… Comfort Food for the Season of Cold & Long with little bites of Kindness & a garnish of shameless self-promotion.
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Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone. – Miller Williams – |
I have a little wooden plaque on my kitchen windowsill that says: Thou Shalt Not Whine. “No whining” was a rule I grew up with and all these decades later it’s coming in pretty handy, now that I’ve I learned the difference between whining about what is and actually just allowing myself to feel it. Joana Macy puts it this way: And when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here, and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. It helps me to remember that everybody hurts.
I also find it helpful to remember in the midst of a hurting world just how much kindness still exists and that it can be found every day if we just know where and how to look. There is a well-known Native American story (you might be familiar with it) often attributed to the Cherokee people, in which an elder tells his grandson about a battle raging inside him between two wolves. One, he says, represents qualities like anger, greed, envy & violence and the other represents love, peace, kindness & generosity. When the grandson asks which wolf will win, the wise elder replies, “The one you feed.”
I like it that the Washington Post continues to feature a selection of inspiring stories to help you disconnect, hit refresh and start the week off right, delivered every Wednesday and Sunday. I especially love the one about the fellow who found the ‘funeral notes’. And don’t forget about YES! Magazine and Grateful Living. And if you’re local to the Portland area, take a look here.
But as a realist (at least I like to think of myself as one) it’s important to not pretend all that goodness doesn’t have deep pain and suffering running right alongside it; a reminder that without the dark there can be no light, especially as we approach what I tend to think of as the season of cold & long. Years of working to keep my heart open wide enough to hold it all have made it easier, but I have to confess, not by much.
I know that for many Americans the “official” start of that commercially-enhanced series of holidays that begins on Thanksgiving Thursday, immediately followed by the attractive sales of Black Friday, is the annual nudge they count on to shift gears, buck up, quit your belly-aching, and definitely stop whining … permission to put all that dark, sad, nasty stuff aside, and party, spend, and over-indulge in food and drink, at least for a little while. But not Val D. Phillips, whose tenacity I never cease to admire.. In her Thanksgiving Day substack post to Another World Is Possible, Val speaks poignantly about what has become, for her, “A National Day of Mourning”.
But wait … didn’t I promise COMFORT FOOD (and self-promotion)? Indeed. Let’s start with this from my book All In The Soup Together … Four Seasons of Recipes & Reflections.
| Five Haikus for the season of cold & long | |
| winter afternoons darkness takes over the sky like a flock of crows a glorious wind arriving at last wafting through the house slanting rain taps glass |
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Can you smell it yet … the fragrant promise of a heartwarming winter soup? Here are a couple of my favorite recipes guaranteed to stop your sad belly from aching . My All In The Soup Together (written in 2023) is a cookbook of sorts for folks who appreciate poetry and soup on the same menu. Its opening page declares: “I’ve heard it said that people all over the world are made the same … only the soups are different. I like to believe this is true.” You too?
The “reflection” that precedes the winter recipes says this: Winter soups are in a class by themselves! There really is no match for the sense of wellbeing that comes with the fragrance of fennel or caraway or root vegetables simmering in a slow cooker on a blustery afternoon. Whether your favorite winter celebration is Hanukkah, Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s or even Valentine’s Day, here are six recipes for hearty soups to cozy on in with. And whether you’re attracted to the seafood & sausage mix of Louisiana Gumbo, or Ukrainian Borshch, Eastern European Pork Stew, Texas-Style Chicken Soup or (seriously?) a hefty pot of Sauerkraut & Potatoes, May All the Holidays you celebrate be Happy!
Pork Stew With Pears & Yams will surprise you with its pungent sweetness, giving each of its flavors a little time in the spotlight. Accent the bold taste of pears and fennel with a slice of Jewish Rye or Rosemary Sourdough slathered with a mix of butter, coarse mustard, and parmesan cheese that’s been tucked under the broiler for a minute, and you’ve got a feast!
Interesting Times Lunar New Year Soup offers a real party in your mouth, combining (imho) the best flavors of Chinese Hot & Sour from Mama Chang and the health-enhancing ingredients of Chinese New Year Soup from Clean Living Magazine. Interesting times for sure.
It seems to me that between snippets of poetry and childhood memories of food and music, we all have a story to tell. Maybe yours is the old “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go” or Joy Harjo’s kitchen table poem, Perhaps the World Ends Here. Mine is about celebrating Russian Christmas with my maternal grandparents and the rewrite it led to. I tell the story titled Nosdrovyea! (which I invite you to read here if you like) in my memoir, Arms Filled With Bittersweet. It happens to contain my recipe for Ukrainian Borshch as well.
For me, revising and re-writing some of those original stories has been a good thing. That’s probably why I love Carrie Newcomer’s song, “Writing a Better Story” so much. Let’s close with that one today …
… but not without saying (and here’s more of the garnish) that all four of my books are available here for holiday gifting at 25% off the usual price. And if you’re local to the Portland area, check the local pick up box and let’s get together for tea. (If you have Amazon Prime you might want to order from them for free shipping, but know that their edition of All In The Soup Together is not spiral-bound, which is not great when you’re following a recipe.)
Writing a Better Story, by Carrie Newcomer, as reviewed in the DailyGood …
It was a song about forgiveness, the kind of forgiveness that does not mean or imply forgetting, but rather the kind of forgiveness that implies intention.
Until Next Time, Beloved Rascals & Soup Slurpers Everywhere,
Nosdrovyea! and Much Love,
Sulima
