Since I’m confined to a liquid diet for the immediate future, I figure when life hands you the proverbial citrus fruits you turn them into margaritas. Soups it is, then. 

Since it is now springtime in Austin, the sweet corn is starting to come in and the Gulf Shrimp is on sale, both glorious flavors that go together so well. To me, the important thing with this idea is to maintain the lightness and freshness of it while grabbing as much flavor as you can, too.  

Joe in the Minervois

I realize this may bear no resemblance to a classic bisque, but I care not. Although I do think it is important to learn to do things the "right" way, whether it be music or painting or cooking, before you start to experiment, I have made classic bisques, so those dues are paid. Serves 4 

Joe's Shrimp and Corn Bisque

1 lb shrimp, medium or small, peeled, with shells reserved. Heads-on adds flavor, if you can find them that way

4 ears fresh sweet corn, kernels cut from the cob and cobs scraped. Reserve kernels and juice. Reserve scraped cobs

4 cups seafood broth (see below)

1 cup heavy cream

4 T.  finely chopped shallot

*secret ingredient below

Broth

1 carrot, roughly chopped

1 celery stalk, roughly chopped

1 yellow onion, roughly chopped

Parsley

Bay leaf

Thyme- a teaspoon or so dried, a sprig fresh. Go easy. Or omit.

Reserved corn cobs

To make the broth, peel the shrimp and place peels into a pot with 5 cups of cold water. Add celery, carrot, onion, parsley, thyme, bay, corn cobs. Simmer for half an hour or so until the broth takes on some flavor. Taste it! No arbitrary time limit is a substitute for tasting. Strain and reduce to about four cups.

For the Bisque

Put the chopped shallot in a pot with a knob of butter and a splash of good olive oil. Sauté until shallots are softened, just a few minutes on medium heat. Do not brown. Add broth and corn kernels and juice scraped from cobs and simmer for 20 minutes. Add shrimp and simmer for 3 minutes. Add cream and bring to a simmer. Serve. You could sprinkle some finely chopped parsley over the top or a little pinch of smoked Spanish pimiento, or both, for color. 

*Secret Ingredient: If you wanted to get really racy you could sauté a few minced pieces of good fat pork in with the shallots, too, just for added funk. In the South, we would. 

 

 

I’m impatient. I want my full sense of taste back. I want the swelling to go down and go away so I can see what I am going to look like now. I want a new dental setup so I can chew real food again.  I want my leg to stop feeling weird and numb and weak.

I feel slightly ashamed of this, because I should be grateful and gleeful. After all, a few short weeks ago I was climbing the walls of a deep dark place in my mind, fearing terrible new ordeals and trials. Cancer had returned. I was facing more long, serious surgery and reconstruction. My thirty-year journey through the desert toward this new promised land was ending, with no idea what I would face when I reached my new destination.

And then, when the Promised Land did show up, it was beautiful. No serious after-effects from the surgery. No involvement with the jawbone, and thus no awful complications. The plastic surgeon did amazing things with his part of the surgery, making my breathing much better, getting rid of some old scar tissue and making me look and feel better for the next thirty years. Making my eating and swallowing better with a tissue implant into the floor of my mouth. No involvement in the lymph nodes or surrounding tissue. All clean, all done, all healed. Nothing left but to rest, heal, and go back for followup stuff.

Next stop, a way to perhaps speak again…

So, why am I not happy and gay, to quote W.C. Fields? I am, but I am having to get used to the concept. After gearing up, girding myself, setting my muscles and my mind for a blow, the blow went past and nothing happened and here I am sipping coffee in my little sweet office at my beautiful home tapping out my thoughts like any old guy.

It is sort of like when they tell you a tornado is coming, and you do all the stuff you are supposed to do, the candles and foodstuffs and blankets and flashlights and battery radios and a good bottle of cognac and you run down into the wine cellar and the guy says “oops, already past, never mind”.  Ok. Well, then. Let’s see, what were we going to make for supper?

Or in football where you see the middle linebacker coming at you to smash your brains out and you duck and weave just in time for him to miss you…

I think some people are wired to be positive and to go to the higher place every time. I seem to be wired to go to the place I am in and then whine about it. I am not proud of that, it is just an observation. It drives the positive types crazy. I have tried all my life to change this, and get better about it, but it is a little bit like trying to stop being Woody Allen; good luck. I am one of the few human beings who could have his life, his face, his voice, and his sense of taste handed back to him after a close shave and then whine because I have a swollen place on my leg. And then whine about being such a whiner.

Another peculiarity about being this me is that almost nothing of what I say is really true. I seem to have several “me’s” and the one I describe above is only one of them. I also have the tough-as-nails me that can do anything required and not give a damn, and just did. I have the completely happy me that is in fact out walking in the rain right now in the Texas Hill Country and so grateful and joyful that it would make a puppy sick. The whiner me is just one facet of the total boy, but one that I must address as I rotate around to the next me in the circle. I have the happy, positive, laughing me that is ready for the next stage of what has turned out to be a rather remarkable life after worrying for years that I would be just average and not turn out well.  I have the guy who goes out to a restaurant to celebrate with friends over a good bottle of Rasteau and is deeply grateful for every moment of life, of friendship, of happiness that comes his way.

Are we all built this way? Probably. I guess the trick lies in being able to choose the one that will lift you, take you up instead of down, do some good for somebody else along the way.

Although the thought just occurred to me that I may be experiencing the curse of the actor, who is equally adept at “feeling” all sorts of ways but sometimes doesn’t know which one is real, or even if there ever is a real one.  Am I an actor who is able to sort his personality into distinct types and then inhabit any one of them at will? This could explain a lot of things. Hmmm…

Home Again

Home is nice…stuff is where you expect it to be, the food is fabulous (Kimmie is making great soups for me now), and Miss Liliana the Golden Retriever and Mama Kitty are offering full support, no questions asked.

 My emotions seem to be lined up in order, though- I should be dancing around the rooms in ecstasy, but instead I am apparently going to be forced to experience all of the old fear and sadness and then after I do that, I get to feel all happy. Stupid lizard mind….

I still can't eat anything solid, or even semi-solid, yet. So, soup it is. 

 I think we will make an asparagus soup tonight. It is asparagus season, after all. Easy as pie, too. Easier, actually.

 Asparagus Soup

1 lb white asparagus, or green, snapped in two, blossom ends chopped into one-inch pieces

1 yellow onion, roughly chopped

4 cups broth or cold water

1 cup heavy cream or whole milk

Good salt, freshly ground pepper

4 egg yolks

More heavy cream or milk

 Makes 4 servings

Cut or break the tender ends of the asparagus stalks and reserve them. One good way to find the spot in the stalk where tenderness begins is to hold the ends of the stalk in each hand and bend it until it snaps. The root end will be too tough to eat pleasantly. Put the root ends and the onion into the broth and simmer for twenty minutes. Strain, reserving the broth, and put the blossom ends into the broth and cook until just tender, about ten minutes. Turn off the heat, add the cream or milk, salt and pepper. Put the egg yolks into a measuring cup and add an equal amount of milk or cream to them and stir well. This is called a “liaison” and is a wonderful way to thicken a soup or sauce, but do not turn on high heat after you add, or it will turn into scrambled eggs. Add this liaison to the soup and stir. If necessary, turn on a very low heat until soup is just heated through, stirring, and serve.