Not-so-Southern comfort

Among the many events of this week is a much-anticipated visit from my BFfroC, who will be arriving late tonight for a brief stay before she moves on to a family event. I plan to have something warm and homey waiting for her when she arrives this rainy evening: fresh tomato soup with pesto and semolina bread.

I wasn't sure that it would be late enough in the summer for good tomatoes. But when I visited the Greenmarket and a stand proprietor saw me skeptically eyeing the tomatoes, he offered me a taste, gratis. It paid off for him, because the tomatoes were delicious. I bolstered their flavor with a little tomato paste anyway and used some milk left over from the Dutch baby to make the soup light and creamy.

Speaking of milk, the rest of it needed to be used up, and quickly. Solution? Boil up some brown rice pudding while studying (I can't believe there was once a day when I actually enjoyed histology. Yes, fellow med students, I confess: I used to like histo. Don't worry, this final has beaten that out of me.). It tastes like home.