Strikes and a soup
What I'm listening to, what I'm cooking
What I’m listening to
Two good audiobooks (good book, good narrator): How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend by Dr. Rachel Barr and Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. I’m trying to read 100 books this year, so send me your shortest favorites! (ha ha)
The nurses are on strike! They deserve the world! And we deserve the safe patient ratios they’re fighting for on our behalf. Labor Notes just covered the nurses strike and Brian Lehrer did a show on Why New York City’s Nurses are on Strike (listen for the nurses and patients who called in, they were the best part). More podcasts should be covering this, let me know if you hear one.
Union Busting with Sara Nelson from Here We Go Again With Kal Penn is a good intro/overview of union politics and the importance of strikes.
On transportation: How Mayor Mamdani Can Create a More Livable City, with Ben Furnas & Sara Lind from Max Politics. As I walk around NYC and notice all the parts of the street that are piled high with snow so not needed by cars, I’m thinking we should reclaim that space for people (aka sneckdowns). If that sounds good to you, this episode is a good intro to similar city planning ideas.
A nice, warm, garlicky, not-minestrone soup
I made a tasty soup. It’s minestrone ingredients but garlicky, a bit blended, and topped with crispy onions. Cheap and easy to make a huge pot and keep you warm.
First, the beans: cook dried cannellini beans, ideally in a pressure cooker with
1 diced onion
3 cloves of crushed garlic
1 bay leaf
plenty of broth (I used an Edward & Son Garden Veggie bouillon)
plenty of olive oil and salt & pepper
Then later, the soup. Start by sautéing in a new pot:
olive oil, salt & pepper, red pepper flakes
4 diced shallots
5 cloves of garlic, smushed with the back of a knife then fine diced
Once those are soft and quite fragrant, add
3 diced medium potatoes — cook for a few minutes, then
ladle in the olive oil and onions from the top of the bean water — cook for a few more minutes, then add
1 small can crushed tomatoes
1 diced beefsteak tomato
Cook for a few more minutes, then ladle in the rest of the bean stock water (don’t add the beans yet). Cook until you worry the potatoes are getting too soft. Then add:
half a napa cabbage finely chopped
finally, add the beans!
taste and salt
Cook for a few more minutes until it’s boiling again. Then, using an emersion blender, blitz about 6 short bursts in order to blend about 1/3 of the soup. Let that simmer on a low temp for a bit while you…
in a big frying pan, fry a medium yellow onion, cut in half and then sliced for long strips (I got the idea for the onions when my friend made Alison Roman’s Dilly Bean Stew with Cabbage and Frizzled Onions)
Serve with pasta or crusty bread or both, fried onions sprinkled on top, and a grating of parmesan, grana, or pecorino. As with most soups, it’s best the next day.
Let me know what you like and what you’re looking for!
<3
Leah