Soup Maven

I recently read a book that said (I will paraphrase):

Hey greenie! Yeah, you. How do you think all those fresh fruits and vegetables get to you anyway? Think those blackberries walk themselves to the produce aisle or some shit? They come by plane! They come by diesel truck! You want to talk about the carbon footprint of a tomato in January? Let's go motherf*cker!

So I decided to eat more seasonal / regional foods. Mom had a recipe for winter vegetable soup and I figured, why not?

Keep in mind that, in my world, if dinner takes more than five minutes to make I'll either:
a) check to see if the microwave is plugged in
b) decide I'm hungry for Vietnamese Food instead

It took me an hour to round up everything for this soup: including a phone call to Mom when I asked her what a turnip looks like and she tried not to laugh. Seriously though, I had to go to two stores! All it calls for is: potatoes, turnips, leeks and carrots. There are some other veggies in there too, but I don't like them so I left them out. Why?

'Cause I'm a grown-up, that's why.

So I get home and dump everything out on the counter. I have to make the vegetable broth from concentrate but the only container big enough will soon be occupied with chopped veggies. The next-largest container I have is a pint glass. Okay, that's not 100% accurate. I have a big crystal salad bowl, but it won't fit in the microwave.

The pint glass holds two cups so I make eight cups of broth two cups at a time. I collect the broth in the salad bowl. When this is done, I prepare the leeks. This is when disaster strikes.

I chop the white bits off the leaks and I'm in the midst of slicing them lengthwise when I whack a chunk out of my finger. The knife is so sharp it doesn't hurt at first but then . . .

At the sight of my own blood I start to feel faint. Tunnel vision begins and my ears start ringing. I wrap a towel around my finger and step out on the porch to get some air. I feel thiiiisss close to passing out - which would be a real bummer because I'm home alone.

My finger's still bleeding. It's gross. I'm trying to focus on this podcast about Daniel Day Lewis* so I won't lose consciousness. It's not one of my prouder moments.

The bleeding finally stops and I wrap a band-aid around my finger really tight (I'm not looking forward to pulling that little bastard off). Meanwhile the leeks that were supposed to be saute-ing have burned. Oh well. I resume chopping and the rest of it goes okay.

Behold! The soup! It turned out pretty tasty I have to say . . .

If you're interested in making this delicious hearty meal what you'll need is:

3 (each) leeks, potatoes, carrots, turnips
2 cloves garlic
8 cups vegetable stock
1 cup dried pasta
3 drops of your own blood (optional / to taste)

* Want to know something really freaky? The podcast was about Daniel Day Lewis' most recent film - There Will Be Blood.