SKETCHES FROM WHEREVER

Last night began with a bowl of broccoli cheese soup.
But ended with a bowl of Massaman Curry from Authentic Thai Bistro.
What happened in between still haunts my thoughts. And my stomach.
Those with an iron gut keep reading.

I planted some broccoli this year in our garden. I'm still much of a novice when it comes to backyard urban farming. The finished products we buy in the grocery store look so different than the dramatic vegetation that takes place from seed to harvest. I've seen tomato plants grow or even bells peppers. But Brussels sprouts? It was all very exciting.

So back to the broccoli. I'm not the biggest fan but if you cover it with enough cheese its not too bad. So when the flowers looked about right for harvesting I cut them from the stem, washed them, and put them in the refrigerator. A day or two later Mish and I chopped up the green florets and tossed them into the pot to make a nice broccoli cheese soup. After a few tweaks to the recipe I put the lid on it and we brought it over to our friends Reid and Eike's house to enjoy together. Midway through dinner Eike lowers her head to her bowl and meticulously scoops something out of the bowl. Mish asks if it was a hair. "No, just a little bug. No big deal." That was until we all took a closer look at what we where eating. What we all thought where just bits of broccoli upon closer examination turned out to be tons of little bugs peppering our soup. Reid and I both had pretty much eaten an entire bowl by that time. "Did you wash the broccoli?" "Of course I did. I washed it well." I guess thats what you run into when you try to garden organically. Needless to say, we didn't finish our soup and promptly called our favorite neighborhood thai place. We all had a good laugh about it. Lots of bug jokes ensued.

One would think that with an experience like that one would be a little gun-shy when it comes to eating food thats not shiny and void of blemishes. But I'm happy to report I've rebounded pretty well. This morning I made myself an egg scrambler with sauteed chanterelle mushrooms gathered from a mountain just outside city limits. I'm not going to let a little "bug-ccoli" cheese soup slow me down.