The Nightworker’s Breakfast

I worked the evening shift at the assisted living centre this Sunday, when the person who was signed up for the night shift didn’t show up. No notice, and not answering her phone…The good coworker that I am, I volunteered to do a double shift. I knew that my colleague has a small girl waiting for her at home, and that if I’d refuse to do it, our boss’d would  call and demand from one my other colleagues to come in for work – at 10 a.m.! Truth to be told, it wasn’t entirely out of the goodness of my heart, due to Easter I got 133% on top of the already decent night shift salary, so it really paid off. When I got home at nine in the morning after 17 hours continuous work, I first collapsed into a unrestful sleep, before I forced myself to get up at one a.m. in order to not shift my sleep rythm too much. And what’s the best way to reward a tired mind and body ? A warming soup, miso soup to be more precise! This is the first time I’ve made miso soup, and boy was it easy. It was just a matter of cooking the veggies – scallions, young broccoli, yellow bell pepper, onion, dried sea weed – in the miso broth, lightly searing the tofu in oil and soy sauce, and adjusting the taste with more soy sauce, some sesame oil and chinese rice vinegar . Oh, and I had some lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves at hand that I dumped into the broth too, and they gave a wonderful, though not entirely authentic, aromatic flavour.