What you got there then?
Leeks.
Leeks?
Yeah, leeks.
Leeks. You going to cook ’em then?
Yeah, going to make soup.
Soup?
Yeah, leek soup.
Leek soup. Nice.
Yeah, nice.
You got a blender have you?
No.
No blender?
No. Chop ’em up.
What, the leeks, you chop ’em up then?
Yeah, I like it chunky.
Soup?
Yeah, chunky. Big soup.
Big soup. Nice.
Yeah. Nice.
I’ll come round then, shall I?
(laugh) Yeah.
Yeah?
Yeah, you do that.
I’ll send you an email, shall I?
Yeah, when you’re coming round.
Have some soup.
Yeah, leek soup.
Leek soup, nice.
Yeah.
Nice.
.
25 comments:
Yeah.
Nice.
I shouldn't claim authorship, really, that's almost a word-for-word transcript!
The guy asking the questions was quite drunk, I think. In a nice way.
Yeah. Nice.
My previous comment seems to have been lost in the ether. Perhaps if I don't bother with OpenID?
To echo offie...yeah. Nice. I can hear the conversation. As an inveterate eavesdropper, I've heard many like it. I love them.
I really like this. And I could murder some leek soup. Nice work, Zeph.
Ah you might have got the content from someone else, but you've managed to listen to it and put it into a pleasant form. I like it.
Had a similar experience this morning overhearing both sides of a phone conversation as the woman in front of me accidentally had her mobile set to speakerphone, even though she was politely speaking quietly into it her friend on the other end was blaring around the whole carriage, unbeknown to herself I should think.
The conversation mostly went along the lines of the fact that she wasn't very good at using phones, a point she'd already clearly demonstrated.
The woman on the other end of the mobile was trying to explain to the woman on the train how she'd not put the phone down properly on her landline so she was still connected and was going round in circles trying to explain how she couldn't use the phone, whilst clearly using the phone, because she was still connected to her friend's phone, who couldn't phone home to ask Keith to hang the phone up, but what was the problem because they were both on the phone now anyway? - which unsurprisingly caused huge amounts of confusion.
Thanks for making me laugh. So true to life this.
You're welcome, Gerry!
Ah yes, Pink, the unhungup phone, it's like did-I-leave-the-gas-on, even quite sensible people get driven mad by the thought... not that the lady sounds terribly sensible.
Leek soup is a dish fully worthy of both extended conversation and poetic treatment. Without the distractions provided by the bastard potato, one is better able to savour the unique qualities of this remarkable vegetable. A fine tribute, Zeph; credit both to you and to the drunk.
When I was a little schoolboy, I used to have to dress up on St. David's Day in 'traditional' costume (i.e. old clothes and a cloth cap) and walk through the town with a daffodil in my buttonhole, and carrying a leek. There was a competition in school to see who could bring the biggest specimen. Some children would then bash each other about with the leeks, while others would eat them raw. There's authentic Welsh culture for you.
I may have told this one already, but I can't help bringing it up whenever leeks are mentioned.
In a previous life, I used to work somewhere in the suburbs of Dublin. On my first cigarette break of the morning, my camel and I were shivering outside the building under a february white sky. I suddenly caught sight of a guy striding down the street with a leek in his hand. Just the one leek. I didn't think too much of it, but still wondered what one could do with a solitary leek. Poireau à la vinaigrette for one, sans doute. I've had worse lunches.
On my second cigarette break of the morning (must have been half nine by then), I saw another guy walking up the street holding a leek. That would probably have been enough to trigger the Twilight Zone theme in my head, but this one was actually talking to his leek. Quite animatedly. As he was on the opposite side of the street, I couldn't quite make out what he was saying (or what they were saying to each other, who knows?), but I went back to work with a growing sense of unease. And I couldn't quite bring myself to mention it to anyone.
On my third break, there were a whole bunch of them, making their way to the pub, and they were ALL holding leeks. One each. Luckily for my sanity, I was sharing that third smoke with a couple of Irish colleagues. They caught the worried glint in my eye.
'The Welsh, eh?'
'What?'
'Are you going to the game tomorrow?'
'What game?'
'The Five Fookin' Nations, Offie, Ireland - Wales.'
very charming Zeph
a salutary tale Off-Sid, loath to say lol but I will: lol!
