For all these years, homemade tomato soup was not in my recipe file. When you have good ol' Campbell's Tomato Soup in the can, why bother, right? But friend Shirley convinced me that after I made tomato soup with garden vegetables, I'd be convinced it was worth the bother.
And Shirley supplied 6 orangish-yellowish heirloom tomatoes.
The how-to:
Peel 6 tomatoes by putting in boiling water for a minute. Retrieve, cool a bit and the skins fall off.
Saute 1/2 an onion in olive oil in one pan while the tomatoes are cooking on the stove top in another sauce pan.
Add 1 Tbsp sugar to the tomatoes
Make a quick roux by adding some flour into butter and stir along with some water until thick. You'll add this at the last to help the soup thicken.
Combine the onions to the tomatoes and then the roux and cook it all til thickened. Either dump into a blender or use an immersion blender to blend on top of the stove, leaving a few tomato chunks for texture.
Now add 1/8 tsp. baking soda, but don't ask me why.
Then add 1 can of evaporate milk to the soup and heat until it is hot, but DON'T BOIL the milk. Salt and pepper and croutons on top!!
I'll make this again, especially if Shirley provides the tomatoes!
Several weights of watercolor paper are in my stash, ready to be used for painting with tubed watercolors.
This newly finished "PANSY in BLUES" was painted onto 170 lb. canvas paper.
A thorough explanation of why various weights of paper are used for watercolors can be found here.
If anyone with camera expertise can tell me how to get that flash blur off the glass reflection, please let me know. I did take the flash off, but then the colors did not show through the glass.
Rivka, an amazing, generous, loving, faithful, Zionist (blogger friend) who went to Israel a while back, wrote a post Called "Choose Life" that can be found here. She believed so much in fighting that dreaded disease of cancer that she made herself available to speak publicly about how to treat adversity while continuing to live the good life. Rivka has several YouTube videos that can be viewed here and here and here and here.
In her words, on her blog, she says about herself:
Diagnosed with DCIS (stage ZERO breast cancer) at age 39 (June 2005). Three surgeries and 2 years later (July 2007)... I became a statistical anomaly: breast cancer mysteriously metastasized to my bones, liver and lungs. 2 years later (July 2009), we discovered metastases in my brain.
Diagnosis: Cancer is a "chronic illness." You can live with it.Translation: I hope to be on chemotherapy for a LONG time!
Sadly, Rivka's battle ended this weekend. Her many friends sat Shiva for her and her funeral was Saturday night at 10 pm in Jerusalem at the Kehillat Yerushalayim Beit Hesped in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, across from the Herzog Hospital (on Har Hamenuchot). Over 1000 people attended. Loudspeakers allowed those outside the building to hear tributes to Rivka.
To learn more about Rivka and her strong faith, I would encourage you readers to go to her blog and read over her past few years of writing and encouragement. Her blog can be accessed at http://www.coffeeandchemo.blogspot.com/ if you are not used to clicking on links. Again, the web link is the same: CoffeeandChemo.
I did not know Rivka personally, but she had a very positive impact on my life. Likewise, here is what Baila, another virtual blogger friend, said (go to Baila's blog here):
Some of my friends think this whole blogging relationship is just plain weird. They wonder why I talk to "strangers". They don't quite understand why I am so saddened by a death of someone who, in their mind, I barely knew. It's hard to explain to you non-bloggers. I don't quite understand it myself. But after blogging for some time, we find that the lines of our real and blogging lives somehow blur. RivkA wrote so honestly about her disease and her struggle that I feel like I did know her. I will miss her--I checked her blog daily, even before the last week. She posted almost everyday.
Baila said it well and I agree with her sentiments.
Rivka ended almost all of her postings this way:
Please daven (or send happy, healing thoughts) for RivkA bat Teirtzel.
With love and optimism, RivkA
(June, 2009)
I believe this is what her friends say now and may I also say that her battle is over and Rivka, may you rest in peace.
Please daven (or send happy thoughts) for the memory of RivkA bat Yishaya.
