Unventing Soup

Beautiful Soup


BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!

Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

Game, or any other dish?

Who would not give all else for two

Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?

Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop! Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!

Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,

Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!

- Lewis Carroll


The best part of making soup is that you don’t need a recipe - just an imagination that can combine what you have on hand.


It’s getting cooler here, with night temperatures in the 40s and fog in the river valleys in the morning. It’s time for some soup.


Yesterday was CSA pickup day, so it was also a good day to use as many vegetables as possible, to make room for the new arrivals.


My soup of the evening, beautiful soup:


Saute together 6 slices bacon (cut up) with a huge, sweet golden carrot and a medium mild white onion, chopped.

Add 4 peeled, diced potatoes. One was a Yukon Gold, the others were white potatoes.

Add enough water to cover (about 3 c.) and a can of home-canned navy beans that my mom put up a few years ago (about 2 c.). Season with a little salt, freshly ground pepper, thyme and dill.

Add a small bundle of kale, cut into small pieces and with center rib removed.

Cook until potatoes & kale are tender.

Add a couple of cups of milk.

Eat. We did, and we enjoyed it!


The bacon now has a sad story. It came from a pig raised in Heuvelton, NY, by Clif and Marie Cook. Early yesterday morning their barn burned down, killing 360 animals and destroying their tractor. They lost chickens, turkeys, steers - and their prized pigs, along with the genetics of a carefully bred line of animals.


I take the word “unventing” in the title from Elizabeth Zimmerman, the knitting writer, teacher, and designer. She believed that when it comes to something as basic as knitting (or soup), it’s hard to believe that anyone can have an idea that someone else somewhere, some time hasn’t already tried, given the vast number of people who have lived before us and who share the planet with us right now.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 16, 2010 at 8:18 AM

    Autumn, abundance and sadness walk hand-in-hand.

    Current copyright laws seem intent on making unventing illegal.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anita FiguerasSeptember 16, 2010 at 8:29 AM

    Ah, but food and knitting are two areas where copyright barely holds sway. You can copyright the text of a recipe and a knitting pattern, but you cannot copyright the recipe or the garment.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Please support the EGFR Resisters Research Fund!

To help improve outcomes for people like me with EGFR mutated lung cancer, please donate to the EGFR Resisters' Research Fund. All donations are tax deductible and are in a restricted fund with the Bonnie Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, a four-star rated charity. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!


Popular posts from this blog

I am not a rock. I am not an island.

Image
After a busy couple of months, I have retired, and I am under treatment. The treatment is a pill taken first thing in the morning. The medicine is very expensive, to all of us in the aggregate although not to me as an individual. Thank goodness for good health insurance. I do have a genetic mutation in the cancer and am able to take targeted treatment. I’m dealing with some side effects, but they aren’t as uncomfortable as full-bore chemo. I’ve been taking care of business. New wills and powers of attorney are executed, my passwords are in a sealed envelope in the lawyer’s safe, beneficiaries are updated, and expenses have been dialed back. I finished my job as neatly and completely as possible, and left matters in good shape for my successor. All of this is liberating. As each task gets done, there is more time to simply enjoy living. I am an oldest child, and I’ve spent much of my life being a responsible person. Now I am pulling back from that role. At the moment, I have very few re...
Read more

Why I am Using Research-Based Medical Treatments Instead of Naturopathic Treatments

Image
I’ve heard many stories of people being sent links to websites promoting alternate naturopathic treatments for cancer by well meaning friends and family. It finally happened to me. I got an email from an acquaintance who told me she believed that I was making a mistake signing up for a clinical trial, and that I should be using natural treatments based on diet and supplements such as turmeric and IV vitamin C. She quoted the saying “Let Food be your Medicine”, and pointed me towards the website thetruthaboutcancer (no, I am NOT going to link to that site from my blog, it gets enough traffic). She also told me that I was signing up to be a guinea pig. This blog post has been in the works in my thoughts ever since. I do not think that this good-hearted person is on the right track, and sincerely hope that, for her sake, she never develops cancer and never has to put her alternate treatments to the test. In thinking about what she said, however, I finally crystallized for myself the reaso...
Read more

My Carbon Footprint Grows Ever Larger

Image
This is how I would reword Shakespeare: Nothing offends me about my life so much as the manner of my leaving it. It’s not the disease, or the timing that makes me feel that way. It’s the staggering amount of energy that is consumed as part of cancer care - energy in the form of miles driven and plastic tossed into a biowaste disposal canister. I haven’t lived an exemplary life when it comes to the amount I have contributed to landfills. I’m not even good about composting my food waste. Still, getting sick has enlarged my carbon footprint, and I’m not done yet. There’s the matter of how to dispose of my mortal remains, for one thing, plus I’m not done with blood draws and treatments. Take the simple matter of a blood draw. Initially they were all taken from a vein. Waste generated: an alcohol wipe, a rubber tourniquet, a pair of gloves, a butterfly needle with attached plastic tube, a few glass vials, and a couple of pieces of gauze topped with a bandaid. Now, however, I ...
Read more