SANTA AND DEXTER: SEPARATED AT BIRTH?
As the holidays approach and cooking begins to grab my attention, instead of sitting and writing, I promised some friends to put down the recipe for my chicken soup and butternut squash soup.
I’ll focus on the chicken soup today, squash tomorrow.
And for those who are in need of inspiration as they sit down at their computer today or tomorrow or whenever the muse strikes…Some wonderful quotes from some great authors on writing. More of those to come as well.
A grand week to all.
Here We Go:
Chicken stock:
2 chicken carcasses
and the bones and skin from all the eaten chicken. I toss in the full legs and thigh meat as well
large bunch of thyme
two cut up leeks
2 sweet onions cut up
big bunch of parsley
4 bay leaves
white ends of green onions from one bunch
i piece of fennel cut up
chunks of celery hearts and leaves if desired
A Dash of white wine if you have it
Stick in a couple of big sprigs of fresh thyme
Also a couple of large pieces of fresh Rosemary
Put all of this is a large stock pot. You can make big chunks of the vegetable as they will be strained out eventually.
I put this on for 24 hours on a very, very low heat in a cast iron enamel pot, uncovered. Add water to keep the bones just covered but don’t water it down. You’ll be able to tell by the consistency.
Stock done:
Strain after you let it cool
Soup:
Grill 8 chicken breasts in the oven. Pour off the au jus into a bowl and strain. Keep this for the soup. Use the jus (pan dripping from the cooked chickens) left over from the roasting chickens to put into the soup as well for more flavor.
Grilling:
8 breasts coat generously with olive oil – extra virgin and then season with Maldon salt and pepper
Start breast side down in the oven (I prefer breasts on the bones as you get more flavor and the breasts tend not to dry out)
325º 10 minutes check and turn over, breast up.
Baste with the pan drippings and cook 15 minutes
check and baste again
5 to 10 more minutes and check.
Remove when done. Cool so you can cut.
Remove the bones and save for the next stock
Chop up the chicken meat for the soup
MAKING THE SOUP:
Put the stock into a large stock pot. Add the chicken and put on a very low heat.
In a large saute:
Olive oil – about 2 Tbspn
6 large french shallots or 10 small round shallots
dice fine
8 large carrots – cut into circles
4 bay leaves
butter – 2 tbspn
the jus from the roast chicken and the breasts strained if you like.
saute the shallots until starting to caramelize and put into the soup.
Saute the carrots in a wee bit more olive oil
5-8 minutes just to heat and slightly cook
Put the shallots into the soup
NOW:
Add the bay leaves
Cook for an hour or until carrots are done. ( also sometimes throw in a few pieces of fresh rosemary with the carrots for flavor)
THEN ADD;
Sprigs of fresh thyme
some very finely chopped up parsley
Taste and salt and pepper to your preference
Serve with fresh cornbread and butter
No potatoes, celery nothing else. The simplicity of the soup has amazing flavor from the rich stock. And it makes it low carb.
Now to the writing part:
Writing is hard. You never know if what you write is any good or not…meaning will someone else pick up your words and see what you intended? Will they feel what you felt? Will they be entertained? Enlightened? Humored? Moved? Inspired? Enlivened? Grateful for the time spent with you on the page?
You wonder – – did I go deep enough? Ask myself enoughh questions? Am I clear about the journey of my character? Or the basis of my essay? Was I ruthless with my pen as an editor? Is this relevant? Why am I telling this story? Why am I writing this opinion? Do I believe in what I am saying? Etc. Etc. Etc. (to quote the Kind from “The Kind and I.”
So I went to read some of my favorite quotes from Authors who have inspired and entertained and enlightened me over the years:
Enjoy
Janet
Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
Thurber
more on Thurber at
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.
All sorts of things occur to help that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man or woman would have dreamed could have come his way.
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic to it.
Begin it now.” ~ Goethe
more quotes from Goethe:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/johann_wolfgang_von_goeth.html
The quality that above all deserves the greatest glory in art — and by that word we must include all creations of the mind — is courage; courage of a kind of which common minds have no conception, and which is perhaps described here for the first time… To plan, dream, and imagine fine works is a pleasant occupation to be sure… But to produce, to bring to birth, to bring up the infant work with labor, to put it to bed full-fed with milk, to take it up again every morning with inexhaustible maternal love, to lick it clean, to dress it a hundred times in lovely garments that it tears up again and again; never to be discouraged by the convulsions of this mad life, and to make of it a living masterpiece that speaks to all eyes in sculpture, or to all minds in literature, to all memories in painting, to all hearts in music — that is the task of execution. The hand must be ready at every moment to obey the mind. And the creative moments of the mind do not come to order… And work is a weary struggle at once dreaded and loved by those fine and powerful natures who are often broken under the strain of it… If the artist does not throw himself into his work like a soldier into the breach, unreflectingly; and if, in that crater, he does not dig like a miner buried under a fall of rock… the work will never be completed; it will perish in the studio, where production becomes impossible, and the artist looks on at the suicide of his own talent… And it is for that reason that the same reward, the same triumph, the same laurels, are accorded to great poets as to great generals.
— Honoré de Balzac
storytellerla 