Vegetable Soup*

For the past few days I have had my head down trying to understand and progress a piece of work for a colleague.

I won't go in to detail as the actual task isn't really relevant. What I can say is that it is the usual nonsense involving lacklustre individuals that have failed to progress a fairly simple activity. Matters have now come to a head, as the deadline for a deliverable is this Friday. My task is to pull together loose threads and hassle and harry individuals to get them to do their jobs.

It has been challenging as the deliverable was not well defined and neither was the owner clear. As a result I have been retracing the team's steps to ensure that the source data is as complete and accurate as possible before passing it across and telling them to bloody well get on with it.

As of Thursday evening they appeared to be quite happy with progress and had enough information to blag their way through a presentation session with the client.

This isn't much of a Journal entry considering that I couldn't be bothered to jot anything down yesterday either so I thought I had better find some space filler ...

… A few weeks ago 30% and I attempted to recreate a soup I had made a couple of years ago. Normally one would consult a recipe book but I do have a habit of adapting recipes and I had a vague recollection of doing so with this culinary masterpiece. We found the source recipe but unfortunately the recipe book was unblemished with annotations and this Journal was silent on the subject too.

30% made a brave attempt at the recipe but her comment, after tasting, was along the lines of "it's alright, but you won't like it". This suggested a strong flavour of swede and parsnip, neither of which I am particularly fond.**

Where am I going with this? … a few moments ago 30% shifted the bread maker and and out wafted a scrappy piece of paper with the the following scrawled on it:-

12 oz Carrots (peeled and cut in to 2"lengths)
12 oz Celeriac (peeled and cut in to 2" lengths)
12 oz Leeks (halved and cut in to 2" lengths)
1 large Onion (roughly chopped)
6 oz Parsnips (peeled and cut in to 2" lengths)
6 oz Potatoes (peeled and cut in to 2" cubes)
3 Bay Leaves
Salt & Pepper to taste
3.75 Pints of Stock

6 hours in the slow cooker then liquidise

It was worth writing down so must be worth trying again.

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* This title is amazingly appropriate for both subjects in today's entry.
** Actually I don't mind parsnips but swede is classed as sheep food in my family and I tend to avoid livestock fodder in my dietary choices.