Becoming My Mother, Part I

I think I'm becoming my mother. All summer long, all she'd ever eat was salad. All winter long, it was soup. Garbage pail soup, she called it. She'd pull odds and ends out of the freezer, throw it all in a stockpot, and cook. Then she'd eat it every day for a week, and start all over again.

The past two weekends, I've done just that, prompted in part by an ongepotchket batch of CSA vegetables cluttering up the fridge. There's a method in my madness, though, and the soup has been excellent, if I may, you know, say so myself.

Let it be known: this isn't a recipe, this is a manifesto. It almost doesn't matter what you put in it, it matters that you do it. What do you have?

Start with an onion. Everything savory always starts with an onion, chopped, and sweated in a few glugs of olive oil. Red onion, white, no matter. While the onion grows translucent and oh so fragrant, chop a carrot and a stalk of celery. Mince a jalapeno, just one, for a tiny tingle of hotness. How about some squash? A small butternut squash, peeled and seeded and diced, that'll work. When the onion is nice and ready, add a quart of stock - beef, chicken, pork - and all the chopped vegetables. Add some tomatoes - puree from a can, fresh chopped, whatever you've got. If you're incapable of tossing the Parmesan rinds and you have some in the freezer, now's the time to stick one in the soup pot, like you always say you're going to do. Simmer gently until all the vegetables are soft. Fish out the Parm rind (and throw it away). Whir the soup a bit with a hand blender, or use a potato masher - you want to get some of the solid chunks broken down to thicken the soup. Toss in a 1/4 cup of uncooked bulgur, or that dried out leftover rice. Finally, cut up some turnip greens, mustard greens, beet tops, anything green - slice them into ribbons and throw them in the pot. Turn off the heat. Cool it down and plan to eat it tomorrow - it'll be better then.

This will make enough for dinner, with leftovers for lunch for a day or two. Gussy it up at the table with a salad and some bread, and maybe grate a little cheese over the top. Garbage pail soup.