a three-soup day

Soup trials are going well. I'm experimenting on the folks in The Geek's workplace. I started meekly, with a minestrone followed by cream of mushroom (ha! but this cream of mushroom tastes like a forest floor)(in a good way), but this week's offering is a little more outre: sweetcorn, chipotle chile and lime, from Yotam Ottolenghi, via my tinkerings. It's utterly gorgeous. Though it's rather immodest to say so, but maybe not, as it's not my invention. Though I have tinkered. At a course last week, we were told that the Brits, and Scots in particular, are terribly bad at self-promotion. I had my brand-new business cards in my bag, announcing the launch of Union of Genius to the world. "Have a large, self-promoting gauntlet", I said, as I handed a card to the tutor. And then tiptoed off.

So, today I've cooked up a lot of soup, but by daily cafe standards, it's a mere bagatelle. I have, however, picked up the Geek's challenge: to make a breakfast soup. I thought what I like for breakfast when I'm away, and hungry, and in need of a comfort-food splurge - bacon, sausage, egg, hash browns, tomato. I've taken the essence of that -



- and turned it into soup. What I have is a potato and sausage base, with crispy bacon, pepadew peppers and tomato topping, and an egg flower on top of the topping. As a first attempt, I rather like it. I wonder if it'll catch on? Here it is:



It wasn't bad, actually. The soup base was rich and savoury and the general consensus was that the soup needed some bits of sausage in it, as well as the bacon. The egg flower, though, was a definite hit.

In other news, I've been looking at premises, and nothing seems quite right for any number of different reasons. It's early days. I started looking at property with the thought that by starting early, I'd have lots of time to find a good spot. Unfortunately, my forward-planning brain has interpreted my failure to find the perfect place in three weeks as an impending sign of certain doom. Someone, please tell my critical faculties to go put their feet up for a little while, eh?