Clam Chowder

or
How a Bowl of Soup Became an American Heart Foundation Nightmare



8:37a.m. Wake to rain. A phone call actually. For the love of god people it's my day off; let me sleep. Anyway, I'm awake and it's raining.

9:20 Decide freezing drizzle = clam chowder.

10:30 Local fish shop isn't open yet. Gather vegetables like primitive, grunting. Onion, ungh, celery, ungh, garlic, thyme, bay, ungh. Trying to think of a soup that doesn't involve these veggies. Can't. Probably need a coffee.

11:00 "What do you mean you don't have any clams?"

1:00 Fish shop in china town. "So, you're completely out of clams?"

2:00 Break for lunch - much needed, double scoop gelato.

3:30 Finally clams!

4:00 Home. Wait, no potatoes.

4:30 Return home. Damn. Bread.

5:00 Return home. Shit. Cream.

5:15 Oooooh. Double cream is on sale for half the price of single cream. Using my superhuman math skills, that's, like, four times as much fat for the price of one.

5:30 Return home.

5:45 This is going to need bacon. (Luckily, I was a boy scout and therefore always have bacon.)

6:00 Lardons are slowly crisping, all the vegetables are diced, clams steamed open in white wine.

6:10 That sure is tasty bacon fat. Maybe I'll cook the celery and onion in that...

6:20 Add cooked veggies to the potatoes that have been cooked in the clam juice, scraping so as not to lose any of the bacony goodness.

6:22 A spoon of cream. One more. Ok, one more.

6:23 Handful of peas. Clams and bacon return. Lots of pepper. Salt. Taste. Salt. Taste. Salt. Taste.

6:24 This needs...

6:25 Yes! Can of smoked mussels lurking in the back of my cupboard. Just a couple of mussels. Maybe all of them. That oil is deliciously smoky; how about a drizzle of that? Might as well use the rest, small tin really.

6:27 Ready to eat.

6:28 Oops, forgot to butter the bread...