Just because you're going forward doesn't mean that I'm going backwards
For Thanksgiving, my father made me a fact rock from Over the Garden Wall (2014). Pictured at home:
My niece who seems to have liked the first episode has its mate. I walked around the block with my brother just after sunset and the air smelled like cold earth and barbecue smoke.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and rushthatspeaks Zoomed with different branches of family on either side of dinner. Our turkey observed the tradition of not actually cooking on time despite calculations beforehand and somehow we ended up with five pies. I was not able to deface the marker for Ten Hills Farm (and three people) in time for the holiday, but the squash and apple soup flavored with maple and sumac came out beautifully, with a sweetness and silkiness from the corn stock that I doubt a more carrot-and-celery base would have conferred. I will keep promoting a_reasonable_man's vision of Fast Day, the missing half of this festival of gratitude in our unbalanced wheel of the year. It keeps turning and we're here to ride with it and that is still the important thing.
My niece who seems to have liked the first episode has its mate. I walked around the block with my brother just after sunset and the air smelled like cold earth and barbecue smoke.
spatch and rushthatspeaks Zoomed with different branches of family on either side of dinner. Our turkey observed the tradition of not actually cooking on time despite calculations beforehand and somehow we ended up with five pies. I was not able to deface the marker for Ten Hills Farm (and three people) in time for the holiday, but the squash and apple soup flavored with maple and sumac came out beautifully, with a sweetness and silkiness from the corn stock that I doubt a more carrot-and-celery base would have conferred. I will keep promoting a_reasonable_man's vision of Fast Day, the missing half of this festival of gratitude in our unbalanced wheel of the year. It keeps turning and we're here to ride with it and that is still the important thing.
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It's from Sean Sherman and Beth Dooley's The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017), where it is the "Squash and Apple Soup with Fresh Cranberry Sauce / Wagmú na Tȟaspáŋ Waháŋpi nakúŋ Watȟókeča T'aǧa Yužápi." The recipe on the page is:
This rich, flavorful soup has a creamy texture without cream. We use the small, tart crab apples that grow in backyards and along the borders of farm fields.
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 wild onion, chopped, or ¼ cup chopped shallot
2 pounds winter squash, seeded, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tart apple, cored and chopped
1 cup cider
3 cups corn stock or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon maple syrup or more to taste
salt to taste
sumac to taste
cranberry sauce or chopped fresh cranberries for garnish
Heat the oil in a deep, heavy saucepan over medium heat and sauté the onion, squash, and apple until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cider and stock, increase the heat, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the squash is very tender, about 20 minutes. With an immersion blender or working in batches with a blender, puree the soup and return to the pot to warm. Season to taste with maple syrup, salt, and sumac. Serve with a dollop of cranberry sauce.
We used canola oil, a small shallot, butternut squash, and a Granny Smith. The book's recipe for corn stock is:
Save the corncobs after you've enjoyed boiled or roasted corn on the cob or you've cut the kernels for use in a recipe. Put the cobs into pot and cover with water by about 1 inch. Bring to a boil and partially cover. Reduce the heat and simmer until the stock tastes "corny," about 1 hour. Discard the cobs. Store the stock in covered container in the refrigerator or freezer.
but we used the liquid left in the pot from boiling the ears of corn themselves and it was startlingly corn-sweet and didn't even need to be cooked down. (We did need to strain it for silk and kernels.) We actually blended the soup twice and cooked it another twenty minutes in between because of its slightly grainy texture after the first time, but your mileage may vary and so does the toughness of squash. In terms of seasoning, I would say we ended up with a substantial dollop of syrup and no more, two large pinches of salt and then a smaller dash, and about the same of ground sumac. It was amazingly fragrant and complex. I find a lot of root vegetable dishes to have a kind of cold flavor and even before the sumac, this one did not. It probably did not hurt in the long run that it hung out in the refrigerator for two days mellowing before we reheated and ate it, but it was pretty delicious hot out of the pot on Tuesday, too. The cranberries on top were a nice garnish (my family makes a relatively tart and simple cranberry sauce, composed of boiling cranberries with a handful of sugar flung on top until they burst), but not necessarily essential. I ate it also without.
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Eee thank you!
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Hooray!
I don't think the sumac added heat in the same way that cayenne would, but I'm glad to hear the cayenne was an acceptable substitution. It was a surprisingly warm-toned soup to begin with, which I attribute to the corn.
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Thank you so much for the link about Fast Day. I didn't know about it, and I think it's definitely something reincorporating into our tradition.
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I think you might like it a lot! It's a ten-episode miniseries that takes just about two hours to watch; it's intensely autumnal and liminal and it draws as much from Americana as from fairy tales and leans into the ambiguity of both without throwing away its sense of the numinous or humor. It's visually gorgeous. I like just about all of its main characters. It is also a musical.
and I am *definitely* going to try corn stock for squash and apple soup! What a great idea.
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Thank you so much for the link about Fast Day. I didn't know about it, and I think it's definitely something reincorporating into our tradition.
You're very welcome. I need to remember it in April and calculate the appropriate day.
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It's a very good representation!
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Thank you! It was a good day, with good food and good people, and I really enjoy the rock.
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I certainly regret nothing.
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I highly recommend both! (Possibly even at the same time.)
And thank you for calling attention to Fast Day!
Thank you for introducing me to it!