Stewing Soup and Old Memories

Okay, this is what I started to write yesterday:

If I can kasher my range tonight, and there is no clear reason I can't, I want to make soup.  This whole summer, I barely cooked at all.  I want to make some thick, hearty chock-full-of-veggies soup.  Fall is the time for applesauce, cranberries, orange veggies, and soup.

The yucky thing I really should do first, is clean out the tupperware of soup stock I made when I first moved into "the house" a month ago, along with a couple other tupperwares of food I dragged along to the new place.  I would love to just dump the entire containers, but I can't stand the idea of the waste of the plastic or the $5.  I guess the smell will be the deciding factor.

Two years ago, I made the most delicious soup from a bounty of vegetables and herbs from the farmers' market and my own garden.  Amazing what a strong memory that made;  I have very strong memories around food (no surprise). 

If it were up to my little guy Po, all we would eat would eat would be vegetarian Matzoh Ball soup.  This actually represents a fairly wide range of soup bases, but generally root vegetables, lots of onion, maybe a tomato, and assorted spices including parsley and dill.  This is based on the first soup I ever learned to made - my grandmother and aunt's chicken soup.

But I didn't cook anything, except noodles at 11:30pm.  I kashered the range, scorched the backsplash a bit, and then the upstairs neighbors came to ask if everything was alright since they smelled gas.  I decided I was done then.  But meanwhile I was beading a gorgeous piece (photos to follow soon, I hope), and in the middle stopped to try to organize some remaining boxes from the move.  I don't have a bookshelf yet - a friend is moving out of town soon, and she said I could have her bookshelves in a couple weeks.  So most my books are mostly sitting in piles of boxes in one of the closets, along with whatever else I crammed in the boxes, in the mad dash to move this last time.

I opened a few boxes, hoping to consolidate the contents, and I found a lot of old correspondence.  In the mix, a few envelopes stood out as clearly having come from the wasband, back before we were married.  I had to look.  Maybe that seems a given, but I hesitated, wondering if I should return them.  I learned from Miss Manners that when a courtship ends, it is proper to return the letters received - they presumably contain much that the writer would find embarrassing, at the least, once the relationship has ended.   Plus, they are special, like a gift, that you would offer to return if things went splits.  In fact "returning letters" used to be a euphemism for ending a relationship.  But after almost 20 years of marriage, I wouldn't return an engagement ring (even if I hadn't thrown it across the highway those many years ago), so I ain't giving back the letters.

Then, as I went through the pile of card and envelopes, I read more letters from many people in my past.  (Aside - what another terrible, terrible effect of technology, that the next generation will not be able to do this!!!)  There was so much that I had forgotten, so much that I remembered.  I was clearly attractive (in whatever manner) to many people, in a way I could never let myself believe.  Man, I have such an inferiority complex!  What a shame.  I know it is completely worthless to continue to cry over mistakes in the past, but that is what I did.  Hopeful I will learn from the past - that I have worth.  That is really a difficult assignment.

Free Extra: Here is a clip of Bill Braudis explaining that he wants the engagement ring back, now that he married his bride.  Totally different idea, but just something I was reminded of.  Also, I think this one has the "6 cats before coffee" line that I am always thinking of.