At 62…A pot of soup

There’s something about a cold winter’s day that makes me want to make soup. Texas chili…meatball spinach soup…taco soup…clam chowder… tomato basil…just give me a great big pot, a bunch of ingredients, some shredded cheese, a loaf of crusty bread – and we’re in business.

Mike told me that cooking is an act of love. There’s something about that bubbling soup pot that personifies love. Warmth on a cold day. The food your mama feeds you when you’re recovering from the flu. A thermos of warmth out in the deer stand. A quick lunch. Soup is one of our universal foods.

Daddy loved to make beef and vegetable soup. As a little girl, I didn’t like anything in my soup but the wonderful rich tomato-y broth and the little niblet corn kernels. I kept begging him to add more and more corn. Bless him, he always did. I could pick out everything else and leave it on the side of the bowl, as long as I had my corn. I’ll never forget him spoiling his little girl, scooping my chilly castoffs into his own bowl when I was done.

Mama dealt in cans of Campbell’s, doled out sparingly as I was recovering from whatever childhood disease was going around. Soup and 7-Up. That soup was served in large flat soup bowls. I never knew – until I was an adult – that they were Wedgwood china, remnants from a service of 24 dating back to the Civil War. In our family, we kept things and used them.

In college, I visited a now-defunct restaurant chain whose name I cannot remember. I always ordered the same thing, the Ploughman’s Lunch. It was a crock of beefy French onion soup layered over with melted Gruyere cheese. There was a baguette, fresh butter, a sliced apple, and some sliced smoked sausage. Heaven on a plate.

For twenty years, our Christmas lunches were baked Brie, fresh grapes, freshly made bread, and La Madeleine tomato-basil soup. I missed that soup, and once we moved to Arkansas, I couldn’t get it here. I made it from scratch one night for supper, and it was amazing. That’s the first night that Mike talked to me about cooking being an act of love – it wasn’t just tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches to him – I’d served up love.

My taco soup recipe is handwritten by Tamara, my next-door neighbor in New Territory, our subdivision in Sugar Land. I walked into her house that first Christmas, and found the twin to my Christmas stocking. Her mom made hers, just like Mama made mine. We’d grown up 90 miles from each other, and never knew it. Those stockings instantly bonded us. We’ve lost touch over the years, but her soup brings her back to me every single time I make it.

Cans of Progresso soup kept Mike going once he was diagnosed with cancer. He didn’t want me to cook those big pots – he wanted lots of variety. No “used food”, as he called leftovers. I added all manner of butter, proteins, cream – whatever would add the most calories. Life was served up from blue cans with creamy photos for many months.

Our friend Kate brought us chanterelle mushrooms in Coffman Cove. I’d never cooked with them before, and Mike asked for two things – smothered hamburger steaks and cream of mushroom soup. I couldn’t eat the soup – I can’t do milk – but Mike told me that he never knew cream of mushroom soup could be that delicate and flavorful. He said it had spoiled him for any other version. I still don’t know how I made it, just guesswork, prayer, and the combo of several recipes!

Across the world, soup is a universal food. Every culture has its staple soups. The warmth, the melding of ingredients, the using up of what’s left over from our weekly meals – all of our kitchens have a soup pot. A little bit of everything, all thrown into the melting pot. There’s always room for experimentation, and we can easily feed as many as gather round the table. We make up fine, hearty mixtures. There’s strength in these modest pots. There’s unity, there’s a medley. There’s life. There’s family.

The memories warm me to the bone…at 62.