+ In extension of our chats (semi-regular, because, life and the following), Louisa and I cooked together via video chat, crossing and connecting a great distance over the equator, 9-hour time difference, and opposite seasons. One person shares a recipe, and guides the other through making it. While I harvested kales and other leafy greens in Autumnal Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Louisa sliced carrots in Springy Melbourne, Australia. She also prepared this meal at the end of the day, while I was still gathering myself after a rough night of sleep. +
+In the couple of weeks where Summer turns into Fall, and Spring into Summer on the other end, we do sometimes find some overlap in our days. Similar weather, some sun, some rain, overall more dreary on this end with shorter days. The few late raspberries that I was able to pick due to a bit of late September warmth, are no match by far for the handfuls of berries and luscious plums and peaches that are already in season over there. Peaches! Oh how I'd love to have a peach tree. +
+All poetic virtual traveling aside, as Louisa put it when I proposed the project, "Your breakfast can be my dinner and vice versa!!"
+And so we began.
+
+
+October 14, 2021
+08:30 CET / 17:30 AEDT
+Conversation, 1hr 21m 22s
+
+ I think it was at an organic cafe/food store in North Fitzroy about twenty years ago seventeen years ago, when we all met, Louisa was falling in love with my classmate Dan around this time of year where I was served the most delicious and most memorable soup. It was a big bowl of clear vegetable stock broth with a rainbow array of fresh, barely simmered vegetables floating around alongside soft pillows of spinach ravioli. So delicious! It was such a satisfying meal. I have made my own version of it hundreds of time with whatever fresh veggies I have in the fridge and whatever pasta I have in the cupboard. I call it "the spring soup" because it satisfies the need for warm foods as I slowly move out of my winter-cooking mindset and the desire to eat the new fresh vegetables that are popping up at the market or in my garden: asparagus, beans, carrots, silverbeet/snijbiet/Swiss Chard/beet leaves + and then tomatoes, peas, peppers and so on, but I do have a tendency to prepare it at any time of the year with whatever veggies are at hand, and I fancy something fairly light to eat. When Inge suggested cooking together I instantly thought of this soup because it can easily be vegan if you use regular pasta instead of ravioli, and it could be a nice healthy breakfast too. +
+ + I've made coffee and played with the cats for their usual morning routine: fetching kibble that I throw around the house. Louisa was a bit later too because dog friend Tony wanted to go for a walk first. When our housemates were fed and roaming around the house, we connected. We connected over Skype. I seemed to be safely positioned inside a cooking device, away from the splatter and spatulas, I set my phone in a bowl and then in a glass but our kitchen is wide so I was out of the frame for much of our time together and Louisa was streaming on my phone, balancing between the mocha maker and the bottles of oil on the counter. There was a loose recipe for Louisa's favorite my favourite routine soup, but overall it ended up being much more about cooking together and spending impossible time together (of course), than closely following a recipe and getting it right. +
+
+ Do you have beans? I have beans
+
+ I don't know if I've got beans. I've got broccoli.
+
+ I haaave... let me check the fridge. I have cucumber.
+
+ I don't think cucumber would be good. I've never had it cooked.
+
+ Yeah... No... I eat it with scrambled tofu sometimes.
+
+ Is that a cat?
+
+ Yeah, he has this weird habit of licking the olive oil bottle.
+
+ Maybe he's a Mediterranean cat.
+
+ Oh I have a bit of yellow zucchini left! And I'll go get some kale.
+
+ Great, zucchini is really nice, actually, in this soup.
+
+ Okay.
+
+ But we don't have it in season right now, so they didn't have it at the market.
+
+
+ I put two cups of water in a small saucepan and added a heaped teaspoon of powdered vegetable stock in it. (Actually it was marked as "chicken style" vegetable stock which made Inge laugh when I showed her!) I tried to mimic the broth with the spices, vegetables and herbs I had available. I cut some chili chilli, garlic, and a small red onion before adding the available vegetables. We talked about what we can grow in the yard this time of year, and found out that early Spring in Melbourne and Autumn in Rotterdam is good for beet leaves, beans, spinach. While I was waiting for the broth to boil I watched as Inge went down into her garden to pick the vegetables for her own version of the soup. +
+
+ I don't know if I have enough battery, but I'll try to take you outside.
+
+ I get to see the market?
+
+ You'll see my supermarket.
+
+ Is it very far?
+
+ I mean my downstairs supermarket. My backyard.
