Quick Dinner: Tofu, Mushroom, Red Curry Soup

Last night we had soup for dinner.  The original recipe for this soup came from Sasha Wilkins' lovely Liberty London Girl blog.  At the end of the post, she suggests various ingredients one can use to make different versions of the soup.  I love recipes like this because it gives a blueprint from which a lot of different soups can be made.  For instance, I have never used Tom Yum paste in my soup - it has always been red curry paste - because all the tom yum pastes I have come across so far have had msg.  I also always saute the mushrooms with a little chopped shallot and dry sherry because I like the extra flavours.  And instead of coconut cream, I use coconut milk from the carton.

Last night's version involved a box of organic "Chef's Selection" mushrooms and roughly half a box of organic baby spinach from Whole Foods.  Just for fun, I added some cherry tomatoes and cilantro from the Union Square Farmers Market.  The tomatoes look good in the photo, but I am not sure they added much to the soup.  The cilantro, however, added quite a lot.  The fragrance reminded me of home.

Somewhere Else

I once looked at an apartment whose bathtub view was down onto this church spire.  It was the best thing about the apartment.  Whenever I see this view in the evening, for a few moments, I imagine that I am somewhere far away from the city, with a good mystery round the corner.

English Roses

From the Farmers Market.  I was warned that they would only last three days - other roses usually last a week - but I still wanted them.  Their fragrance was so intensely sweet I felt as if I could get drunk every time I smell them.  And I loved the way they looked even as they shed their petals.

White Peaches

Sometimes, I think I live to eat white peaches from the Farmers Market in the summer.  I hauled home close to seven pounds' worth of white peaches and white nectarines this morning.  This particular farmer is only at the market on Fridays and I wanted to make sure that we had enough peaches and nectarines to last the week.  The lovely man at the stand gave me some donut peaches to try and a small piece of melon to sample as well.  The donut peaches need to ripen before I try them, but the piece of melon was perfect.  Three very ripe peaches - they really tasted as if they had been sweetened with honey - were devoured for breakfast when I got home.

Toigo Orchards
Union Square Farmers Market on Fridays
Tompkins Square and Stuyvesant Farmers Markets on Sundays

My Barbour Beaufort Jacket

I am a little confounded by how I have a Barbour Beaufort jacket which is a men's size 40.  It is way too big for me.  Yet, I wore it through art school and many years after.  I think it was a different time and wearing something oversized did not seem so odd then.

Still.  It has been quite a while since I last wore the jacket.  I think it was a rainstorm and I was certainly dry, but I did rattle around in it.  So when I started the latest wave of clearing and organising, the jacket was on the to-go list.  Bags of clothes went out, but I could never bring myself to send the jacket away.

Recently, I read Lizzie Garrett Mettler's blog, Tomboy Style, about "Worn-In Classics".  Of course, I thought of the jacket.  I had another look.  It had been re-waxed a couple of months ago and looked almost as good as new.   The sleeves and hem had been reinforced sometime years ago and there was a tear on one of the pockets...  But these details gave the jacket its particular character.

Big as it is, the jacket is not going anywhere.  

Gladioli

I am engrossed in "Broadchurch" tonight.  So here is an image of the gladioli from last week.  I am trying to extend the flowers for as long as I can:

Blah...

Today felt like a day of busywork.  It felt a bit like treading water.  What I really felt like doing was this: