Peace in the Soup Pot

The weather was doing its fall best for a while, and then boom, it’s back to summer weather, or will be if the cloud cover disappears. Just for a few days, enough to confuse us!

But our taste buds were happy to change directions. mmmm winter soups! Squashes, fruits, onions, cheeses. Okay, I made the cheese thing up, but I like cheese in my soups! Maybe not this one, but some soups! Nothing could be finer.

One way or the other though, I tastebuds accept the Peace offering. Soup is good food!

The sweetest of Autumn to you, my friends, and I wish you the Peace of the soup pot!

everydaypeacemonday42oct17

Slow Food Is Sweet Peace

You need to understand from the start, that I am an admirer of slow food not a preparer of it! Although cooking more is on my agenda this year, I’m starting with cooking breakfast or soup in the crockpot. Let’s not rush into things! Nonetheless, soup is good food. Both the making of it and the eating it brings me Peace. Oh, and health. let’s not forget health.

I am neither a patient nor a precise person. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have friends who are!  And whether I’m dining with them or simply delighting in their stories of good food made the old fashioned way, it makes me happy!

Some people will say they cook this way because they can’t afford to eat out, but that misses the point of cooking that way because they love cooking and eating what they cook. Whereas cooking for me is a white-knuckle affair, for them it’s an exhale into life.

I resent the time it takes; they revel. I have a friend who as her mom was dying, when her sister relieved her for a bit, came home took a shower, and then baked. A cake and cookies. It soothed her and gave her strength the way that writing does me. Familiar rituals bring order to our lives and good things to our families. Her sisters ate cookies and comfort as they gathered throughout the week. It was a bit of family/familiar comfort as their mom slowly departed her life.

That reveling is Peace. That healing is Peace. I can appreciate it without participating.It’s exactly like Peace-making. We all contribute differently. But we all benefit from the fruits of such labor — even if only visually.

Keep rolling that pasta, George! Pasta and Peace. I think it could be a thing.

EverydayPeaceMondayFeb1

Soup and Peace

There are days when only soup will do the job. For whatever reason you’re feeling less than your best self, a bowl of soup can help to make your world right again.

Especially on a frigid day like this, it’s a great thing to set a pot of soup simmering on your stove. Your house fills up with steamy goodness; the scent alone says you’re taking care of yourself… You empty the refrigerator and make something wonderful.

It’s good for so many reasons, not the least of which is it uses up the things in your cupboard and fills you up without demanding a lot of the Earth. My friend makes soup for his mom as she ages, because chewing is harder. She gets to have favorite flavors and the comfort of a family recipe. Soup nourishes and nurtures.

I don’t make enough soup. Partially that’s because i live alone and still haven’t learned to make soup for one person with only a little left over. Oh, put it in your freezer, people say. Really? I’ll never eat a gallon of soup. Still you find ways. You also find the places that keep soup in your life. Happily there are a couple restaurants now that focus on soup.

Sometimes, when there are things going on in people’s lives or your own, there is nothing sweeter than sitting down and sharing a bowl of warmth. Whether, spicy, hearty, delicate, it comforts and sustains.

Sometimes Peace really is that simple. Soup doesn’t answer all the questions in life, but it can give you a pause from the madness. Sweet comfort alone or shared. There can be Peace in that, if we’ll allow it!

EverydayPeaceMondayJan18