Late in the afternoon the day before yesterday, I decided to make a fairly simple soup of carrot and orange that I read about in the soup maker booklet that came with my soup maker years ago. This seemed a fairly simple recipe and it just so happened that I had a good supply of so-called ‘wonky’ carrots and some left over orange juice. I did prepare the carrots using my recently acquired ‘mandoline’ slicer which cut the carrots into incredibly thin slices which were then parboiled and given a quick blast in the oven, the water in which the carrots had been boiled forming the basis of the subsequent vegetable stock. I made two batches as I generally do and had to increase the volume of the vegetable stock way beyond that demanded of the original recipe. All of that having been said, I was delighted by the result which turned out to be one of the most delicious soups that I have made so given the simplicity in the way in which it was prepared, I shall certainly repeat this little venture. When I make soups and whatever the recipe says, I always start off with a ‘Mirepoix’ base (onions, carrots and celery) which I had prepared and frozen up some days before hand. At the blending stage, I always put in about half a can full of coconut milk as well so I think this helps to ensure success. I had a vested interest in making the soup the day on which I did because I am anticipating some Spanish-speaking friends from my church (and perhaps even their little girls as it is half term) to call around for a ‘soup’ day and I can now offer them a choice of three of my latest efforts (sweet potato, curried parsnip and now carrot and orange) and if they happen not to like one, they can always try another. I needed to go out into our garage to raid the supply of empty glass bottles that I have washed out and stored in a bygone age and I found that the large glass jars that are used for the sale of coffee prove to be an excellent choice as each holds just about a double portion of soup and they freeze quite easily as well. The television last night yielded an interesting surprise. There was a programme devoted to the construction of ‘The Titanic’ and although I was only passively watching it (as Sudoku was absorbing my attention at the same time), I quickly became fascinated by it. The size and the scale of building ‘The Titanic’ had never been attempted before and not only did specialist wharves and dry docks needed to be constructed but even the cranes used had to be especially designed and built. Moving the engines into their final positions (in pieces) was also an incredibly intricate operate and one could only marvel at the sophistication of the technology deployed at the time. The day promises to be quite a busy one because on the last Friday of each month (and therefore easy to remember) there is a meeting of the U3A Philosophy group and we are to discuss ‘Existentialism’ about which I know precious little. I have volunteered to lead off on a group topic of ‘What is Science’ and this may be the next along in the series. We take along our own coffee in a flask and meet in the training room of one of the local supermarkets, contributing a small token for the hire of the room which the supermarket donates to its current charity. We had a fascinating morning of discussion on the subject of existentialism and we completed the morning by some discussions around the table of the influences upon us that had made us the kind of people that we were. On my out of the supermarket, I passed through the cookware section of the supermarket and could not help but notice a rather superior 32cm Tefal frying pan from one of their more expensive ranges but it was without any packaging and was evidently damaged as there was quite a large dent on one side as though it had been dropped from a great height and/or crushed but the pan appeared completely serviceable and the cooking surface was not impaired. Two staff happened to be close by so I showed them the damaged pan and wondered if they would be open to offers. They said I could have it for £2 although I suspect the full retail price was in the region of £30 or even more as it was also safe for induction cookers.
I returned home and got some of the soups ready for the afternoon repast and then travelled down to Waitrose to pick up one of my fellow parishioners. We were joined by the youngest member of the group and she had brought along with four 7-8 year old girls, two of them being her own daughters and another two friends who were in the same class at school and were evidently playmates. Once I got the girls sitting around the table, I gave them a meal of carrot and orange soup which I thought they might enjoy but the flavour may have been a little sophisticated for them. We three adults dined on the curried parsnip soup and then the children wanted to go off and play games. This included we three adults and the first game to absorb our attention was a game of the girls’ choosing called ‘Mafia’ in which everybody bar one is given the identity of ‘Innocent’ whilst the remaining person is the ‘Mafia’ boss. The participant have to circle each other but if an innocent is surreptitiously ouched by the Mafia boss, they have to lie down as dead and so on until the actual identity of the Mafia is revealed once the game comes down to the last two. This game was played twice and then we played a game called ‘Dead Dog’ which I remember from over seventy years ago when my son played the game at children’s birthday parties. It might have been devised by adults because every participant has to lie absolutely still until a twitch reveals that that person is ‘out’. The game proceeds until we are left with one person who has managed to lie so still that they are not detected. To conclude the games, I then proceeded with a game of ‘Monsters’ which I used to play with my own son in England and god-daughter in Spain. This simple game consisted of my putting a big woolly jumper over my head and then proceeding on all fours with growls and roars until one of the little girls was detected and seized. Children love to be frightened and this game proved to be a tremendous hit and there squeals a-plenty, although it was tiring. After nearly three hours it was time for our visitors to leave but an uproarious time had been had by all – including the adults.