Root Vegetable Soup

It is cold. Spring yesterday, winter today.  I wanted to read Kristin Lavransdatter, drink outsized mugs of tea, and make ginger date muffins, but at 3:00 I had that slept-in-my-makeup feeling and had to get out of the house.  Out of the pajamas and into the jeans. Threw some more makeup on to protect my face.  It was bleak and foggy, we had left our walk too late, and big wet Kleenex-size flakes fell for awhile.  My husband wanted gummy bears, or gummy Easter eggs, but the store was closed.

Old-fashioned bookstore:  if only we had one in town.

The Bookstore That Never Sells Any Books was open, but my husband sensibly refused to shop there.  "I've spent more money at the candy store than there."  He thought I would buy a book and then they would insult us. These old-style Dickensian booksellers sit with pursed lips behind the counter, keep the store in a warm fug that makes you want to faint, and tell you you will not understand the second book of Abdlerahman Munif's trilogy (which they don't want to order).  The Amazon boxes are in everybody's recycling cans in the adjacent streets because nobody can buy anything at this bookstore.  



Now, I must admit, in my hometown (unlike here) indie booksellers are magnanimous and business-like.  You can buy anything you want: remaindered editions of Martha Gellhorn, small-press books, the latest Indie Reads books, and marijuana (oops, I made up that last part).  You can buy scrabble dictionaries, The Weird Sisters, Herodotus, or Ouida's Moths. You can order books. 

We wished we had some gummy bears...

Tonight I made root vegetable soup to protect us from the cold.  You throw in any root vegetables you want...turnips, carrots, parsnips, potatoes...and also some rice, and then cook in broth for 30 minutes.  Then you saute some onions and throw them in for 10 minutes.  Then you add some egg mixed with lemon at the last minute...and then you eat.   

And now back to Kristin Lavransdatter.  Really, I like this much more than The Master of Hestviken.