Saved by Soup

For most of the year I did not want to cook. I did not even want to make a sandwich or a salad. I wasn't enthusiastic about eating and didn't enjoy things that I had previously enjoyed. I just assume this kind of thing is about grief and try not to worry about it. But the cooking thing was bugging me.
Ironically I started pushing myself to make soup. Ironic because for the past few years cooking for the mommie meant making soup. If I put a protein, a veg and a starch on a plate she's freak out. It was just too much food!!! If I put the same things in the same amounts in broth she'd eat it with no fuss. It was just a bowl of soup. I feel like this was residual diet mentality. And yet she always had room for desert and a handful of after dinner M&M's. Soup became annoying and limiting. And now it's a path back.

People say that cooking for one is too hard. I don't feel that way. I probably put more effort into cooking for others but I'm pretty good at making myself a meal. I think a lot about the time of year and what's available. I don't eat many salads in the winter. I don't eat as much warm food in the summer. I read recipes and think about them. I like cooking.
My method with soup is almost always the same. First olive oil with chili flakes. When the chili flakes start to crackle I add shallots and cook them until I see some color, then I add garlic. Ingredients might shift a little. I often add bacon after the oil and chili flakes. I forgo the shallots and garlic if I make something like potato leek soup. I roast things like squash to bring out the sugar rather than boiling them in the both. The mommie didn't like spice, garlic, kale, chard. When I started making soup again it took awhile for my habits and instincts to kick in.

Now I'm making one or two soups a week. My Instagram feed is full of soup. There are times when I don't want to cook. I still feel a bone deep level of tiredness and apathy. I don't always push myself. But once I'm in the rhythm of cooking I'm fine.  This is a craft that I put a lot of energy into learning. It's a way I express myself. Every pot of soup is me being engaged in life.
And then we eat.