[music] MOBY - Hotel

I'd barely heard any Moby before this, and none of it contained his singing. Has he always had this strangled, nervous voice? It sounds, as odd as this is, almost exactly like Ben Kingsley in Death Of The Maiden, where he played a creepily unreadable doctor that may or may not be a rapist and government torturer. Not exactly pleasant, but it sharply separates Hotel from the soothing car-ad music that Moby's last few records seemed to be.

Otherwise, this apparently means to emulate Depeche Mode circa 1990 and U2 circa 1991, both of whom repulse me. Without the pomposity of Violator or Achtung Baby-- Moby's aforementioned eerie singing has exactly as little swagger as his self-effacing blog, just less bland-- I kind of enjoy the nostalgia it produces. I guess in the end, I have as little idea who would really like this as most of the critics beating up on it claim to, but man, that voice.

[food/drink] A curried omnibus soup.

Basically taken from this Epicurious recipe.

1 large sweet potato
1 medium onion
1 celery heart
1 large apple
1 banana
1 pint vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp curry powder
chopped chives (sprinkle on top)

Chop the fruits and vegetables and simmer in the broth, covered, until very tender. Stir in cream, butter & salt, and curry powder and heat until hot. Put it in a blender until it is soup.

Our soup came out a little gritty, either from not blending long enough or from not softening the vegetables enough. I think cutting the curry with something else (other Indian spices?) would have been nice, although it was tasty anyway.

I don't like celery, and while the celery heart didn't make the whole soup taste like celery, I'm wondering if it's the source of the "cafeteria soup" flavor that I could never identify, since this soup had it and, now that I think about it, that flavor is sort of like celery. Any suggestions about what one could substitute?

By the way, this soup is thick. Even in a relatively small saucepan, I had to simmer for a while and then moosh the vegetables around some more before I could even pretend they were all in the boiling water. I love dipping bread in soup, so 'thick' is okay with me, but next time I may use more broth.