memories + more soup

in May I attended a very fancy dinner party hosted by Texas Tech University Press. they served lovely food and had a handful lovely speakers, all introduced by a very distinguished and amusing emcee. I'm very grateful the editors allowed me to make a reappearance and attend in exchange for helping with setup and checkin and such.

{ image by the great TTUP design & production manager Kasey Macbeath, who also makes very fabulous cupcakes. }

if you're a Lubbockite who will be around next spring and you feel like indulging in the arts, supporting small publishers, and being served a very nice three or four course dinner (including various wines, if you're into that kind of stuff), you should check it out, save your pennies, and buy a ticket.

for me it was wonderful to attend after my too-short year of working at the press and see authors whose books I had worked on. I had the pleasure of meeting several of them at this fancy dinner, seeing them sell and sign so many gorgeous hardcover books that when I first read them, almost two years ago, were nothing but stacks and stacks of typescript, bunches of digital word files, and a few paperclipped folders of printed photos. shaking the hands of the writers who gave me so much fun work to do back then was pretty awesome.

this year and last year, there were recipes included in the program.

so I saved mine in my fat yellow folder of recipes, and just got around to making this sweet potato soup a few weeks ago. in an attempt to notch down the spice, I used a few pinches of cayenne instead of chipotle pepper. my dear family hated it anyway.

but I think it turned out just great, though my plated closeup does not look anything like as fancy as the version I was served at Literary Lubbock. I'll probably make it again though and ease up on the cayenne if I must. it will remind me of here, and learning, and a handful of very lovely people.