Sometimes something happens in the kitchen that etches itself on your mind never to be forgotten. Like, you know, hypothetically, you make risotto in someone’s kitchen for the first time. And your masterpiece turns out just as you hoped it would. It is delicious and pretty and darned satisfying. Until the owner of the kitchen says something like, “This is good, but it sure uses a lot of gas to make this.”
Embarking upon cooking in someone else’s kitchen could be a nerve-racking experience from the get go. Add to it cooking in someone who isn’t feeling well’s kitchen just as he falls asleep. I am not the kind of girl to wake someone from sleep, especially if they’re sick. So this involved pawing, unguided, through kitchen drawers. Well, as a writer this isn’t a hardship. And when you have a friend who is sick and has been sick for a little while with a wily cold that seems to be trying to pin him down and laugh pleghmtastic laughs right in his face, you gotta do what you gotta do. So I made soup. In someone else’s kitchen. Again. But this time, the response I got was, “Mmmm.” Which was more like it.
Thanks, Anna Thomas, for your book, Love Soup, and your Cream of Mushroom recipe. I did add one more tablespoon of half and half than the recipe called for. And it was good. And a friend was nourished. And it was a good time.