Snatches Of Soup

"...and she makes hers with leeks. It's the best!"

Sometimes, I catch a snatch of conversation like that at a party; when I do, I have to search out the person who said it, and find out what they were talking about. This is the way I always found great recipes before the advent of food blogs.

This time, it was my pal Sari at a dinner with friends, describing her mother's butternut squash soup. She went on to tell me that her mother sautes the leeks in butter and roasts the squash in the oven before adding water to simmer until it's ready to puree. Sounded good and I already had leeks in the fridge, so the next time I was at the store I scored a butternut.

Having only the sketchiest idea of how Sari's Mom made her soup, I started with the part I knew - halve the butternut, place it face down on a baking sheet and bake it until soft and saute' the white and light green parts of three small washed leeks in a little butter. A few days ago, I read Cookiecrumb's March 11th piece about using cooking waters and, since I had some left over from simmering our St. Patrick's Day corned beef, I defatted and strained it, adding it in place of the water in the soup. The result was lightly salty and gently flavored with notes from all three - the corned beef, the roasted squash and the leeks. I thought it could be improved by adding yogurt so I tried that, three nice big tablespoons full of European style, and some cracked black pepper and a few crunchy garlic croutons for garnish and texture. Success!

Experiencing a brief return to chilly winter weather last Sunday, it was the perfect entree. My Beloved and I sat down to a steaming bowl of Snatched Soup and toasted Sari's Mom with our first spoonful.

Winter Confetti

Here's the corned beef hash I made with the leftovers from the Irish dinner and the roasty toasty veggies. It made a colorful jumble on the plate and a nice change from simple spuds and corned beef. Onions and kabocha squash and potatoes and yams - this is rib-sticking food to get you through a rainy spell or a nasty cold, or both, as has been our fate just recently. I owe our improved outlook to the colorful confetti on our plates.

If I wasn't so worried about offending a certain Australian brown mouse, I'd show you the picture I took once I topped it with poached eggs.

Early Irish

I'm half Irish, although I didn't learn that until I was well into my teens. Because our mother was descended from folks who arrived on the Juneflower (perhaps not quite as early as those on the Mayflower but soon after), growing up we always heard a lot about her family tree. When we'd ask Dad about his ancestors, he'd just grin and say, "After they hung all the horse thieves and murderers, we've been a very pure line since then."

It was only when my Dad's mother, a wonderful little lady who told me stories of riding a camel to the Pyramids and following her husband's fleet clear around the world, came to live with us that I learned that we were Irish.

I was a convert and converts are the fiercest believers. I went through a phase where most of my foods were prepared from Irish cookbooks and I was defiantly proud of the peasant half of my heritage. I've calmed down a bit since then but I still love watching movies about Ireland (or at least Hollywood's vision of Ireland) and I still enjoy the occasional dinner of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes.

Having tried several times to cook the cabbage in the corned beef water and ended up with a soggy mess, I have lately gone to lightly sauteeing the shredded cabbage in bacon fat, then laying it alongside my corned beef. The spuds were simply cut into spears and roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper until tender. It may not be an authentically Irish preparation but it satisfies both the finicky WASP and the earthy peasant in me.

Spudless Hash

Leftover lunch. The RoastHaus' leftover corned beef diced, sauteed with a little chopped onion and scrambled with a couple of eggs and a sprinkling of dill weed. Nothin' fancy, and sometimes that's the best.

Major Meat

Bay area carnivores, take note.

This is the "petite" portion of corned beef served to me by the paradoxically Mexican chefs at the perfectly named RoastHaus restaurant in Terra Linda, a neighborhood in San Rafael, Marin County.

This place specializes in roasts. The day we were there, the offerings were roast beef (and, yes, you can get it rare), corned beef, real turkey (not turkey "loaf," whatever that is), pastrami and, I think, pork roast. You can have a sandwich or a platter - both are made up while you wait and you can take out or eat at this clean-but-unimaginative restaurant.

Nothing fancy but far better than the other food offered in that little strip mall. Too much to finish, but they had boxes already set out for taking home the rest - this must be a common request because you don't even have to ask for the boxes.

Many years ago, my older brother brought his four children, three of them teenagers, to visit me. In a single meal, they ate two entire legs of lamb and were looking around for more. If they come again, I'm ready - I'll just take them to the RoastHaus and stand back.