Corn and Carrot Soup, Minus the Coriander

I didn’t really expect it to end like this. “Don’t forget me. I have your tea towels ready to hang in my kitchen,” implying I wouldn’t forget her. I had already made it my kitchen even though our photos and letters still covered the walls. She smiled and then I leaned forward and she hugged me on the side, nuzzling into my arm and stomach. “I love you,” she said and I knew this. Even when she said it, it wasn’t new or something I needed to know right then. It was confirmation of something that wouldn’t go away. And so I replied, “I know.”




We ate in bed. Even though she wasn’t going to be sleeping over that night. Because it was going to end like this in only a few hours. It was the usual; corn, rocket, tomato, avocado and a hard-boiled egg with cider vinegar and olive oil. And then I walked her to the train station at Gare Du Nord, in the dodgy part of Paris, and all I could think was that we had made a home together so well.

Sometimes it can be easier to live when you list the things you know:

• A home is only home when those who live inside the house choose to love each other.

• Different people feel and know they are loved in different ways.

• Therefore it is only natural that a home takes a while to become established as we learn these things.

• But it works really well. It is a really good place to live in.

It hadn’t poured in Paris since March. But that night my feet and hair were saturated in dirty Parisian rain. My blue silk skirt clung to my legs in what seemed like a forlorn fear. I squelched up five flights of stairs and spent the evening cleaning and scrubbing my apartment. The light turned out and everything sparkled in the green luminescent Hotel sign from across the canal.




When it was morning I remembered that on a blazing hot summer day in the used-to-be summer here, which has become disguised by all the fallen brown leaves on the streets left over from the diseased chestnut trees, flatmate had made a carrot and coriander soup. I didn’t want coriander and it was too cold to walk to the markets, and so for lunch I used up last night’s corn and made a carrot and corn soup instead.




And here is something else to know and to list to help you live a little easier:
Corn and Carrot Soup goes exceptionally well with goats cheese. And it is incredibly simple to make for those meals when there is only you to feed.



Corn and Carrot Soup (for one)

2 carrots, pealed and cut in 1 cm rounds
1/3 cup of corn kernels
2 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
2 Tbsp cream
pinch pepper
goats cheese diced or crumbled
decoration: corn kernels and rocket




Place your corn, carrot, water, bay leaf and salt in a pot and bring to boil. Cover and boil until the carrot pieces are easily pierced with a knife. Take off the heat, and remove the bay leaf and leave only about ¼ cup of liquid in the pot. If all your liquid has been used up, pour ¼ cup of boiled water into the pot. With a hand-held processor, or normal processor, blend the vegetables to a pulp. Add the cream and pepper. Mix well and add any extra hot water necessary to get it to your desired soup consistency.
Pour in a bowl, sprinkle over goat cheese and anything else you want to decorate your soup with. Toast a piece of brown bread and as my friend Jonathan would say, “you’re away laughing.”