A YEAR OF SOUP

May 23, 2013

“Remember, you’ll never do it perfect all the time, but you’re beautiful not for any other reason than the absolute reason that you are the reason you are. Try not to over-romanticize things too much. Kind of stick to the plan. It can be a far-out plan. It is a far-out plan.”
- Morgan Shaker

Much like life itself, the Year of Soup has bottomed out, and we’ve headed back up the other side of the valley. This calls for a celebration, so let’s make the most of the 19 weeks we have left, shall we? That means I’m taking suggestions, of soup, story and place, and the only rule is no looking back in sadness. There are no reasons to lament those weeks that we’ve wasted because, in the end, we have wasted no weeks! Check inside yourself (or the tumblr pages), and you will find all of the things we’ve talked about and worked on and failed at. They have come back around, and because we been makin soup and stayin alive, we feel pretty good about what’s going on. Don’t we?

This is all conjecture, of course, but according to the fortune tellers and astrologers at the end of my block, a time of reckoning is upon us – we are in the midst of the final of three celestial eclipses in the last month. It has been a remarkably high energy time, a time of change, and now we’re coming to a point of self-discovery. Apparently this knowing is something that will impact the rest of our lives. No reason to freak out about it because whatever we’re dealing with can be all in our minds, or our hearts. It might be the acceptance of something settled, or it could be the knowledge that change is definitely gonna come. Anyway, they say that whatever has been building up inside of us will be coming to our attention. And although we will still need to figure out what that means after the fact, if we do what’s best, things will fall into place. Listen to yourself.

9:37am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wlebYhI

(Notes: 1)

May 19, 2013

Week #32: Easy bean soup

“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.”
- Henry James

“There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’”
- Kurt Vonnegut

“Kindness, I think, comes from learning hard lessons well, from falling and picking yourself up. It comes from surviving failure and loss. It implies an understanding of the human condition, forgives its many flaws and quirks. When I see that in someone, it fills me with admiration.”
- Lisa Unger

Nice can be a bad word nowadays, and maybe it deserves it. Nice has come to stand for polite agreement, implying a limpness or disingenuousness that gives a strong whiff of pejorative. Are ‘nice people’ just being nice because they can get something out of it? Do they just want approval? Are they capable of honest dialogue or genuine conflict, even when it’s needed? I don’t tend to believe in the idea that there is malignant falseness to niceness. I come from the Midwest where almost everybody is nice and there seems to be a lot of authentic positivity in that – no matter what people from the coasts say. And of course, just about everyone is insecure, and in our own ways unaware, and both of those things sometimes lead to unhealthy psychologies that can emerge as forms of niceness, which are after all a lot better than some other things.

However, one does see the problem when contrasting the nice person with the kind person. Kindness is a more mature, more settled trait to have inside of yourself. Kind people are prepared to engage with you beyond a smile, to go deeper than cheery words, and they usually do it easily. They recognize the difficulties of life, and they do their best to reach out in aid because as a new friend just told me ‘help is like water, we all need it.’ Kindness requires a level of compassion not necessary in niceness because it contains an empathy that demands thought, effort and taking yourself out of the center of the situation. Selfishness is always the enemy of true kindness or true love.

12:53am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wlJHfek

(Notes: 3)

Filed under: soup food bean soup bean soup recipe kindness nice seflishness canned beans

May 18, 2013

rachelfershleiser:

Whoa!

This is is the craziest menu page ever made. Imagine the warehouse full of pots of soup this kitchen might have! They kick a Year of Soup’s ass.

9:53pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wlIY8zQ

(Notes: 20)

May 8, 2013

A semi-soup poem

All last night, the spring soup
That you brought fed my army,
Which was sleepless from marching
Through angel’s breath that smelled
Of dill and honeysuckle and you.

Listen, hear – The grass bristles
With the patter of the wildest
Of animals, and the old hall
Creaks under nocturnal feet like
The whole world breathing.

Time will split in half
As if a two-headed beast:

One grows ruthless like mushrooms
From things you cannot see
And will weather into a battle that
Ends in a field of rust-colored wildflowers.

The other keeps repeating that
This is no game - This planet
Is falling into the sun and
You are alive, and must live.

For far better soup poems, go here and here and here.

11:14am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wkWSdTo

(Notes: 3)

Filed under: soup Soup Poetry soup poem

May 1, 2013

Week #31: This is a rebel soup

“Maybe they’ll get me and maybe they won’t
But not tonight and it won’t be here.”
- Bob Dylan

There seem to be a lot of things out there on these Internets about regrets. Usually, and this I find interesting, they are regrets about things not done: chances not tried for, loves not communicated, places not lived, etc. I suppose those sorts of things are going to be easier to write about than the things you regret actually doing because omission is always simpler to admit or deal with than commission. And no doubt that is true for actual living as well. For instance, ‘I regret not telling you how I felt because I missed a chance to see what might have been’ is a whole hell of a lot more congenial than ‘I regret telling you how I felt because I was crushed by your response’. Or ‘I regret not leaving this unfulfilling relationship before’ is likewise less uncomfortable than ‘I regret breaking your heart when I left.’ Which isn’t even to speak of the things we don’t want to admit to ourselves: the violence and meanness and shallowness inside of us.

11:39am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wj_IvKt

Filed under: soup food soup recipe potato potato soup rebel regrets

April 28, 2013

For those who know about the delicacy that are morel mushrooms … oh yeah. It’s that time of year.

9:45am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wjjyYlc

(Notes: 8)

Filed under: food mushrooms morels morel mushrooms

April 27, 2013

Week #30: Carolina bouillabaisse

There is a myth that Aphrodite herself invented Bouillabaisse in order to lull her husband to sleep so she could be with her lover.

“Bouillabaisse is a controversial dish, a dish which provokes argument and dissent, canonical and non-canonical versions, focusing on issues such as the aforementioned geographically conditioned possibility of making the dish at all, the desirability or otherwise of adding a glass of white wine to the oil-and-water liaison, the importance or unthinkability of including in the dish fennel or orange peel or thyme or cuttlefish ink or severed horses’ heads. (On which my personal verdicts are respectively “yes,” “no,” “yes,” “no,” “why not,” “yes if you wish to make the bouillabaisse noire of Martigues,” and “only joking.”)” - John Lanchester

There’s a lot you can say about a lot of things. The sea - lots of things to say for sure. Music – no shortage of observations to make. Life, love and other catastrophes – wow, big topics. I had some smart and funny friends over for this Bouillabaisse, and there was a lot of talk. There was also one great moment every cook knows: when the room falls silent in unison because people are so into the food. You notice it because you are eating as well, and time has passed while you’ve done nothing but taste and devour. Of course, this usually happens when you force people to wait until they are starving, which by the way is always a good idea if you are trying to impress with how good something tastes. And this tasted good. So good that the pictures are quite sloppy, so sorry.

Anyway, there’s a whole lot you can say about Bouillabaisse, too. It is a French seafood chowder, most famously from Marseille, although there are well-known versions from throughout the Francophone world. The word means to boil and reduce, and to do it properly a la Marseillaise you apparently need 12 different kinds of fish (see below) added in some specific order. I happen to be living on an island nowhere near the Mediterranean (although sort of due west), so I made a localized version, which I think revealed the Bouillabaisse as transferable to anywhere you can get some good seafood.

So don’t get hung up on following any rules or stressing out about the soup. New motto, y’all: Use what you have to make what you can.

3:38pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wjgMrCn

(Notes: 4)

Filed under: soup food Bouillabaisse aphrodite Bouillabaisse recipe soup recipe Marseille French soup chowder stew

April 25, 2013

carpentrix:

Yesterday, on seeing one, half buried in the sand, wings pressed tight into its body, I said outloud “sorry you’re dead.” Which made me wonder, later in the day, if there is such a thing as too much solitude. What kills the gulls, I wonder? Was this one the victim of a spider crab’s revenge? Or simply sick and old and carrion for the awful turkey vultures that soar around, black winged, red-faced, and menacing.

The house where I am gives loud voice to the wind. It’s gotten so that I know what direction it blows based on the howl or wail or whisper. The book has taken on new shape since I’ve been here, changed in ways I didn’t foresee, and am so, so happy about. Without the city rising all around, it’s possible to feel closer to the sky.

It’s hard for me to explain how much I love this. As someone who has been living alone on a beach for months, I’ve been wondering about the health of solitude and talking to dead birds myself. I’ve been noticing the wind and the sky and allowing the dome of nature to change the shape of me. Life has a habit of mushing you up like a clay ball and molding you into something else - if you let it.

Carpentrix is a blog that you should definitely be reading by a person who has a sure-to-be fantastic book due out at some point in the not-too-distant future. Tumblr All Star, y’all.

9:15am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wjVlRut

(Notes: 24)

Filed under: beach birds solitude carpentrix

April 16, 2013

Week #29: Asparagus and almond

“When your lips seek my lips they bring
That sorrowful and outcast thing
My heart home from its wandering.”
- Arthur Symons

I did not grow up with soup or siblings. I don’t recall my mother ever making soup, and siblings, there definitely were none about for me. I didn’t really care about soup then because I didn’t know any better, but I always envied people who had brothers or sisters. No matter the inevitable complications and sibling drama, there is a universe of difference between a life shared underneath your parents’ big top and one alone in the dark corners of the circus. Don’t worry, we’re not going to talk about loneliness again. In fact, we’re going to talk about the opposite: the comfort of friends and lovers – let’s just call them all people really.

These connections are not something to take lightly, particularly if you know well the barren wasteland of life. I have been gifted with a couple of younger sisters, which I have an overwhelming love for. I also have made my own brothers and sisters on this planet, which – given the high proportion of people who have also seemed to dislike me intensely – is not something I can honestly say I ever thought would happen. And along with my growing ability to appreciate nature and manage the world inside my head, this is the deepest thing I know. I remain here on this earth because of people, and I exist in this space saying these things because of people. There is a generosity of spirit and a world of possibility that people have shown me, which I try to repay every day.

10:56pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2witJsIB

(Notes: 5)

Filed under: asparagus asparagus soup asparagus almond soup asparagus soup recipe soup recipe soup food

April 16, 2013

eatdrinkdie:

I jumped on my bike – before breakfast, before coffee, before brushing my teeth – to look at the Boston skyline from the BU Bridge. It’s only a few blocks from my house, and it’s my favorite view of the city. The sun was warm and the haze of early morning in early spring had yet to burn off the sky over the Charles. I spent all day yesterday watching the city explode on a loop, with CNN on mute and WBUR providing the words. There was smoke in the air and helicopters rattled the wind over my house. The sirens sounded vicious, no longer the normal background noise of a city.

The flowers are pushing up from the ground now, spring is coming and soon summer will be here. I complain about the city of Boston more than most, how people don’t say hello to each other, how it’s a little stiff and a little prissy, how I don’t give a shit about the Red Sox, but let me tell you a little secret: there is no place better than Boston or Cambridge in summer. The students flow out like a breaking wave and there’s a quiet and a calm that surprises me each year.

I rode on. Breakfast and tooth brushing and work and everything else could wait. I looped around the river, along its edges on both sides. I saw trees with purple flowers beginning their bloom above empty benches on the water’s edge. Cops barked and car horns honked in this city where I’ve spent the last 13 years of my life. I saw buildings I worked in when I was still a scared kid and didn’t know shit, bars where I drank, places where I made mistakes. I saw the sun and rippling water, a pregnant woman jogging, rowers rowing silently under the Mass Ave Bridge. I said hello to everyone I passed, the walkers, the runners, the mothers, the fathers, the homeless, the old couples holding hands, the tourists – a seagull. This morning I saw things I’ve never seen before.

In this personal and perfect post, Jonah puts out there what I say in these moments of shared sadness: the only sane response to insanity is grounding yourself into the world that you know and can say has some truth to it. The difficult thing is to maintain that clarity every day in the face of all of the insanity that we’ve grown accustomed to.

But then I say hello to seagulls all the time and feel like a lunatic.

2:09pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wiqxjNi

(Notes: 14)

Filed under: boston boston marathon

April 11, 2013

Soup = hangover cure

Everyone loves a good bullshit hangover remedy. Or maybe yakamein or ‘Old Sober’ actually works. Seems like anything liquidy, salty and fatty would do, but go Big Easy!

