We have had a casualty.

I'm obsessed with cumin, among other things.
I love it. It's so nice and warm, while not being too spicy. It brings the warmth to indian food that I always try to recreate in my chili, with great success, happily. Cumin = joy.
Or at least, it was...... until tonight. *sob*





I know it's my fault, but sometimes I overstack things in the spice cabinet - it's an oddly shaped cabinet with only 3 shelves, one of which is too high for me to reach. So I jam spices in and stack them on top of each other and I opened the cabinet and it happened so fast and the cumin just jumped and...



Well, I'm sure you know how the story ends. Cumin all over the crevice between the mixer and the wall. Cumin smell everywhere but no actual cumin anywhere. The lid cracked, and the cumin spilled out, and the jar didn't break (happily) but the cumin is wasted and it was just...... Well, we'll let the picture speak for itself.

Needless to say, I need to replenish my spice stores. Especially since I used up all the curry powder I had trying to salvage the potato-pumpkin Mulligatawny soup I tried to make. Let this be a lesson to all improvisors: Potatoes suck up flavor, and they don't share. Even if you boil them in some yummy broth that is all curry-fied, they will suck up the flavor and not share it with the party. SO if you are making a soup that involves potatoes, don't add 4 if you're planning to puree. Just add 2. TRUST JOHANNA. She will not steer you wrong. So now, I'm hoping that the other woman in my life, Goya Salsita Chipotle (shhh, don't tell cumin), can save this soup. If she can't do it, no one can. Well, presumably a long long simmer can, and some tumeric, and I'm not going to lie, I definitely scraped all the cumin off the countertop to dump into the soup pot. I'm hoping. Because otherwise, I've wasted the end of my pumpkin, and 4 potatoes, and a box o' stock, AND my cumin, and my curry powder. Basically..... I'm really hoping for some magic here. Otherwise, my dinner and Jesse's dinner will be the rest of hte beer and the rest of that tube of cookie dough I haven't been eating since we got back from the store.

As far as you know.


UPDATE: A good long simmer and a good bit of salt and a visit with Miss Salsita definitely did some magic with the soup. Next time... I'm only bringing 2 potatoes to the soup party. And I'm going to conquer curry paste, by shopping in a neighborhood with no ethnic profile - searching for Patak's Curry Paste in a largely Jamaican/Caribbean neighborhood is not fun -- they had 16 brands of coconut milk, 8 million things with Scotch Bonnets in them, but no curry paste. So... unitl I learn to make my own, I'll just buy curry paste. And more cumin. :(
BUT!
The soup is good. Not as good as H&H's but considering I combined 2 recipes and didn't really follow either.... I get what I deserve.
Next time, my dears.

Next time.