Velvety Chilled Corn Soup
I’ve used this photo before but I love it. This is Mom at Ridgefields in Kingsport, TN after my grandmother (Nonnie’s) funeral. The wall is the color of corn soup. LOL
This is my grandmother, Nonnie, looking elegant at her house in South Carolina. She was a painter who hugely inspired me. Not only is the wall behind her the color of corn soup (!) but she also painted that mural. Her houses always had decorative paintings scattered about.
Riffing on photos of summer. Here are Mom and Dad at Lake Champlain in Vermont during one of our family reunions. Mom is rocking a badass Modern Times outfit (the boutique where I worked in high school) and Dad is wearing a shirt from his trip to Indonesia. Who knew that Dad’s glasses would be the eyewear choice of hipsters today?!
Another summer shot. Mom all long limbs and gorgeous at one of my Dad’s summer seminars.
This just showed up in my Facebook memories. The Reeds (minus my husband, Chris, who was working) in the Commodore Club on the Queen Mary 2 for the 1920s themed evening. This was 5 years ago, right before Mom died. It’s so wild how much the girls have grown and how much has changed.
Me, day of high school graduation from North Carolina School of the Arts, where I did NOT get thrown out! (See below for story.)
This isn’t related to anything in the blog post but I think it’s hilarious. I <3 the 80s! I’m in the middle wearing my “John Taylor Hat”. John Taylor is the HOT bass player from my childhood fave band, Duran Duran, known for his cheekbones and amazing headwear. I just saw the band in Austin last week and they’ve still got it! Also in this photo are Christine Nuzum on the left and my best friend, Robin Brown, on the right (in the rockin’ Members Only jacket!). This was taken either before or after Saturday morning orchestra practice.
These two photos were side by side in my archive and I thought the juxtaposition was interesting. Children in laps!
And, I’m afraid we’ve lost another family friend. Phil Rees, second from the right, died in May. He was a fixture in my childhood and a really interesting man! I grew up with his kids and we all went to the Chapel of the Cross. He is missed.
I loved this poem. Talk about holding a grudge! (See story below.)
Today’s one of those days when I need my mom. Not that Dale would know how to fix the wheezing air conditioner at our rental house in the West Texas Desert …… but, she would probably say something dry and funny and then feed me. So, yes, I need my mom.
I’m so tired of being an adult all of the time! I know this is something Mom could relate to. My daughter just graduated from high school a few weeks ago and also turned 18, so I have successfully raised a human from infant to adult. It was exhausting. I can't remember the details but I’m pretty sure I remember Mom going on strike from domestic duties once her kids left the house. She went from cooking three hot meals a day to staying in bed in the morning and having Dad bring her cereal.
GOOD FOR HER.
I recently drove out to West Texas in a car with two of my daughter’s teenage friends and my two stinky hound dogs. Where was my family, you may ask? Well, Chris and Luca went ahead of us for a few days of camping in Big Bend National Park, which should be one of the Wonders of the World (but maybe not in June). One of the teens messaged me beforehand asking if we were going to have a snack cooler. Um, I hadn’t thought that far in advance? She then took it upon herself to make sandwiches, buy drinks, chop veggies for hummus, load up the cooler with ice and, well, basically be a grown up. We were trading cars with this friend’s mom for the week since I drive a silly MINI that doesn’t hold anything. I kind of assumed that I would be driving. I mean, I AM the mom. Nope! The teen wanted to drive and her friend wanted to sit next to her. So, I sat in the backseat and relinquished control over both driving and music. Once on the road I realized that I forgot to eat breakfast. Luca’s friend offered me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which I gladly accepted. There is nothing like sitting in the backseat of a car being driven by an 18 year old while eating a PB&J to put your life in perspective. Who is the kid in this scenario?! Am I a crappy mom or am I simply modeling what a nontraditional parenting style looks like?! Ha ha. I would say the jury is still out but since my kid is now fully hatched (and amazing, by the way!) I’m going to choose the latter. I was recently at a party talking to the father of someone who goes to my daughter’s high school. My daughter is a self motivated go getter so she had some really great options for college. This dad said to me, “well, it just goes to show you that our parenting styles are different and that God has a sense of humor”. What the hell?! I guess I had told him I was pretty hands off in the college process but that seemed like an unnecessary dig. If Mom were alive, I would have told her about this conversation and you know what she would have done? She would have held a grudge against that guy. Big time. Mom had your back. My sister and I were just talking today about how she had been wronged and then later exonerated and how happy it would have made Mom. MOM WAS BIG INTO JUSTICE!
