The (not anything like Campbell's) Cream of Tomato Soup recipe

Let's face it. I could write prose until I'm blue in the face and most people who know me would just say, "Knock it off and cook something."

While writing is an aspiration, cooking I do okay -- save for a few pathetic stabs at vegetarianism in the 90s and some extremely frugal recipes requiring the addition of something called "texturized vegetable protein."* It was a sad, sad time in Linguiniland.

And so...the Tomato Soup recipe. This is the one I made for the cafe. Notes follow.

7 cups crushed tomatoes

1 cup shredded carrots

3/4 cup finely chopped onions

1 (13.7-oz.) can chicken broth

1 T. sugar

2 tsp. salt

3 T butter

3 T. flour

1 cup heavy cream (have used half-n-half successfully)

2 tsp. dry basil or 2 T. chopped fresh basil

1/2 tsp. celery salt

1/2 tsp. pepper]

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Sweat carrots and onions in olive oil. Add tomatoes, chicken broth, sugar and salt. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Cream mixture with immersible  blender (or food processor or regular blender1).

Add cream.

In a separate pot, melt butter and blend in flour. Add to soup and stir until thickened.

Add herbs and spices and simmer 1 hour. Taste to adjust seasonings.

Just a few caveats:
Since canned tomatoes differ so much between brands and I can't afford to choose one over the other, I don't always use the flour and butter to thicken the soup. If the tomatoes are thick enough, I just splash in the cream (you can use half-n-half too -- which I usually do, since that's what I have around).

Also, the basil is going to vary widely, especially if it's fresh. The 2 T. is based on basil I grew. This last time I used fresh basil from the store and it took the whole package to get it to where I was happy. Just remember that, if you add more, let it simmer at least 10 minutes before tasting again.

So there it is. Too much trouble for soup? After a while it become second nature and goes very quickly. Especially if you do it twice a week for a year or so...at 8 o'clock in the morning before the double shot espresso kicks in. 

*Back in the day, Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP) was a staple in Linguiniland. TVP could replace meat in a myriad of re.cipes, but we only used it to reduce our meat bill as much as possible. By pairing TVP with deer meat( given to us by a member of our church who loved to hunt but whose wife could not bring herself to "eat Bambi"), I was able to slash our food bill to next to nothing ($75 a month for a family of 4). However, the TVP experience is a frequent subject of many nostalgic conversations between the Heirs, usually involving the frequency of bathroom use or as a gauge of how nauseous something made them; as in, "the food poisoning made me run for the bathroom more than TVP;" or "the flu made me throw up more than TVP." Through it all, I insist, I was a good mother.

The Cafe's got talent...

Well...We're good sports, at least...

 I come from a long line of frustrated musicians. Music -- and performing in general -- have always been a huge part of family gatherings for as long as I can remember.

Okay--give me a break about the "mike" thing; I'm very tired and my feet hurt.

Somewhere, probably in John Boy's Basement of Doom, is a reel-to-reel tape of my grandmother on guitar and my uncle on violin performing C' 'na luna mezz'u mare; and one of my earliest recollection is another of The Uncles doing a skit with my cousins that involved Crazy Foam and their Wire Haired Fox Terrier. John Boy's first drum set was my parent's suitcase as a snare drum and a metal trash can over-turned on a mic stand as a cymbal; my cousins were playing something on their guitars -- I don't know what, but I was singing I Should Have Known Better...badly.



Since then, we siblings and cousins have formed and reformed in various musical configurations, some even going professional (meaning some sort of item was given in exchange for the performance -- John Boy grossed $25  one night...) and we've passed this practice on to the next generation. So it was inevitable that, given our own venue, that we provide a showcase for this proclivity for ourselves and others like us.


Hence: The Courthouse Corner Cafe Open Mic Night.

Heir 1 (Charley) on acoustic, Dark Garden on drums, Mike Anderson on bass

Heir 2 (Joe) and Caisee

The Heirs

Trevor and Michael

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Von Trapp Family Singers

The Twinz (Trevor and Lucas) -- I think they're listening to the poem "Crab Boil" by Dark Garden -- hence this expression

...and the crowd went wild...sort of...

...still waiting for the crowd to go wild...

