The soup of my youth.

M. Proust had his madeleines; I have mushroom barley soup. I'm not sure why, though. It's not something my mother ever made -- I'm the only one in my family who likes barley. I don't remember having mushroom barley soup until I was in college. I had a steaming bowlful at a kosher deli on a blustery New England winter afternoon and discovered there was pretty much nothing more cozy, culinarily speaking. Mushroom barley soup is the gustatory equivalent of a cable-knit cashmere sweater with matching scarf, hat, and mittens, and the prospect of removing them all next to the fireplace in the very near future. As I said: cozy.

I've been trying for years to duplicate the mushroom barley soup I used to order at the Second Avenue Deli in New York. I couldn't fall back on family recipes because, as previously noted, I didn't have any. The recipe in the Second Ave. Deli cookbook fell dramatically short because it was based on chicken rather than beef (I suspect they did that on purpose to keep addicts like me coming back to the restaurant for the One True Soup). I always intended to show up and beg, plead, even wheedle the secret out of the owners, but earlier this year, the Second Avenue Deli shut down. I cried when I heard the news, I really did. And I kept looking.

Tonight I tried a recipe I found at random on Google. It seemed right. It was right. I halved the recipe because my large stockpot was already in use, but I still have enough soup to last me another couple of days, assuming I don't eat it all tonight, which I might because it's REALLY GOOD. Proust would understand.

Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.

Okay, so it's been a while. I've been eating, of course; I just haven't said much about it. I've been getting my food-opinion ya-yas out at Yelp. But tonight I was doing a little bit of shopping and it struck me how uncommon my neighborhood is, foodwise.

See, I live in a predominantly Asian neighborhood. As one of my Chinese friends explained to me, many folks of Asian descent have severe lactose intolerance. And so it is that I can find five-spice tofu in a refrigerated vacuum pack by wandering around the corner, but I have to trudge five blocks to get a quart of milk.

I like it, really.