Them's Good Eatin'!

Tasty Harvest Soup

Day 1: Buy chanterelles at the farmer's market on a whim. Throw them in the vegetable drawer.

Day 3: Remember the mushrooms, and realize that they won't last much longer. Google "chanterelle". Be uninspired. Notice your boss looking over and get back to work.

Come home. Cut a hefty butternut squash in half longwise. Place upside down in a pyrex baking dish with water just barely covering the bottom. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Allow to cool, then get impatient and scrape squash out of peel. Burn fingers. Swear. Remember that you're not supposed to swear now. Check the clock and see that it's far too late to make soup; put squash in tupperware. Make pasta instead.

Day 4: Come home. Feed baby. Play with baby. Put sleeping baby in crib. Chop up an onion and saute it in 1 tablespoon of butter. Add another tablespoon, because it looks like too much onion. Pet the fuzzy, fresh sage, then ruthlessly chop it up and add it when the onion has softened. Add squash and chicken broth and simmer over medium heat. Get screaming baby out of crib. Feed baby. Change baby. Feed baby again. Hand baby off to Matt, claiming thaat you need to stir the soup. Stir soup, for appearance's sake.

Cut chanterelles in half, except for the really tiny one. Saute in more butter, adding some olive oil so you don't have to feel quite as bad about it. When mushrooms are barely softened, add some dry white wine and allow it to cook off. Throw some wine into the soup, too, just for the hell of it. Remove soup from heat and puree in blender. Remove chanterelles to a bowl. Return soup to pot and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in a handful of grated parmesan. Admire the lovely orange color.

Ladle soup into bowls and top with chanterelles. Serve with salad in a bag, two bottles of dressing, and the end pieces from three loaves of bread, still in packaging. Pour large glasses of remaining wine. Attempt to eat while passing baby back and forth.