...okay, so me and Annette went wild...sort of...

Annette with some real poetry

I wasn't going to include this photo because it was so busy...until I looked a little closer...Lucas (on drums) has a stalker...

 


I can't say "thank you" enough for the community's support -- to Pastor Roy of Romney First United Methodist Church, who loaned us chairs; to Pastor Jack of Romney First Baptist Church for loaning us a mic stand; to Mike Anderson for helping out throughout this whole process and giving credibility to some of our jam sessions; to Steve and Ruth Martin of Church View Farm for their well wishes and the flowers (those roses smelled incredible!); and to the community members who braved the weather to come out (there were torrential rains and winds, not to mention TORNADOES in the area)!


Our next scheduled Open Mic Night is July 6 and we hope the antics of our inaugural event will convince more people to come in and sign up to perform.

Like People Do

So today we were normal

Some of you may remember back when the Linguinis were always normal. But we haven't been normal for a very long time.

The term "normal," of course, if very subjective. Our seat-of-the-pants existence may have be considered normal in some circles; but I confess -- I'm rather pedantic in what I look for in life. I want a distinct lack of drama, pleasant, uneventful conversation and dinner at dinner time sitting at a table with the fork on the left and the knife and spoon on the right.

So that was today.

Normal.

No baking in a hot kitchen to the point of exhaustion and falling into bed, only to writhe around in pain because I hadn't realized I'd been standing for nine straight hours without a break; no overly-ambitious plans to bake a week's worth of pastries in one Sunday afternoon. I did a modicum of cafe baking, marinated a chicken, threw together a salad and then...

...then...

then...

I sat on my front porch and read.

Oh, yes I did. Even though there were clamberings for orange scones at the cafe, I sat on my porch and read a P.D. James novel and waved to people who drove by.

Then I cooked and dinner and me, Dirtman and Heir 1 sat at a table together and, for the first time in several months, ate a meal together.

And now that Dirtman has put fresh sheets on the bed, I'm going to crawl in and read some more!

That's right. I'm not going to bake or even think about making soup or pricing out the breakfast menu. I'm going to read...and I might even doze off.

Yeah, I know. Since I'm making such a big deal about all this, it's obviously not normal. True that.

However, I can't help thinking back fondly of the days when the Heirs got home-cooked meals all the time and they complained about not being able to eat fast food like all their friends; or when baking scones was such an infrequent treat, I needed a recipe and they never hung around long enough to have to be stored in Ziplocs (these days, I can't give away the rejects -- we're all so sick of looking at, taste-tesing and smelling fresh-baked scones; you think this time will never come but, believe me, it does...).

I'm not complaining...I am honestly so grateful the cafe is taking off and I absolutely love this work more than anything I've ever done.

I am also grateful, though, that we're finally settling in and finding our rhythm; so much so that on this one warm Sunday afternoon I can take off my cafe hat for a little while and just be a normal schmo relaxing up for the week ahead.

...like people do.

My Life With Food

Let's address the literal (ahem) Elephant in the Living Room, shall we?

How does one survive owning an eating establishment when one's addiction of choice would be (ahem, uncomfortable shuffling of feet) ... um ... eating.

(We will pause a moment while those who know me mutter under their breath, "Yeah, I was wondering about that..." and my brothers moan to themselves, "Oh, not again...")

Truly, this wasn't an issue at first because most of what we serve is relatively healthy. Oh, we have our share of cream soups and cold cuts; but we keep our portions reasonable and temper the meat with plenty of vegetables.

Plus, I'm running around this cafe 15 hours a day five to seven days a week. And the first month, eating was the farthest thing from my (and anyone else's) mind. Between the stress and the physical activity, we all slimmed down. Of course, the guys -- who were all making a point to at least swallow a sandwich once a day -- all dropped 20 to 25 pounds. Meanwhile, I -- the only female around here -- survived the entirety of February on coffee and gum; I think my earlobes may have gotten thinner.

I didn't miss food in February and I made the mistake of telling myself I'd found the secret to weight loss: surround yourself with so much food, you don't even want to smell it. Even the sweets we carry -- mostly baked goods -- weren't a problem since I bake them myself and am rarely tempted by my  own cooking.