Share your cures in the comments if you dare.

12:17pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wiRa9GM

(Notes: 3)

Filed under: yakamein old sober new orleans soup food hangover hangover cure

April 11, 2013

His wings stripped by thunder
but those storms keep coming back

Singing birds in sickness
sing the same blues songs

When they fell out of the emptiness
they must have brought along
space’s loneliness

No soup here. Just some dead ducks from the last week or so. Consider it a tribute to recently departed Jason Molina and a monument to the birds who’ve fallen from the emptiness.

PS - No, i did not make the cross. What am I insane?

1:33am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wiQAUWF

(Notes: 4)

Filed under: duck dead duck duck soup jason molina songs:ohia dead ducks beach

April 8, 2013

Week #28: Garlic and rosemary

“I have toyed with an idea – the idea that although a man’s life is compounded of thousands and thousands of moments and days, those many instants and those many days may be reduced to a single one: the moment when a man knows who he is, when he sees himself face to face.” - Jorge Luis Borges

You brave friends of soup, it is currently a beautiful Sunday. This is our first soup of spring, light and tangy and full of life. Today, I have spent hours in the sun thinking about the loneliness in our souls – and garlic. What else? Luckily both may lead to some self-discovery. The brilliant documentary filmmaker Les Blank happened to die today. He directed a movie called ‘Garlic is as Good as 10 Mothers’, which is, yes, all about the joys and benefits of garlic. This one is for him.

1. Innocents alone …
Soup is hard to make in small servings, for oneself say. And in a way the heart of the soup-making enterprise is so powerful and rich that it deserves a larger canvas. So it’s normal to make a big batch at once and then save the rest for later. We know this, we do this, but inevitably there’s that moment of looking around for someone to share it with. We’ve already talked about cooking alone and how that can be tricky, both practically and spiritually. Still, there are all kinds of aloneness, and there is a lot to learn. One thing you will learn again and again is that no matter how alone you feel, no matter how blue, you will hold out hope for connection, for company. Maybe it’s all of the stories, but that anticipation, the need, can be the most painful part. The dashing of it is a birthright. There is nothing to be done about it: you will go to sleep alone, as they say. But don’t be depressed, friends. Breathe in the smell of the garlic and let the world pull you back to your body and toward the earth from which you and the strange onion both came.

2. God respects us when we work, but loves us when we dance …
This endeavor of modern humanity is about audience, and so it is about performance, whether we like it or not. One person, a clique of persons, a mass of people, nobody at all. We are bred to measure ourselves against this constantly. After all, a hero needs a story, which needs a theater, or a book, or a website, or even just a living room with someone to listen. And maybe everybody needs love, I don’t know. I say this in the nicest possible way because I know this is one of those secrets we all share and dislike engaging with, but surely you know that who you are is not the same as who the world understands you to be – even the person you are closest to in the world. Very few people know their genuine selves even after years locked in a box with the beast. Fewer still can direct that self into some meaningful, sustained dialogue with the people around them. Who I am is not the same as the words that I type, or even refuse to type. I’m trying … trying … to be here on this screen you read from. Hi. You might not, probably don’t, even exist, but I am here anyway. Why? A soup made is not a soup blogged about, and vice-versa. Our guts know well before our minds the truth of things. The garlic soup can go in any direction now. This is when you want it to become something, something worth sharing. Something meaningful?

6:46pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wiEbHjI

(Notes: 21)

Filed under: soup food soup recipe garlic garlic soup les blank loneliness rosemary garlic and rosemary Jorge Luis Borges borges cooking alone

April 8, 2013

Ramp season. Get em while you can.

11:58am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2wiCyYh1

(Notes: 22)

Filed under: ramps food

April 3, 2013

10 great soup spots around the USA

I don’t usually like these kinds of lists because they’re so subjective and random, but this one is fairly diverse and interesting. Plus, Ohio represents with a black walnut soup. I guess because buckeyes are poisonous.

1:13am | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZlWB2whnb3JE

Filed under: soup cleveland honolulu chicago New York Los Angeles Madison Best soups Soup spots

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