Minnie's Soup Kitchen

Broccoli Soup I suppose I could try and get away with writing that as this week encompassed the St Patrick's Day celebrations, it was appropriate that I made a green soup. I won't try. I chose broccoli as I had a lot of it in the fridge and decided to use it up. The Soup Book contains two recipes with broccoli: broccoli soup and potato soup with broccoli, shallot and mascarpone. Another reason I chose the former is because it also includes leeks and celery and I had some of those in the fridge too. The other ingredients are lemon juice, butter, flour, cream and chives (garnish). I made the soup this afternoon (Saturday 20th March). I didn't have quite enough homemade chicken stock, so I topped it up with the water in which I cooked the broccoli (Step 1). Good idea - I was very impressed with myself. The recipe involves cooking half of the broccoli and putting it aside for later when it is added to the soup. It's ready now and we'll probably have it for lunch to...

My Secret Life with Bees in Literature The other night as I was going to bed I turned on the radio (RTE 1) and happened to hear the reading from The Book on One . It was an extract from Virgil's Georgics concerning bees. The Georgics is a poem completed c.29 BC, comprising four books that deal with crops, trees, livestock and bees. What I was listening to was a translation by Peter Fallon (www.peterfallon.com), founder of the Gallery Press. The reference to honey as manna caught my attention and I continued to listen to Virgil's ideas on providing an ideal environment for bees to thrive in. The translator was the reader. The spouse and I agreed he didn't read well. Nevertheless I soldiered on for the sake of my blog! Other bee-related books I have enjoyed in recent years are The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and The Beekeeper's Pupil by Sara George. As far as I can remember the former is about a community of women protecting each other and the latter a fictio...