Samedi Soup

It’s 1:30pm here in France. Today, I made a pot of potato soup and two onion/walnut/Roquefort quiches. I’ll give one of them to Therese because she gave me six eggs the other evening when, just an hour before a dinner party, I discovered that my husband did not notice that I had written the word oeufs on his grocery list.

I don’t cook much in San Francisco. But here, in my primitive kitchen I enjoy the task; probably because I have two, double French doors that look out on to my quaint world so that I’m never bored. I often walk to the doors, stirring a bowl of batter, to see if the sheep are nearby. Cirq, the cat, comes by to visit. He stands on his hind legs to look in the window and beg for any scraps of food I might be charmed into giving him.

While chopping and baking today, I saw a petite yellow finch blithely hopping about on the driveway. Not long afterwards, I saw three hunting beagles flash past the kitchen. I don’t know where they came from, but they dashed into our woods, from where my husband said he could hear squealing. Somehow, these dogs figured out, from a good distance away on the other side of the road, that there was a wild boar in our woods. Funny thing was though, their masters never showed up. I went outside and called for Blanche to see where she was. I was a little concerned that the dogs might go after her. She answered back from her hiding place under a bush. I have never heard Soixante-Douze baaaa. She lets Blanche do all the negotiating with the humans.

If it is cold where you are, try this very quick recipe, my French neighbors loved it.
It’s my variation of potato soup.

• Chop up four slices of bacon.
• Then fry in a soup pot, until almost crisp.
• Throw in two chopped onions
• Add three chopped stalks of celery with their leaves.
• Mince up some garlic and throw it in.
• Sauté it all as long as you can without browning.
• Add six medium sized potatoes, cut into small cubes, with their scrubbed skins on.
• Cover so that the water is about a quarter inch above the ingredients.
• Grind and then add, a lot of black pepper.
• Salt to taste.
• Bring to a boil, then slowly simmer for a half an hour or longer.
  (This soup is even better the following day.)
  
  
  Perusing several French cookbooks, I noticed that the French do not make chunky soups. With the exception of French Onion, their soups all seem to be smooth, cream based.