soothing frayed nerves. It just seemed like a good idea to get a beer. At the time. But I digress. Continue reading →