+
+ +There weren't many beans left, but plenty of leafy greens! With the phone in my hand, I was proudly showing Louisa the vegetables of my labor, the big monster plant with Brussels sprouts, while getting some beet leaves, Russian kale and New-Zealand spinach. How lovely to have fresh vegetables so ready to hand! As we are just coming out of winter in Melbourne my garden just has a little bit of silverbeet and some parsley. The broad beans are growing tall but their beans are not big enough to pick just yet. I chose some vegetables I had in the fridge and chopped them into fairly small pieces: carrot, the carrots here didn't come up. Last year I had a nice patch of small carrots, as I sowed them too close together, but this year either the cats rummaged through the soil or the slugs ate the leafy ends, silverbeet, red pepper, broccoli and some chilli, which I put inside to escape the colder nights, as they are just starting to turn from green to red now + . I also grated a little bit of garlic because these days I am enjoying garlic in practically everything. When the water boiled I scraped all the veggies off the board and into the soup together. As they started to cook I chopped up some parsley for garnish. + +
+
+ So how are you going? Have you got veggies in the pot?
+
+ Yeah I added the garlic. I haven't added the water yet.
+ I guess I'm kind of making a broth.
+
+ Okay, I think I'm gonna put in my green leaves now.
+ They need a couple minutes before I add the pasta.
+
+ Yeah. Ah. So you're almost done. My zucchini still... how does your broccoli cook so quick?
+
+ I cut it up really really small.
+
+ Ah and my fire is on low. Broth, what else is in broth.
+ Oh. I'll add some cumin.
+
+ Oh, that'll be interesting.
+
+ And I have mustard seeds. Nutmeg? Maybe that's a bit weird.
+ Okay, I'll add the water. That's so funny, as soon as you add water, it's soup.
+
+ + While Louisa guided me through the recipe, we caught up on recent events, chatting away the whole time while cutting, boiling, cooking. I had a bluetooth earbud in my ear so I could roam freely around the kitchen and speak to Inge and hear her clearly. In the end, she added vermicelli (and in my cabinet's case, whole wheat noodles, soaked in hot water for four minutes or a bit more). Then Louisa's family gathered at the table, while the cat here blurred the video feed with all his fur, and we all sat down to eat together! Which we hadn't done since I stayed with them in 2018! Everyone was home and in the kitchen/living space--my partner, my daughter and my dog. +
+
+ Are you still there, Inge?
+
+ Yeah.
+ I wanted to add some seasoning.
+
+ +We all love Inge and I know they were sorry they couldn't hear her as we were doing the cooking so I promised that when we sat down to eat we could all chat to her as if she were sitting at the table with us. I saw her kitty cats cross the frame of the camera, sometimes sauntering, sometimes dashing. My dog was in his usual mode for this time of the day. He hangs around me in the kitchen hoping I'll give him some broccoli scraps--which I do, although I know I probably shouldn't. My partner had the exercise mat rolled out and was stretching his muscles after doing some exercise and my daughter (aged 12) was drawing on her iPad while watching a video on her computer and listening to an audiobook--all at once! +
+ +The ravioli I usually use are small and take about five or six minutes to cook. I usually put about ten or twelve pieces in the pot not long after I have put the vegetables in. This time however I didn't have any ravioli in the house so I put some short pieces of angel hair pasta in instead. This takes only two minutes to cook so I waited until the hardest vegetable--the carrot--was just about to be cooked through before I put a small handful in. Really this was not long into the cooking at all, just about three or four minutes because I like the vegetables to stay fresh tasting and not overcooked or mushy. When all was cooked just the way I like it I tipped the soup into a large bowl, topped it with the parsley and a dribble of olive oil and set it on the table. The dribble of olive oil! This is one of the first things Louisa taught me when I started joining them for dinners. Dipping good fresh bread, or slightly toasted bread, in a savory olive oil is still an addition to my own soups and stews that makes me feel connected to her while I eat. + +
+In our house we all eat different foods for dinner. Usually my partner has some kind of protein shake and my daughter who is still very fussy about food likes something very plain and I like to eat something with lots of vegetables or lentils. So when we sat down to eat with Inge I was the only one eating the soup I had made. I set the phone in the glass at the head of the table so she could see all of us and so that we could all see her. It's not the same as having her here in person with us. We can't sit close, give each other hugs, check out each other's self-done haircuts and refashioned clothes. But it's nice to be able to chat about our lives together, to hear what's going on here and there, what matters and what doesn't. I slurp up my vegetables and pasta soup and she does the same. It's nice to connect like this. +
+ + I love being part of your daily life like this. + +
+