Memorial Day and Asparagus Soup

This being the cusp of the national Memorial Day holiday, officially to honor people who died in wars, but functionally a weekend for picnics, opening of the beach season here in NJ, I usually try to find something appropriate to do that doesn't glorify war, but does remember the people.

So this weekend, since I'm already walking the labyrinth in honor of the father of a friend, who left us just a few hours ago, I'll add in the intentions for the war dead. He was old enough to have remembered all the major wars, so it was part of his life, too.

Then on the frivolous food side, I decided to continue the tradition Handsome Partner and I had, of eating Bad Food for the Holidays. We ate, well I still do, very healthy stuff, no red meat, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, whole grain bread baked at home and so on. So a couple of times a year we would bust out. Hot dogs and rolls, potato chips, pickles, mustard, ketchup. Wonderful when you only have them a couple of times a year.

But before the Bad Food breaks out, today was Asparagus Soup day, using the rest of this week's farm share of asparagus, with homemade vegetable stock, and a bunch of croutons from homebaked bread, tossed in olive oil, pepper and salt, and served sizzling into the bowl. Much more where that came from, too. A couple more quarts in the freezer now. I only seasoned the soup with salt, since I didn't want to drown out the flavor with my usual mad shakes of spices. The big pot was a wedding present from HP's mother, back in early 1963, has a steamer top and lid, too, and has been used almost daily ever since. I must have made a vat of soup in it.

Happy Weekend to everyone! Good opening of the summer to them it refers to, sorry, people in Oz and NZ..