The problem came when the egg of the sauce cooked itself in the remaining soup sometime while I was gnoshing. In the place of the subtly green cloudiness, I found a yellowish storm of sediment hiding under a thin, fluffy whiteness floating on the surface. A quick taste confirmed that it hadn’t lost much in the way of flavor, but it was infinitely less pleasing on a purely aesthetic level. The soup that had suggested spring had turned, in the course of barely 45 minutes, into a perfect model of autumn. I was sad. Even though J- returned home commenting on how good it smelled and assuring me that he probably wouldn’t even notice, I know what the soup was like before it overcooked.
I’m thinking that next week’s project will likely be borscht. It’s hard to go wrong with a pot full of roots and tubers.