Yup, I said. I got this licked. I thought of writing a book about the irony of overcoming the urge to eat by immersing yourself in the very thing to which you are addicted.

And...and...AND...I dropped a jeans size in March. No sweat. Just exhaustion and stress.

Oh. Yeah. I was tough to live with, what with all the smugness swirling about me.  Here I was, surrounded by cheese, for cryin' out loud, and I was losing weight. Oh. Yeah. I had this thing beat.

We all know where this is going, don't we?

One day I'm back at my little hot plate, waiting the requisite 45 minutes it takes to heat up a pot of soup, when the doors burst open and a bunch of burly Teamsters deposited a freezer in the middle of our little cafe.

An

ice

cream

freezer.

I believe the Biblical phrase goes: Pride goeth before the cookies and cream.

...or something like that.

So.

Back to the original premise of this post: How one survives owning an eating establishment when one's addiction of choice is eating.

You start by not allowing the One In Charge of the Ice Cream to order coffee ice cream. I apologize to any of my customer whose favorite is also coffee. Unfortunately, a shot of espresso poured over vanilla is just as good, if not better, than coffee ice cream and, if there is one thing we have in abundance around here, it's espresso.

In all fairness, I've been pretty good -- I only succumbed twice in the past three weeks. But I know it's just a matter of time. Food speaks to me. Loudly. (This must be why I sleep so well -- there is absolutely no food at home.)

Ice cream screams -- it's why we carry it. Come to think of it, I have my business to consider. How can I ask my customers to eat something I won't eat myself? I'd be a hypocrite, right?

Right?

Besides, I can quit eating ice cream any time I want.

Really.

Taming the Beast

Everyone has that one thing that must be overcome in their life; something they have tried to do that has consistently defeated them, though they have made repeated efforts. My Waterloo; my Big Horn; my He That Shall Not Be Named has been the espresso machine and all the little limbs and gadgets attached that make it sputter and steam, even when no one is touching it.

As far as running the cafe goes, I've learned to make all kinds of soups with our "rustic" setup. I've mastered the panini grill. The cash register was never a problem and I do all the books.

But that beastly espresso machine has defied my attempts to tame it. It spits at me and gurgles angrily in the corner of the counter, like it's murmuring expletives under its breath. I just know it's watching me, like an angry dog crouched in the corner, waiting to bite me if I get too close.

There is just no way to not anthropomorphize the espresso machine. It's like this sour, embittered employee that was part of our deal to buy the business.

But it makes nice lattes...

...for other people.

It plays nicely with Dirtman and also with the twins. It even tolerates DG.

Finally, this morning I found myself alone in the cafe and there were no customers. I figured it was time me and the espresso machine had a conversation. It was just sitting there, looking almost benign for once; so I approached it, summoned my courage and dared to request of it a cafe mocha.

I must admit, I'd been researching how to establish a more amicable relationship with an expresso machine, so I wasn't approaching it without a plan. And I've noticed that everyone else seems to approach the thing without all the tension I seem to exude when I get within a few feet of it. So I calmly walked up to it -- almost meandered...like I hadn't meant to get near it at all.

Just a mocha, I said, as I've heard others fluent in coffee shop-ese: "A small skinny mocha latte with an extra shot." I said it out loud, with authority, like I knew what I was talking about.

And it acquiesced. Skim milk, steamed, just a little foam -- and no milk sputtering all over the counter. A nice flow of espresso and then the grounds coming out with a nice little "puck," telling me I used the exact amount of pressure.

It was the perfect cafe mocha, believe me. It was all a cafe mocha should be.

I just wish I like cafe mochas.

Now we need to resolve DG's relationship with the blender*.

*The blender has it out for DG -- but that's understandable because he tried to make it work harder than it wanted and things just blew up after that.

Herding Cats

Isn't that the expression?

Yeah. That's it. Herding cats.

That's what opening your own cafe is like.

There are a million things to chase and only a handful of people to chase them. You find out very quickly that simply yelling, "someone wash soup spoons" does not mean someone will wash soup spoons and telling someone "don't let me forget to pick up toothpicks tomorrow" does absolutely no good when that someone has been subsisting on four hour's sleep per night for three weeks.

