Soup is a time honoured tradition is this household, accompanied by something warm from the oven be it muffins, popovers, biscuits, or on more indulgent days, fresh bread. Soup -- a fragrant often colourful combination of whatever is on hand, odds and ends of food, leftovers and fresh bits, seasoned stock and time. Time is a soup's most critical ingredient. Without it there is only a hodgepodge of flavours and textures immersed in salty water. Very blah -- kind of like this Sunday.
If one was up very early, a clear sky and warm temperature promised a beautiful summer's day ahead. By 10 am that promise lay smothered under a damp blanket. A heavy sky and air thick with humidity drained me of my earlier enthusiasm for the day. It just slipped away along with the promise of beauty. Not even a second cup of coffee could provide the jolt I needed to tackle the To Do List.
There is only one remedy for such situations. Gather up the odds and ends of chores, the unfinished bits and the things that truly need doing and one by one knock them off the list. So I hauled myself through the hodgepodge:
- Decide what to have for supper. This was a difficult task not only because it was the first but also because I couldn't make a decision. It took an hour and ended in failure.
- Clean and refill the bird feeders. This was another tough one. My legs whined every time I encountered the stairs, which was very frequently as there was an indecisive and forgetful brain attached to my legs and five feeders to tend.
- Do something about that cabbage ageing in the fridge, also the tomatoes and somewhat sad looking celery. How about soup for supper? Oh well, all right.
- Check in with the kids. This is always good for a boost. Well that is IF I actually get to talk to them. Today Suzy Phone Mail was the only one who answered and I know her story by heart.
The hours crept by and now it was raining steadily with the occasional rumble of distant thunder rolling through. It was the kind of rain my Dad called a "watchin' rain" so I brewed myself a lovely chai latte and sat down in the living room to read. I made it all the way to the top of the third page before succumbing to the heaviness of the day.
When I regained consciousness, it was still softly raining. A wonderful aroma wafted in from the kitchen -- Soup! Time to make some muffins. As I set the pan in the oven, the sun came out. I sat happily in the kitchen watching the birds return to the cleaned and re-stocked feeders. The gold finches and chickadees were first, then came that lovely cardinal couple and last by by no means least, Hermione the humming bird whizzed in for a few quick draughts of fresh nectar.
It was a beautiful day!
It just needed a little time.
(And the soup was pretty good too!)
