Food Porn III: A Boy and His Toy

Chicken noodle soup! Sorta.

On my fourth and last day without Omaha, I decided to make something simple: chicken noodle soup. It's actually a very simple recipe, and I kinda wimped out and used store-bought chicken stock. But the base of onions, celery, and parsnips worked very well. Now that I've rediscovered the parsnip, I may never do a soup or casserole with carrots again. It's more savory and sweeter, it sautes much easier, and it's cheaper!

I tend to overburden my soups and this was no exception; it was more like a stew. I ladeled it into bowl, topped it with fresh bread straight out of my oven, and then covered it with slivered Gruyere cheese (oy, the food miles!) and went at it with my kitchen torch to melt and hold it all together.

Mmmm....

Mom, stop knocking on my damn closet, okay?

Mom called this evening and talked my ear off for over an hour. I mentioned during the course of the conversation that I was at a party recently, and a friend of mine came to me and introduced me to a strikingly pretty woman. He said, "You two have to talk. You have something in common. You both dated Angi."

My Mom had a sudden intake of breath and said, "You mean, Yamaraashi-chan's mother dates women? Did you know that when you were with her?" I'm afraid I hemmed and hawed and she said, "Well, does she, you know, does she protect Yamaraashi-chan from that kind of stuff?"

"What stuff?" I said.

"You know. That."

I said that it really wasn't that big of a deal, and Yamaraashi-chan would have to face the real world someday, it may as well be now. "Well," Mom grumbled. "I hope you protect her from that kind of thing."

I think I'd like to protect Yamaraashi-chan from being close-minded or ignorant, personally. I made agreeable noises and told her that Yamaraashi-chan was just fine. That made her comfortable and the topic cycled 'round to something else.

Y'know, if my Mom does come visit us this Summer, as she's considering, I wonder what kind of sanitizing I'll have to do.