I got a load of lemons today.

It's citrus season is Southern California, and you know I am always up for a little urban foraging!

So that is just how I started my day, sack in hand rummaging through the branches of my neighbors fruit trees. Just so you know, I have rules about foraging. So don't accuse me of stealing. All my "victims" are either willing participants or silly people who stupidly planted their citrus so that the branches hang out onto public thoroughfares! So you see, these details make my harvest perfectly legal. Still, I never take more than 2 or 3 pieces of fruit from each tree... I do have some scrupples!

But once I was home, I was faced with the decision of what to do with my haul... A dessert popped in my brain. I do like lemon desserts, and considered a lemon sabayon tart. Besides, Sippity Sup has been abondonded by its readership and a pretty dessert always brings the strays in my flock back home. I may still do that dessert too, because I have a lot of lemons. But there is no time to bake today. I have other committments.

Today I have soup. Or do I have stew? A Spiced Chickpea Stew with Feta Toasts

STEW : (formal) To undergo cooking by boiling slowly or simmering, especially a mixture of meat or fish and vegetables with stock.

(slang) To be in a state of anxiety or agitation

SOUP: (formal) A liquid food prepared from meat, fish, or vegetable stock combined with various other ingredients and often containing solid pieces.

(slang) A chaotic or unfortunate situation.

I don’t know whether to categorize this as a soup or a stew. Which has got me in a ”state of anxiety or agitation” leading to a “chaotic or unfortunate situation.

The Martha Stewart recipe that inspired me was solidly in the soup category. I say that because she called it soup. Flat out, no hemming and hawing. Soup period. Soup!

My version uses the same great flavors, chickpeas, tomatoes, coriander and red pepper. But I have let it cook a lot longer and I have left it a lot chunkier, so I tend to want to call it a stew. But these definitions above make no distinctions concerning texture. Conundrum.

In case you didn’t know the phrase “Sippity Sup” started out as the title of a Nursery Rhyme.

I feel kinda bad that I sorta usurped that poor old Nursery Rhyme. I mean it was a lesser-known Nursery Rhyme to begin with. I don’t think it held much favor with Mother Goose. So it wasn’t really that hard to beat the Google pants off it.

Still, there was a time when you could Google “Sippity Sup” and you’d find references to that less than popular children’s poem of the same name. Then “along comes a spider” in the form of a food blogger. And guess what? Now that poor little Nursery Rhyme does not even come up on the first page when you Google the phrase. That’s my fault… it wasn’t intentional. I never even knew what HTML was before I started this blog. Let alone understand how to optimize it!

Are burgers really worth a whole week of SippitySup’s time?

I mean, I know you love a good burger. They really are an iconic food. Which was my thesis when I announced a week devoted to burgers. If you missed my nostalgic tribute to the American style hamburger click here.

In the original post I made the argument that the sight of a burger sizzling on the grill was so very emblematic of the good old USA.

But in truth a classic American burger is nothing more than a seasoned meat patty. And seasoned meat patties appear in some form or another in the diet of nearly all the world's cultures.

Even the idea of cooking the meat outdoors is a “borrowed” method. There is some evidence that what has morphed into the “Back Yard Bar-B-Que" got its start a very long tome ago in Mongolia.

And on an international level, the choice of meat may vary. So might the seasonings. But the simple process of grinding, mixing, compressing and searing the juicy flavor into certain meats, herbs and spices has become universally beloved.

I am home! I am home! I am HOME!

I hope you noticed that Sup has been a little bit AWOL this past week. I was traveling. I wish I could say it was a vacation, but it was really mostly work stuff.

When these plans were made I had great hopes of posting from the road.  But, well… one thing led to another BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. I am great at excuses aren’t I?

In case you didn’t know. I was in San Francisco. I met The Daily Spud there too. Spud is not just a fabulous blogger, but as I can now attest, a fabulous person as well.  We had a great lunch at Zuni Café. I also met all the cool kids at FoodBuzz. Talk about a plum job!

But most importantly, I also finally experienced a proper Vietnamese banh mi (pronounced BUN-mee) sandwich. I bought one for Spud too. Which is sorta funny because we had just had a long lunch but we could not help ourselves from stopping in at Saigon Sandwiches on the way back to our hotels. There’s nothing wrong with 2 lunches is there?