Our first week is little more than a blur with occasional flashes of terror or euphoria. Every now and then we'd look up, make eye contact with each other and have the expression of "we're really doing this!" on our faces.

To say this community of Romney, WV, has embraced our little venture is an understatement. They have been welcoming and supportive; but, most of all, they have been forgiving. There were times, especially on the first day, that we more resembled the Keystone Kops than a restaurant staff.

At first we were all specialized, requiring five people behind the counter serving a 20-seat restaurant.  I'm sure most of the people who came, showed up for the floor show: frantic monkeys jumping around and bumping into each other, somehow managing to deliver food to them -- and sometimes it was even the right food...

The next week the hours were brutal as we tried to serve our customers and teach each other to do our jobs so we can eventually take some time off. We are determined to be open seven days a week.

The twins have shown themselves to be remarkably adaptable -- Lucas picked up on the grill immediately. Dirtman spent only one day teaching Trevor that beastly expresso machine along with all the concoctions it emits and he's yet to be stumped by a request.

As for the over-40 crowd...well, we seem to be a little more resistant to mastering new skills, but we soldier on. I finally tackled the panini grill and DG no longer leaves a pile of tickets to be entered into the cash register by someone else.

Some day I hope to manifest a pitcher of steamed milk without sputtering milk all over the place or burning my arms with boiling liquid. This is also DG's hope, since this only seems to happen when he's just cleaned and sanitized the entire expresso machine. There were words and I think it was a good thing there were customers  around because, when he saw the mess, he could only stand there and puff, "Oh, fffff.....Oh, Jeanne....Oh, fffff...."

Never mind about the third degree burns on my arms, DG...

Which reminds me of the other thing that used to be so important, but has suddenly become minor: injuries.

The first day, when Lucas cut himself on a knife, we all jumped to his aid and carefully cleaned, disinfected and wrapped his wound. But, then, as we got busier and busier, we all took a turn slicing a finger or two and pretty soon we weren't reacting at all except to scream at the victim, "Get that thing wrapped and bus table 2!"

What has become important?

Sleep.

And my feet.

Well, sleep is important to all of us. We were all working 15-hour days, seven days a week. This weekend we finally gave Trevor and Lucas a chance to take over and DG, Dirtman and I left three hours early and arrived a few hours later the next morning. And, somehow, the world survived without us.

My feet are really only my concern -- and Dirtman's, who has to listen to me talk about them more than any human should have to hear about feet.

It's amazing how much these two minor things occupy my mind -- when I'm not dreaming of making soup.

Oh, did I mention that, during all this, we're also moving?

Right now I'm living in a house with a bed, no furniture and NO DOGS. Dirtman sometimes stays here or sometimes goes to the Virginia house to pack and close it up. He has promised to at least bring Zsa Zsa and Whiskers with him next trip -- now that I have all this free time on my hands.

So now you know why I haven't posted in a while. And, it occurs to me, I must be settling in because I'm sitting here in my own cafe, relaxed and happy, posting on my blog just like I have for the past six years.

I guess I'm home.

A little baking humor...very little

If I'm given a drug test within the next 48 hours, I would test positive for heroin.

I'm streamlining a recipe for lemon poppy seed scones and have been taste-testing all day.

So I suppose I would not get whatever job I'd be drug-tested for because I was.....

...wait for it...




SCONED!!!!!!

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

(I'm very tired.)

It ain't all dreamin' the dream...

Cash registers, bookkeeping, cleaning fluids, purchase orders -- this weekend we dealt with some of the less glamorous aspects of opening a cafe; only because there is nothing else we can do.

We are in limbo while we wait for counters to be built and equipment to arrive. So while we wait, we perform the tasks that are the least amount of fun -- made obvious by the fact that there was very little lighthearted banter going on; just a roomful of bad-tempered people hunched over their own little projects suddenly emitting exclamatory profanity, like there was a sudden Tourette's epidemic.

My biggest accomplishment this weekend was teaching myself the ins and outs of our computerized cash register and obsessing over whether we should at any point offer biscuits and sausage gravy in the morning breakfast service. You'd be surprised how easily your mind can get stuck on biscuits and sausage gravy at 3 a.m. It made me realize how much of a problem I'm going to have putting items on the menu that I don't personally like myself. I guarantee, kale will never cross the threshold of the Courthouse Corner Cafe.

