Home away from Home

I went to visit my parents this past weekend, who still live in the city where I grew up–Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  While I was there, I was struck all over again by how strong feelings of “home” can be, even after years away, and how wonderful it can be to be in familiar surroundings and with familiar friends, even when that familiarity has to be found and created all over again.

watching the Tigers play, with my dad

While there, I did the traditional (and awesome!) Baton Rouge things: I went to an LSU football game–which, thankfully, was a win–and had beers at The Chimes, Chelsea’s and George’s.

Needless to say, a good time was had by all.

Sadly, Josh wasn’t able to come with me on this excursion, but with the holidays rapidly approaching, we foresee many exciting voyages in the near future.  Where oh where will the Philosophers wind up next?

Butternut Squash Soup

Today is a chilly, dreary day: perfect soup weather.  Plus, since it’s a Saturday, there was time enough to make a good one while doing some chores and watching the LSU game on the internet (no SEC football on my limited cable, unfortunately!).  I’d gotten a butternut squash on my last trip to the store for just such an occasion, and I have to admit that I was more than a little excited to use it.

Last summer, Josh and I actually grew (several!) butternut squash in our garden in Nashville, and we love using them in the fall.  They keep a really long time in the pantry, and since they’re also super-delicious and good for you, they’re a great garden item.  In case you’ve never had them, the flavor is somewhere between a sweet potato and a pumpkin.  So, between their tastiness, health benefits and general economy, I’d have to rank butternut squash as one of my absolute favorite fall vegetables (even though, technically, it’s not a vegetable at all).

Though I was looking forward to making a butternut squash soup, I actually wasn’t quite sure what I would do, recipe-wise.  I’ve recently fallen into watching a Canadian cooking show called “It’s Just Food,” which is great for getting basic ideas; their butternut squash soup used carrots, garlic, onion, green apples, and a dash of maple syrup, but I had no apples or syrup, and wasn’t quite sure that I wanted my soup to be sweet at all.  All too often I believe people make the mistake of thinking that if they’re using fall vegetables with fall-esque spices, everything needs to come out tasting like pumpkin pie, which becomes overwhelmingly cloying really quickly.  But enough of my soap-box.

I decided to do my own thing–inspired by, but not directly derivative of, the “It’s Just Food” recipe.  I did follow their tip of doing a preliminary browning of the chunks of squash and carrots and yellow onion (the carmelization brings out just enough sweetness for me), butI used potatoes instead of apples.  After these got a bit of color, I added several cups of vegetable stock and a few cloves of garlic.  Before letting this boil away, I went to town with the spices–which, by the way, is my favorite part of the cooking process.  This time, since I was really just winging it, I added quite a bit.  What ended up being most prominent, though were the following: ginger, coriander, cayenne and dried chipotles (as I mentioned earlier, these give the smokiness of bacon flavor to vegetarian foods), plus a pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and sage.  After everything simmered together for about half an hour and the vegetables were all tender, I hit the whole thing with my immersion blender till it was pureed.  Things were pretty thick at that point, so I decided to finish the entire thing with a bit of milk, which toned down some of the heat and made the finished soup really rich and creamy.  In the end, I was super happy with how it turned out–warm, spicy and savory, with just a hint of sweetness–and maybe just a little too proud of myself for coming up with something so great on my own.  I’m hoping the LSU game turns out so well!

Geaux Tigers!!!!

Summer seems to be over up here in Ontario, but the slight chill in the air reminds me that it is, in fact, the best time of year: football season.  This year, sadly, marks another year that I will not have the fortune to be in attendance at the Mecca of all LSU Fans, Tiger Stadium.  Instead, I will console myself with the fond memories of this summer’s College World Series championship and, perhaps, with Ro-tel dip made solely for my enjoyment on game days–the first of which is this coming Saturday (!!!!).   In the meantime, I’m looking for a way to actually see the games, since a) we don’t have ESPN, because it doesn’t exist here and b) it’s not clear that SEC football is something that would be broadcast in Canada at all, even on the equivalent station here, TSN.  I’m hoping for some sort of streaming option online, but if all else fails, I’ll be hitting the ‘refresh’ button on the Tiger Athletics website.

Oh, and in case you happen to be one of my non-football friends, and you’re now thinking “Geez, Erin must be hard up for blogging material, who the hell cares about college football?”…well, then we’re no longer friends.  Ha!  Just kidding.  Maybe. To give you an idea of the incredible significance of LSU football in my life, I offer you the following tidbits, all of which are completely true.

From the years of 1995-1999, I missed no home LSU games, including the time when I was 16, when I was sick enough to lose my voice before halftime.  This obsession reached a boiling point during my Junior year of high school, when I did an entire Social Studies Fair project on the history of LSU football, which included a model of a 60s-era homecoming float that I constructed out of a shoebox and a bazillion tiny pieces of wadded-up crepe paper, a piece of carpet I stole from the hall of fame, and a bag of grass that I ripped from the 50-yard-line during the field-storming that happened after the upset of then-No.-1 University of Florida in October of ’98.  I got an A, by the way.  Oh, and in the process of preparing for this project, I managed to run into Kevin Faulk on campus, who I apparently unnerved enough to–true story–do a complete 180 and walk away from me as quickly as possible.

On the right is a picture from last season, with Dewey and me in our game day finery.  She’s psyched, obviously.

Till next time…Go Tigers! LSU Marching Band