Bringing Up Mommy
By Debra-Lynn B. Hook
Special to McClatchy Newspapers
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Last week, my daughter wrecked the family van. The bank stamped our checking account "Overdrawn." The neighbor sent another nasty e-mail about our dog. And my hairdresser took me seriously when I said I was kinda bored with my hair.
This is why I make soup.
"Mom!" my freshman daughter shouts when she comes home from college to find me standing at the cutting board with an apron on. "Are you ...? Is that ...?"
"Soup for dinner tonight!" I answer.
A pot of soup simmering on the stove suggests harmony is in the house, even if it's only in the pot.
Disparate parts are being melded into whole.
Somebody cares enough to chop, simmer, stir and wait.
Everything slows, including Mom, who is home - really home.
My family knows when I make soup, I have given over my laptop, my cell phone, the soccer schedule and fast food on the fly to the veggies in the crisper and the J.A. Henckels knife in my hand. It has to be a good knife. When I am chopping vegetables with a fine knife that fits the palm of my hand, I am a ballerina conjoined with the dance floor. I am timeless. I am ageless. I am Laura Ingalls Wilder, Eleanor Roosevelt. I am a good mother, deftly managing carrots, potatoes, garlic and celery, like a fine glassmaker, for her family.
Studies have been done. The medicinal properties of chicken soup, in particular, have been researched by scientists who know that as early as the 12th century, doctors were prescribing chicken soup for cold and asthma symptoms. Modern research has proven chicken soup to have anti-inflammatory properties. Its amino acids resemble the medications used for respiratory ailments.
What these studies do not necessarily address is the emotional response to homemade soup. Marketing research expert K.C. Blair, who has studied soup in relationship to the consumer, talks about this in his essay, "Why is Soup Good Food?"
"When you are too busy, you do not create or experience enough compassion," says Blair. "When you take a moment to make yourself some tea, hot chocolate or soup, you are showing yourself attention and care. Soup is good food because it helps mom (or, for that matter, dad) serve more attention and care on her loved ones."
I know that for my daughter, seeing her mother slowed to a conscious state of health and well-being, intent on providing sustenance for her and her family, is as good as cuddling in a rocking chair with a family of Care Bears singing "Hush, Little Baby."
Soup is for the receiver.
It is also for the maker.
Making soup is like going home to my mother, to a slower, - or so it seemed - more full-bodied time, when people took time in the kitchen, when the windows were always fogged up with something cooking on the gas stove. Making soup brings me to who I am at my core - the matriarch of my own family now, who feels good when she foregoes the preservatives and makes her family a meal that will, in one bowl, cover all the necessary food groups.
Tonight, as the first snow of the season falls on the leaves outside the kitchen door, as our weekend continues with three soccer events, one concert, a sleepover, a Confirmation class, a business meeting and way too much time working, I quietly slip away to the local co-op, where I buy all the root vegetables I can find - turnips, squashes, carrots, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onion, garlic.
I peel them. I chop them into chunks. I throw them, along with curry, a little cayenne and several cups of veggie broth, into the soup pot. When all the ingredients are simmered to integration, I puree half of the vegetables and return them to the pot. I add half a cup of peanut butter (yes, peanut butter for both thickening and flavor) and the juice from half a lemon. I splash a little red wine into the pot and some into the glass next to it.
I pull out the special bowls that I use only for soup, and I call out to the scattered family. We come together to the simple, but warm and healthy, meal. And I know in the midst of chaos, I have done one thing well today.
(Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio (www.debralynnhook.com), has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. Read her blog at http://debralynn-bloopbloopotter.blogspot.com/ or e-mail her at dlbhook@yahoo.com.)
By Debra-Lynn B. Hook
Special to McClatchy Newspapers
-------------------------
Bringing up Mommy: Soup is good metaphor
By DEBRA-LYNN B. HOOK
This is why I make soup.
"Mom!" my freshman daughter shouts when she comes home from college to find me standing at the cutting board with an apron on. "Are you ...? Is that ...?"
"Soup for dinner tonight!" I answer.
A pot of soup simmering on the stove suggests harmony is in the house, even if it's only in the pot.
Disparate parts are being melded into whole.
Somebody cares enough to chop, simmer, stir and wait.
Everything slows, including Mom, who is home - really home.
My family knows when I make soup, I have given over my laptop, my cell phone, the soccer schedule and fast food on the fly to the veggies in the crisper and the J.A. Henckels knife in my hand. It has to be a good knife. When I am chopping vegetables with a fine knife that fits the palm of my hand, I am a ballerina conjoined with the dance floor. I am timeless. I am ageless. I am Laura Ingalls Wilder, Eleanor Roosevelt. I am a good mother, deftly managing carrots, potatoes, garlic and celery, like a fine glassmaker, for her family.
Studies have been done. The medicinal properties of chicken soup, in particular, have been researched by scientists who know that as early as the 12th century, doctors were prescribing chicken soup for cold and asthma symptoms. Modern research has proven chicken soup to have anti-inflammatory properties. Its amino acids resemble the medications used for respiratory ailments.
What these studies do not necessarily address is the emotional response to homemade soup. Marketing research expert K.C. Blair, who has studied soup in relationship to the consumer, talks about this in his essay, "Why is Soup Good Food?"
"When you are too busy, you do not create or experience enough compassion," says Blair. "When you take a moment to make yourself some tea, hot chocolate or soup, you are showing yourself attention and care. Soup is good food because it helps mom (or, for that matter, dad) serve more attention and care on her loved ones."
I know that for my daughter, seeing her mother slowed to a conscious state of health and well-being, intent on providing sustenance for her and her family, is as good as cuddling in a rocking chair with a family of Care Bears singing "Hush, Little Baby."
Soup is for the receiver.
It is also for the maker.
Making soup is like going home to my mother, to a slower, - or so it seemed - more full-bodied time, when people took time in the kitchen, when the windows were always fogged up with something cooking on the gas stove. Making soup brings me to who I am at my core - the matriarch of my own family now, who feels good when she foregoes the preservatives and makes her family a meal that will, in one bowl, cover all the necessary food groups.
Tonight, as the first snow of the season falls on the leaves outside the kitchen door, as our weekend continues with three soccer events, one concert, a sleepover, a Confirmation class, a business meeting and way too much time working, I quietly slip away to the local co-op, where I buy all the root vegetables I can find - turnips, squashes, carrots, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onion, garlic.
I peel them. I chop them into chunks. I throw them, along with curry, a little cayenne and several cups of veggie broth, into the soup pot. When all the ingredients are simmered to integration, I puree half of the vegetables and return them to the pot. I add half a cup of peanut butter (yes, peanut butter for both thickening and flavor) and the juice from half a lemon. I splash a little red wine into the pot and some into the glass next to it.
I pull out the special bowls that I use only for soup, and I call out to the scattered family. We come together to the simple, but warm and healthy, meal. And I know in the midst of chaos, I have done one thing well today.
(Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio (www.debralynnhook.com), has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. Read her blog at http://debralynn-bloopbloopotter.blogspot.com/ or e-mail her at dlbhook@yahoo.com.)