Dirtman tore down, cleaned and put back together the expresso machine and two coffee grinders. After several phone calls and flooding the front service area, he wrangled our first cup of expresso out of the machine. It was...um...special*.

DG was online ordering the last few big ticket items and watching the cafe's bank balance dwindle. He could be heard whimpering as he shook his head nervously. In the afternoon, we left him waving distractedly and muttering. By the time we got back home he'd turned a very strange corner and was sending me bizarre e-mails with bad puns on "barristers" and "baristas."

The Twin Prodigy (DG's sons) got the most visible work done -- they cleaned and fixed all the ceiling fans and lights both inside and out of the building.

And they tried to drink the expresso.

Now, if we could only settle on a font for our logo...**

*In all fairness, Dirtman didn't have real expresso beans to work with, nor could he find the tamper for the grounds. He just wanted to get the machine clean and working.
**We're all waiting on DG, for whom this seems to be a matter requiring a significant amount of meditation and consideration.

Crazy Scary

I was ready for them this time: The naysayers, the predictors of doom and those who "just want to let you know we care" by listing every calamity that can possibly befall people who have the audacity to test Frost's road less traveled.

The Cafe

I wasn't quite as prepared for the level of terror I experienced when for the first time I decided not to listen.

I'm writing about this very personal feeling because I know I'm not alone in this. These dreams, these crazy, seemingly-unattainable dreams we have when we complete the sentence, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if..."; these dreams we can imagine so vividly, they make our pulse speed and keep us up at night...until that conservative voice of reason kicks in.

I think this is where most dreams die; before they're even uttered out loud or see the light of day.

Some, though, survive...weakened but still viable. And that's when the naysayers and predictors of doom deliver that final coup de grace.

As a people pleaser and dysfunctionally obsessive Good Girl, I've always done what I was told. There is safety in listening to what other claim to know more about (everything) than you, because you never have to hear, "I told you so." That way, though I've never gotten anywhere, I could stay the Good Girl everyone  liked (predictability is always like, isn't it?).

And, let's face it, the naysayers have history and tradition going for them -- there is a reason everybody takes the path of safety -- most of the time it doesn't lead to calamity. (Though, I gotta say..."the path of safety" has been, for us, a minefield. So there is not much to recommend "doing what everyone does" to us.)

Which brings us to that weed-riddled, rocky path upon which we decided to embark -- opening a cafe during a recession. Or, insert your own seemingly wacky endeavor that seems to annoy everyone around you singing the praises of the status quo. For us it's a cafe.

This is another reason why, in the past, I've always done whatever is safest.

Terror.

There is no other way to put it.

Terror is very different from intuition. Intuition goes much deeper. Terror reacts to the cues in front of it. Terror drowns out intuition.

This is terrifying. It's terrifying to not do as expected. It's terrifying to do something that lacks the safety net of working for someone else in a field that is a sure thing. It's terrifying to be placing something that is so personally produced by me up for sale; up for others' judgement.

I think both Dark Garden and I counted on the fact that we were doing this together to waylay some of that fear. We appeared to each other so confident. I figured he was sure of himself, we must be okay. I seemed just as sure to him, so he figured the same.

... and then we had to commit. And we looked at each other and realized no matter what, we were going to have to muster a type of courage we had never tapped into before. Oh sure, it took courage to go through some of the challenges my family has over come in the past few years. And God knows, as a cop, courage is DG's stock-in-trade.

This is different, though. It's a different kind of fear and requires a different kind of courage. And I don't think there is any getting around it. You either let it stop you or you just let it flow while you do what you have to do.

And so yesterday we closed on the cafe. For myself, once it was a done deal, the terror subsided to a dull twinge and I was offered another option: Excitement. Oh, there is still that scared part of me that nudges every now and then, but I let the excitement drown it out.

I feel like the elderly Isak Dinesen reminiscing at the beginning of Out of Africa*: "I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills."

I have a cafe in Romney at the foot of the West Virginia Appalachian Mountains.

*Perhaps, more appropriately is this: "...the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road."