Red, Dread, Redemption

 The first of the grains of snow appeared. Insignificant at first but soon they became thicker until a blizzard obscured the hills and thoughts of travel were shelved. It could have easily have been a metaphor for the recent turn of events where something that seemed that it might be manageable was turning into something that had the potential to stop me in its tracks. 

Back at the house the phone rang and news of the first of my family members to pass away from Covid-19 was passed on to me. She'd left the building a few years earlier through dementia, after once being an energetic individual who kept me on my toes and taught me how to tie my shoelaces as a schoolboy. 

A warming soup was needed with the mercury hitting the minus numbers. I plumped for a tomato soup recipe that included the following:

• Six Fresh Tomatoes cut into cubes. 
• Six cloves of Garlic diced carefully. 
• A teaspoonful of Paprika.
• A diced Red Pepper. 
• A small Red Chilli cut into pieces. 
• Eight fresh Basil Leaves.
• Four Hundred and Fifty Grams of Tomato Puree liquid.
• Two Hundred and Fifty Grams of Sun-Dried Tomatoes. 

The album on the player was Mark Knopfler's carefully-crafted 2012 double-album of folk-blues "Privateering". One song, which opens the second disc, the epic, string laden, Celtic-flavoured "Kingdom of Gold" sounded like it could have been the perfect send off for my late relative as she started off on the planet in a Fishing Town in North Eastern Scotland back in the early 1930s. 

The method for this soup is quite simple and goes like this:

• Steadily fry the Fresh Tomatoes, Garlic, Paprika, Chilli, Red Pepper and Basil leaves in some Olive Oil in a Le Cresceut with the lid on for twenty minutes on a medium heat. 
• Add the Tomato Puree Liquid and Sun-Dried Tomatoes and simmer for around fifteen minutes. 
• Pour the contents of the Le Cresceut into a blender then purify. 

There's something a little defiant about plucking fresh Basil and Chilli from one of my houseplants in the middle of winter when little should be growing. Both these ingredients added a real tangy freshness to the soup while the sun-dried tomatoes give a real rich and weathered taste to the whole soup. 

Just after finishing my first helping of the soup an e-mail was received. Maybe it was time for something new.