In this part of the world, there are colourful conversations among allotment holders about what secret formula Dennis Pringle uses in his leek trench, as he has won the Leek Show every year since 1847. Some say it is a dead dog in the trench, beneath six inches of wartime blankets. Others swear his first wife lies there, smeared in mustard. Yet others say it is down to his habit of riding a bicycle round the perimeter each third Friday.
Very nice confab, zeph.
Ha ha Freep, how will you find out?
Stayed in the wilds of Weardale once and walked into the village pub, which was certainly reminiscent of the Slaughtered Lamb, and everyone was accompanied by a giant vegetable. Not just leeks, there were elephantine pumpkins and comedy-sized carrots and the biggest marrow I'd ever seen, which I apologised to when I fell over it as I thought it was a dogg under the table.
We started to wonder what they made of us, being suspiciously lacking in the giant vegetable department. It seemed the normal thing to carry about. Were we causing offence by not keeping to the traditions? Did we miss the sign on the way into the village about the need to be accompanied by giant vegetables in public places? Did they worship giant vegetables? Were they pets? The mind boggled...
Turned out they'd all been to the annual country show and were toasting the winning dog-sized marrow on the way home.
They weren't all just a bit odd...
Or perhaps they were, Pink, the compulsion to grow giant-sized veg is a strange one, since they almost always taste of nothing at all and are therefore grown purely for competition. It's the sort of thing people did before the internet was invented, in order to avoid having a life, I guess. I've always said that a blog is just a virtual potting-shed.
Offie, the interesting thing is it only works with leeks, carrying a tomato in an offensive manner just wouldn't have the same effect. Though I suppose a Scot could brandish a neep in support of his team, that would be quite scary.
Freep, my money's on the dead dog. How does your dogg respond around Mr Pringle's allotment, or is he not allowed there?
Captain Ned, it's good to have our adviser on authentic Welsh culture among us. Is the use of a blender for leek soup acceptable, I wonder?
No, but you can hold a tomato in a Hamlet kind of way...
Zeph, I don't allow my precious dogg into allotments. He might be accused of something bad, malversation or what have you, and lynched. I think Weardale is probably the epicentre of Giant Vegetable Insanity. Here in mid-Northumberland there are August and September shows where you can see eight-foot long carrots, potatoes that look like Faberge eggs and cauliflowers that will give you bad nightmares. But there are other things to do in this part of the world (terrier racing, beachcombing for seacoal, crab fishing...) whereas in Upper Weardale, where the snow is often lying two cubits deep at Lammastide, there is nought to do but dwell upon the fate of one's leeks. And perhaps, rage at one's wife / mother / father for not being leekmanic.
Some Leekshow prize money rivals the Lottery.
Zeph, I agree about potting sheds and blogs. Do bear in mind that in the East Riding, you are not considered of true Yorkshire stock unless you have three sheds.
That was freepy.
Zeph, leeks must NEVER come into contact with blenders. Should you own such a machine, you must at the very least unplug it while you are preparing your soup; to be on the safe side, I would advise that you remove it from the kitchen altogether, returning it only once the result of your culinary endeavours has been completely consumed. I wouldn't want you to incur the supernatural wrath of the Ancestral Cymry, whose vengeance in most matters is not to be trifled with; where leeks are concerned, they are wont to out-fury the Furies.
Many of my forefathers fought and died in the defence of leeks, mainly due to their insistence on wielding them as weapons against their more conventionally-armed enemies. Some historians have attributed the failure of the Glyndwr uprising to the rebels' reliance on the leek as their prime instrument of war, but such snide revisionism has been rightly condemned by all right-thinking patriotic Welshmen. I will grant you that swords, guns and bombs may be brutally effective, in their way, but myn Duw, nothing beats the sheer bloody poetry of a leek in battle. Stick to your instincts, and keep it chunky.
and the clicket said: I leak it very much, leak, leak, leak leak leak click click click click....
Captain Ned, you have no idea how much peace of mind your comment has given me. I've been made to feel inadequate for NOT blending my soups to velvety smoothness (I like chunky soup, and I hate washing the blender). Now I have moral highground to stand upon.
Zeph: Nice. Yeah. I've overheard many conversations like this, and maybe even participated in one or two.
Munni, I'd have thought that Other Stuffers ALWAYS stand on the moral highground.
Now I'm hungry.
Without reading all the comments: nice.
ST David's day maybe? Very nice.
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