Washington DC and Soup

Yesterday we visited Johnny in Washington, DC. We were surprised he was waiting for us and actually carved out part of his day to spend time with Mom and Dad. He relocated to a new house in the U Street area of the city and we were anxious to see his new digs. We were pleasantly surprised with the neighborhood and his house. He lives in an 'English Basement' with another roommate and they share a kitchen and bath. It has all been renovated with granite counter tops and nice woods. I was impressed! The boys are even paying for a cleaning service to come in every 2 weeks  - which is HUGE for my son who still lives like he did in COLLEGE and if you saw THAT house you would turn around and yell FIRE.

I was happy to see John looking so content in his new room and clearly having a good time in this adopted city of his........he has goals and ideas and a million things going on......which is great!

We walked to lunch a few blocks from his house. I thought to myself, I would LOVE to be able to walk everywhere and live in a city - where he is it seems like a neighborhood not like center city and if you can't walk you can take the metro........there are a bunch of neat bars around there too. We ate at Eatonville which is a new southern style restaurant and was a bustling hive of people. It came highly recommended by Matt, one of John's roommates and it was a good choice. If you're ever down there here is the Washington Post review:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/eatonville,1155907.html

Today is Monday and that means ROOT CANAL for Nancy. I spent the afternoon flat on my back with my jaw wide open. And the fun is not over yet - I return in 2 weeks when the inflammation goes down. So I knew I wouldn't be eating steak tonight and since it is a cold rainy day here in Marlton I decided to make soup and this is a good thing for you 20-somethings to do out there. It's full of fresh veggies and really whatever you want to add. You can make a pot of it in the beginning of the week and take it to work all week or just heat up for dinner after your Yoga classes or your Run or your Grad School classes or your book club or your just long long day!

I started out sauteing chopped onion, zucchini, red pepper and pancetta in olive oil (don't worry if you don't have pancetta or even know what it is - I just happened to be listening to the radio at the same time that Mark Bittman from the NYTIMES was saying every soup tastes better with a little bacon and having no bacon I added pancetta from my last visit to Arthur Ave. in The BRONX) - You don't even have to have those certain vegetables - onion, carrot, celery - whatever you have in frig. Add broth - today I had College Inn low sodium chicken broth - 32oz box and half of another - a 14oz can of diced tomatoes and some type of carb - today I cooked barley in advance and threw that in there but you can use any kind of pasta or rice or QUINOA. Just make sure you cook it first. I also baked some chicken and chopped that up. You could buy a rotisserie chicken and tear that apart or buy some chicken breasts and season with salt and pepper, olive oil  and some seasonings you like - bake in 400' oven for 35-40 minutes. This soup can become your own because you can make it what you like and with experience you might become famous and have your own food show.

Now, I'm going to see if I can slurp down some of this soup.