Concerts and soup!

Don't you just hate it when you microwave a bowl of leftovers and the bowl gets so hot you can't touch it, but the food stays lukewarm? Grrr! Microwave, you are my nemesis.

The food I'm talking about is a very delicious mushroom, bean and barley soup, which was scrumptious even though it was lukewarm. I'll post the recipe, but first it's story time! Come on kids, gather 'round now!

I have two stories, one of a vegan pioneer failure, and one of a success! But it doesn't matter which goes first, because the failure ended in happiness anyway. So I'll go with the success.

Tuesday night was the first concert in a brutal series that will be taking place mainly throughout next week. My trio was playing in a percussion studio concert. Here we are:

As you can see, the harpist and I tried and failed to look Indian since we were playing a Ravi Shankar piece. Oh well. Also, my hair is insane, because what you cannot see in this photo is the day of classes and dress rehearsals and essay editing that occurred before the concert. Anyway, I was really happy with our performance, even though my dear friend the harpist make a couple of mistakes that had me jumping around a bit to catch up with her. This piece is really a test of endurance on the part of the flutist, since it is insanely fast and the flute plays almost the entire 13 minutes of music, non-stop. So I think we did pretty darn well. And we played in bare feet! Always so much fun.

Okay, on to the point of the story, which is that afterwards, the harpist and I met up with some her friends, and they wanted to go to a little place called Juliet et Chocolat. Very popular here in Montréal, since they make incredibly delicious chocolatey creations. The one problem: it is so very very much dairy-oriented. I warned my harpist about this, and told her that I didn't mind them going, but I would not be able to eat anything, so I would just come in and sit with them until they were ready to go for a drink afterwards. And it looked at first as though my prediction was correct: everything on the menu was full of dairy! I was pretty resigned to waiting and drooling over the delicious-looking chocolate. But then the waitress came over, and although she was a bit stand-offish to my Anglophone friends, she was very very nice to me when I spoke French, and went to check with the chef to see if there was anything they could do for me. She came back super excited, saying that they could make me a hot chocolate with soy milk and extra bitter dark chocolate! She asked if I minded the super dark chocolate, and I told her it was my favourite kind! When she came with everyone else's treats, I was so happy to be included as well, and to be given a totally dairy-free, and really really scrumptious hot chocolate! So here we are with our treats. Score one for the vegan pioneer!

Vegan Pioneer Tip: When in Montreal, speak French! Or get someone else to order in French for you. If you don't know anyone French and are visiting Montreal, just give me a call! Haha. Yeah, the Québecois aren't always friendly to Anglophones, and I bet if I had asked for something vegan in English all I would have gotten was a rude look.

This post is getting super long. Anyway, my other story is about this past weekend, when my brother came to visit me! We had some fun times. On Saturday, we went and had lunch at a place called Santropol, on the corner of Saint-Urbain and Duluth. This café is adorable and I often take omni friends there, since the sandwiches are quite famous. Only a very few items are vegan, but the millet pie is really delicious! Also, the soup of the day is usually vegan, which brings me to the point of the story. On Saturday, there were two soups of the day: mushroom, bean and barley soup, and cashew potato soup. I reeeeeeally felt like the barley one, but when I asked the waiter if it was vegan, he told me there was chicken stock in it! What?! Who puts freakin' chicken in an otherwise completely vegan soup? Grrr. Okay, so I had the cashew potato. And dudes, it was DELICIOUS! At some point in the future I will make it, and then I will post the recipe. Because this was a fabulous combination, and who would have thought? So, I was happy with my soup and millet pie, and the afternoon was lovely.

But then... the craving struck! Suddenly I needed that barley soup. So, here it is: my on the spot, oh so tired from all the concerts and rehearsals, but damn do I need that -

Chicken-friendly Mushroom, Bean, and Barley Soup

1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 potatoes, diced
8-10 cremini mushrooms, sliced
6-7 cups of stock (depending on how thick you like your soup)
Tamari (Sorry, I didn't measure!! Probably around 2 or 3 tablespoons)
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup pearl barley
1 can beans, rinsed (I used kidney beans, since I had them on hand, but whatever's good)

Sauté the onions in the olive oil until translucent. I forgot about mine and went and checked my emails, and when I came back they had caramelized. Oh my dear Godard, they were delicious! The only reason you shouldn't let these caramelize is that if you're anything like me, you will start eating them out of the pot and forget to add the other ingredients! Throw in the carrots, celery and potato and sauté for another 5 minutes. Add the stock, mushrooms, salt, pepper, and tamari and bring to a boil. Add the barley and beans. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about 45 minutes, or until your barley is nice and puffy. Consume!

This soup makes a LOT (I could barely fit it all into our biggest pot!), so gather up some friends and feed 'em dinner! Man, this soup is so good it's BARLEY legal! Ahahahahahaah. See what I did there?

Yeah, okay. Never mind.