Dinner

#febphotoaday #day6 #dinner #soupkitchen #pumpkinsoup

Today was Migraine Monday. Some days are just migraine days. They are the lost days, though they are not always entirely lost. Today I put off until tomorrow a few things that needed attention, electing to hang out with my mum and watch a movie instead. It was a good movie - Fair Game - and it was a good day, despite the pain, to which one becomes accustomed after several years, keeping calm and carrying on so that people generally have no idea what is actually going on until one blogs about it. Though they may assume that, due to

a) irritability
b) disinterest
c) silence
d) all of the above

one has had no sleep, no red meat and no vitamins. The other headache sufferers get it. They see my pain.

The rest of the day, after leaving Mum's, was full on. That is, under the circumstances, it was full on (sans migraine it would have been a relatively normal, busy afternoon). I picked up Poppy from school and we stopped for dairy and fruit. I think we needed other things too but I couldn't think. To be honest, I just wanted to get Poppy's pineapple and get outta there! A pineapple for you! I almost bought Thai eggplants, people! They are such cute lil' green berries that had it been a different, painless day, I would not have been able to resist taking on the culinary challenge of making an authentic Thai curry (as opposed to my variable versions inspired by the illustrations in cook books I haven't yet read).

From the fruit shop to the studio, via home for an ice treat. No, not a neapolitan icecream treat or a home-made in Tupperware red Cottee's cordial ice block treat. An ice cube. "Just an ice cube, Mama." My daughter is sometimes fantastically easy to please. Pineapple? Check. Ice cube? Check. Grateful, grateful.

I taught singers until 7:15pm so dinner turned out to be nothing more complicated than home-made pumpkin soup, which I'd prepared last night, in a kitchen that, when I closed my eyes, for a moment became my grandmother's. I don't remember a Toowoomba visit without pumpkin and beans and Grandma's Stew all bubbling away on the stove top.

Poppy and I love our soup kitchen. Sam not so much. No soup for you! Tonight, while he was at rehearsal for the theatre alliance soirée happening on Saturday, it felt good to have a big bowl of simple, steaming hot, comfort-food-pumpkin-soup.

There must be something - some soup thing - passed down through generations on my mother's side. A soup gene. We all love our soup.

Let them eat soup!

This winter, I'm opening up our soup kitchen to the friends who'd love to come read some plays with us. You know who you are. We've talked about this for years. You know what you need to do. Bring bread and plays. Bread and plays, people.

I'll make the soup.