#Domevember #TheGreatBigBiscuitDebate featuring Claire Dyer!

Now I don’t know about your but 4 ish is definitely the new 11ish in my house.

Still got a while till tea, dinner was a lifetime ago so the perfet snacking window presents itself ,but wait!

What do you have?

Nothing divides more than the great big snack debate, from whether to dunk, which is the best type of biscuit and so forth.

Here, to guide and advise, are some fabulous #Domevember authors with their personal pick of beverage accompaniment!
First up is the awesome Claire Dyer who has gone completely out to leftfield with her choices!

To soup or not to soup, that is the question

In an early scene in ‘The Last Day’an estranged husband and wife discuss delicate matters over bowls of soup (Pea & Ham Hock in this instance). In my current manuscript, not only does my main character reminisce about the soup she and her sister were given when they came in from swimming lessons as children (this was Chicken by the way), but the steam from a mug of soup drifts into her eyes when, later in the novel, she’s thinking about the handsome guitar-playing widower she’s just met. And these are just two of a number of other references to soup in the novel!

                So, I ask myself what is it about soup that has this obvious hold over me?

                I think it may have something to do with the soup maker my husband brought me for a recent birthday. I know, who wants diamonds, or a holiday in the Maldives when there’s a soup maker in the offing? Anyway, since my soup maker and I have been living together, I spend a wonderful hour each weekend peeling and chopping and setting it to work. It’s like a food mixer and kettle in one and every batch I’ve made has been delicious, whether this be Pea & Ham, Curried Sweet Potato, Red Pepper & Lentil, Broccoli & Stilton, Chicken & Mushroom, Beetroot & Horseradish – the list is endless.

                And, after the making there’s a mixing bowl of soup in my fridge that lasts me the week; a quick bowl at lunchtime during a break from writing is, in my opinion, just the ticket. Sometimes I even have a sneaky extra mug of soup at five o’clock if I’m peckish before I go teach my Creative Writing class at Bracknell & Wokingham College.

                Sometimes I jazz my soup up with tabasco sauce, or grated cheese, or a dollop of crème fraiche (think Masterchef, after all it’s the details that make the difference!), but essentially soup is my mainstay and my writing go-to food. However, it’s more than just the convenience and the joy I take in making it, for me soup is about my childhood, it’s about feeling cared for and warmed through.

                And after all isn’t writing a bit like making soup (‘Oh no,’ I hear you cry, ‘not a writing/soup analogy!’)? We put in our ingredients: character, plot, setting, dialogue and whizz them up all up until we produce something that’s (hopefully) tasty, nourishing and quick to digest!

                For the record my soup maker is a Morphy Richards, but other models are available.

Does anyone else now fancy an amazing bowl of soup and fresh bread right now? My favourite is probably this one with some creme fraiche ! Yum!

Claire can be found on Twitter at @ClaireDyer1 and her novel, ‘The Last Day’ will be featured in a future Bookshelf Spotlight.

Now to leave you with thoughts of soup, here is one of my favourite clips from The Might Boosh