I'm drawn to the soup section of every cookbook I encounter and the Pinterest soup posts get my full attention. I'm a lover of the classics (ie Julia Child's Onion Soup) but during this past year I've started looking at new untried options. Two of the new soups which make hearty meals in themselves; tortilla soup and lasagna soup, now join my favourites.
Anyone who knows me knows that soup represents more than just food.
It is the comfort I welcome when I'm not feeling at all well. During an outbreak of Shingles a few years ago, I remained in my bed because it hurt too much to do otherwise. Each day my husband brought a tray of food in to me - always including soup. It's important to note that, other than cleaning up after me, the kitchen is foreign territory to him. It didn't matter that I knew he had just opened a tin and heated the soup; I appreciated his efforts to care for me. The love they represented likely accelerated my recovery.
When my store was still open, a good friend would sometimes drop in with an elegant tray of homemade goodness. Soup was always included. She is an excellent cook and included me as a taste tester when making something new. This represented the kind of friendship we had; one that valued each other's opinions and included kind gestures.
While I was still working, my mother lived nearby. She would sometimes arrive on my doorstep with a container of soup for our dinner. As a working woman most of her life, my mother was well aware of the pressure of planning dinner after a workday. Since I rarely thought about dinner when leaving the house in the morning, her kindness meant I didn't have to put much thought into it for that evening. When my mother did this, I was reminded of the nurturing she has given me throughout my life. It didn't matter that I was over 50. Making soup for me was her way to nurture me once again.
During COVID, another friend has been delivering 'secret' meals including soups to women she knows are working and who have young families. The additional expectations placed on these families make every kindness we can share increasingly important.
My husband and soup are intertwined in another way. Like most couples married for decades, our relationship doesn't include grand declarations of our feelings. They have been replaced by the many thoughtful things we do that we know will bring the other pleasure.
One of these thoughtful things is the simple act of sliding his soup bowl toward me when we are in a restaurant. This small gesture says "I'm enjoying this soup and would like you to share my enjoyment". Such a simple act and yet it expresses the generosity and intimacy that only two people who have lived through much together share. He can even laugh when, on occasion, I've enjoyed the soup so much that the bowl is nearly empty when it gets back to him.
How often in my younger years did I let the kind gestures of others go by without recognizing what they represent. Thankfully, the busy middle years of life are behind me and I now see how easy it is to touch someone else with the smallest of actions on our part.
No comments:
Post a Comment