Sunday, January 7, 2018

Three Beautiful Things 01/06/18: This and That, Revisiting "Don't Renege on Our Love", Beef Stroganoff Soup

1. It was a good day for doing this and that around the house, including breaking down several cardboard boxes and running them out to the dump after discovering that the dumpster for recycling cardboard at the station near our house was overflowing with flattened boxes. It was a good day for picking up a few groceries at Yoke's and for adding albums to my library so I can play them on our wireless speaker set up.

2. I love listening to electric guitar players. The Deke really enjoys jazz on the electric guitar, but doesn't really enjoy the other players I do. The Deke went on a couple errands this afternoon and I returned to an album I haven't listened to in years:  Richard and Linda Thompson's searing, angry album marking the end of their career as a duo -- and the end of their marriage: Shoot Out the Lights. It's been over twenty years since I've felt the rawness of a failed love relationship, but those old feelings stick around and listening to some of this album today simultaneously ignited memories of brokenness in my life and resurrected the joy of listening to Richard and Linda Thompson sing and, above all, listening to Richard Thompson pour out the emotion of these songs on the electric guitar.

For some reason, I had all but forgotten the song, "Don't Renege on Our Love" and when it came over the Bose today, I shuddered with love for the sound of the song. I felt resentments from about twenty-five years ago well up again. It was cathartic. I'd like to write more about Richard Thompson's guitar work on this song, but I need to listen to it some more to get the words right. So I'll wait.

3. The Deke and I have had a beef broth bubbling away since Tuesday. The Deke took one draw from this perpetual broth and improvised a spaghetti squash dinner with the broth on Wednesday.

Today, however, the Deke made full use of the broth. First, she made some dough, rolled it out, and cut noodles. Later, she strained the broth, mashed the vegetables in it, saved the prime rib that had fallen off the bone, and put new onions and mushrooms in the broth and let them cook. She boiled the noodles and combined it all together with sour cream to make beef stroganoff soup.

The soup is as rich, deep, slightly sweet, creamy, and flavorful as any soup I've ever eaten. I'm very happy that the Deke has introduced homemade noodles into our life.

After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and emptied the crock pot of its leftover soup and stored it. Immediately, I put a whole chicken in the pot, covered it with water and added salt, peppercorns, onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves, mushrooms, basil leaves, and oregano leaves.

Our next version of perpetual broth is underway. It bubbled away all evening and into the night while the Deke watched and I kept an ear on Godfather Part II.

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