I can’t remember if I’ve told this story or not, I’ve been writing this blog for 2 1/2 years if you can believe it. So, I’ll tell it again and please humor me if you’ve heard it. When I was at the North Carolina School of the Arts for high school, my roommate and I were wrongly accused of drinking alcohol. (I mean, we did sometimes drink alcohol, just not in this particular instance. ha ha) We had these older friends we hung out with a lot, a couple named Doug and Bill who lived off campus. They seemed really mature. (They were 20 and 21 years old.) We were over there once and they had some cool looking liquor bottles they were going to throw away and for some reason we took them back to our dorm. They were empty. We placed them high on a shelf for decoration and then left for Christmas break. When we returned, Chuck, the scary head of the RAs, wanted to have a meeting with us. It seems they had searched everyone’s rooms during Christmas (not cool!) and found the bottles. There was a microscopic drop of liquor in one. We were in trouble. Big trouble. Like maybe getting thrown out of school trouble. I called Mom and told her what had happened. She believed me but agreed that telling Chuck that they came from my off campus older friends wouldn’t be the best tactic. She called up old Chuck and told him SHE had given me the bottles to use as props for still-life drawing. (My roommate and I got busy in our sketchbooks drawing bottles of booze from memory!) Mom handled it. Chuck let us off the hook. And Mom held a grudge against him until I graduated. Lady had your back! Years later I told her how much I appreciated her trust and support. I also confirmed that I truly hadn’t had any of that particular liquor. I had been telling the truth.
What strikes me now is how cool it was that I could go to my mom with that particular problem. I don’t think many of my friends could say the same thing. I like to think that I resemble my mom in some ways. My daughter recently went to a party that had alcohol and I had an honest conversation about it with her in advance. She’s about to go to Europe this summer where she will be of drinking age. I told her she could make her own decision about this but definitely NOT to drive if she had any drinks. Being a lawyer’s daughter, her response was perfect: “Definitely not! The liability!!!”
I’ve been gone way too long from this blog. My last post was in March, I think. Life got really busy and I let this fall by the wayside. I had a profile come out on me today and I actually mention this blog, in part because I want to shed some light back on it. Writing about Mom brings me both joy and closure. I’m sitting here going through my photo archive practically aching for my mother. When I was writing more regularly I knew those photos like the back of my hand. It’s been so long since I’ve visited them that I am finding new friends. I love spreading the Gospel of Dale.
It’s hot as hell in Texas right now so a chilled soup is about all that I can handle. I found this recipe in Mom’s files and thought it looked great. I’ve had a hot corn soup that she made but never this one, I think. Corn always makes me think about that kid who loved corn so much. If you haven’t seen the video, trust me, click the link. When we first bought our Austin house I was on a ladder painting in the office downstairs with the windows open. A guy pulled up and started yelling at me through the window asking me if I wanted to buy corn. Um, what?! Yup, corn. Dude only sold corn. From his car. I said no thanks and then immediately found Chris and told him we needed to build a fence.
I hope everyone is staying cool! It’s good to be back.
Velvety Chilled Corn Soup
6 ears fresh corn, husked
6 cups (about) canned low-salt chicken broth
3 shallots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
6 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
1/4 cup minced English hothouse cucumber
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
Using cleaver or heavy large knife, cut each ear of corn crosswise in half. Place corn in heavy large pot. Add 5 cups broth, shallots, and onion; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until corn is very tender, about 25 minutes. Using tongs, transfer corn to large bowl to cool; reserve broth.
Cut corn kernels off cobs. Return 4 cups corn kernels to broth (reserve any remaining corn for another use). Working in batches, puree soup in blender until very smooth. Strain soup through fine sieve set over large bowl, pressing on solids with back of spoon; discard solids. Mix in enough additional chicken broth to thin soup to consistency of heavy cream. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate soup until cold, about 4 hours.
(Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated.)
Ladle soup into 6 bowls. Top each with dollop of crème fraîche. Sprinkle with cucumber and chives and serve.
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