Soup
Last week my friend Jay, a retired Army Officer whom I work with said to me; “You know what time it is?”
Now, since it was near lunchtime and that was a fairly open ended question I offered lamely; “Time for lunch?”
“No, it’s time to make Borscht.”
I don’t know if I introduced him to Borscht or if he encounter it in his many travels. He credits me with teaching him the secret to it, which is no matter which recipe, and there are about ten thousand permutations, to add a dollop of sour cream (Smitonna in the Slavic-verse) and fresh, chopped dill. Go easy on the dill, it is pretty potent.
I grew up eating Borscht. In my grandparents home it was a near constant food item. Borscht and Vodka, and I don’t remember too many meals where there wasn’t Smitonna on hand. Good solid, comfort food, to get you through a days labor or brutal winters.
My mother in law is a big fan of soup and I suspect if I were injured, that after basic first aid or trip to the ER it would be the next thing she’d offer. Chances are that it would, if nothing else, raise my spirits. I think she favors Chicken soup. Can’t blame her. My late father, was a fan of beef barley, which if I can’t get Borscht or don’t want to make it is my next go to.
When I was in Northern Iraq, or as I prefer to call it Kurdistan, my locally hired guards former and destined to again be, Peshmerga, would eat a version of Chicken soup for breakfast. I think theirs had potatoes, Magi noodles and other things in it. I couldn’t blame them, it was hearty stuff and winters in the mountains of Kurdistan demanded such sustenance.
Recently I came down with a cold. I probably got it from work or my youngest, who is aggressively affectionate, might have brought it home from school. It doesn’t matter the origin. The other night the only thing I wanted was hot and sour soup. It is my preferred soup when sick. I make a pretty fair one but I was in no mood that night and Uber Eats brought the meal. It was just what I needed.
This weekend has been cold enough and we’ve had a fire in the hearth all day both days. It isn’t as efficient as our furnace but it adds to the ambiance. It also makes me feel warm just looking at it. I like it when I am in the yard and I can smell the smoke from the chimney.
I was at the market today, doing the weekly marketing for my family of four. I spied some beets on the shelf and thought, “yeah, it is that time”. In a few minutes when I wrap this up, I will brown some short ribs, they have a nice mix of meat, fat and bone that give the broth a good flavor. I will chop up a bunch of vegetables, beets, carrots, onion, cabbage and a potato to name some. It will all go in the pot and get simmered within an inch of it’s life.
It will all start as a dispirit bunch of ingredients and flavors that will through the magic of cooking turn into Borscht. There’s probably some sort of metaphor in there for writing novels, or a team effort or even a nation. I’m not really interested in anything so high minded. I just know that it’s time for Borscht.