soup de jour

I have made two batches of soup in as many days.
They are loaded with fresh vegetables and wonderful broth.
And my daughters love it.

I have had the wonderful privilege to be able to visit both my daughters this week. The first trip was an act of love for my eldest as she recuperated from a surgery. I say act of love, since driving (riding) to Chicago, any time, is a a challenge for me. Hate big city traffic; hate big city crazies. So for me to say, Damn the discomfort! Full speed ahead to my Boo!, well, that is a love trip. I am always well pleased once I arrive because her home is a haven of peace and comfort. Rhiannon and Jon have created their little oasis of calm amidst the city nutsiness. And since this was a Mission of Mercy, I had to set out to make soup. Rhiannon has a myriad of allergies since her hip replacement surgery. She is our hothouse orchid, with the interesting tenacity of a common weed. This girl is not shrinking violet. Despite all her 'limitations', she makes the most of all that she is and does. A true powerhouse, in an ironic kind of way. To make a hearty, warm, healing soup is not only a pleasure, it is a necessity of a mommy visit. I am a strong believer in the healing art of feeding those you love. To feed the body only prepares the recipient of the healing of the spirit and soul which is what a mommy visit is hopefully all about. I was able to visit a big city store with all it's abundant produce, to select the finest goods for the mommy soup. Being able to use all the wonderful kitchen tools that a three year marriage can produce, is rapture for me. The stout pans, the perfect cutting tools and the mulititude of cooking utensils, makes a 'cooking freak' like me, positively froth at the mouth. The fine edge knives quickly sliced through the tough root vegetables, the potatoes, the turnips,the parsnips, the onions. The smells of the sauteing vegetables wafted throughout the apartment, preparing The Boo for the treat that she had hoped for. The purchase of some rosemary/olive oil bread, warmed and toasty, added to the glee of the occasion. We sat, warm and sated from the ingestion of the love gift,and basked in the loveliness of the event. Visits are way too rare and need to be celebrated and memoriliazed for posterity......(copying the recipe for her collection is an added suggestion; ;I like knowing that at some point, she will pull this recipe out for her little sniffling, congested progeny, and tell her how 'Nana' would work her soup magic on her!)

The next stop on the daughter tour was the visit a bit south of Chicago, to Lafayette,to the Purdue student/youngest daughter, Calin.
Her life is one of perpetual motion: workplayschoolworkhomeworkplayeatsometimeschoolfacebook and so it goes...It is up to the vistior to either become horribly overwhelmed or go along for the ride....I chose a moderate form of acceptance (I did not go bowling at 11pm) but I did indeed fall into sleeping till nearly noon (and beyond). The weird,wacky world of college, the coming alive at late hours,the silence of a weekend morning, the interesting sounds of an apartment that is populated by those whose lives are on a parallel universe, all this a foreign land to this married at 19 elderly lady. Visiting Calin, is an odd mixture of my past and my future rearranged by some amazing otherworld quirk; able to see what 'could have been' had I been given the brains, the courage, the incentive, the vision that, alas, was not afforded me. I excelled in many other things; namely, being the wife of the most amazing man in the world, but the options that college life was quite simply, out of my range. The past is brought to the forefront when making soup in her apartment kitchen. The ancient ladle that served many helpings of Campbell soup to me is parked in her utensil drawer. The large dutch oven, all green and 60's like, still works efficiently from the days that it produced Sunday pot roast. My parent's hand crafted sugar and creamer, that I purchased on the island of Nantucket on my second honeymoon, sits happily on her counter. Flashes of my childhood peer around at me, eerily sometime, warm at others, it pleases me that my parents have parked themselves in Calin's life. They left this earth way too early; they never got to appreciate the adult Calin, but they would have been more than pleased. Their vintage belongings looked totally in place in my quirky, arty daughter's abode.
As is usually the case, Calin was on the run when we arrived. She had overslept on her nap, and was running late for work. She was in the middle of a whirling dirvish, lacking a shower and proper hair arrangement, she quickly hugged her daddy on her way out the door. As I heard her elderly Honda peal out of the parking lot, I could only say a prayer of protection. Friends stopped by and her roommate left and I was left all alone in Collegeland. So I did what every good mother does in the given situation, I did the dishes, straightened her room (!) and made soup. The same soup I had just made her sister. And I waited.
A storm front bringing amazingly cold air swooped in and forced me to shut the living room window on her third floor apartment. The smells of the simmering soup brought her home early, starving and eager for some Momtime. Well, for a short while. It was, after all, Saturday night in Collegeland. She was preparing to cleanup and get ready to go bowling with her buddies. She loads up on the tasty warm stuff, thanks her mama and heads out to the life that is rightfully hers. I sigh, shower and curl up in her twin bed to read. I sleep the sleep of the dead, only to be awakened by her arrival at 3:30am. She sheds her evening fashion for sweats and jumps in to curl up up around her very warm and cozy mama.

Invest in your children. Make homemade soup. And always, always, love them.