Soup and the Sea

It’s the fall equinox here this week, which unfortunately has coincided with baking through a pile of consecutive 95+ degree days. In spite of that, I decided to make ribolita last week, a tuscan vegetable and white bean soup, with ribbons of greens and a broth thickened with hunks of staled bread crushed into the broth. Turning off all the lights in the living room we lit a candle and pretending at the fall season, it was so deeply satisfying. I followed with lentil soup, a very spicy lemongrass and coconut milk Thai green curry, followed by a hearty Japanese curry of potatoes, beef and carrots in an amber roux over rice.

I don’t find it too controversial to say as a person of Scottish heritage, I think I may have a genetic penchant for soup, an exhaustion of hot weather, and a deep love of wheaty hearth loaves. I abandoned home to get lost in the fog in Pacifica over the weekend, a place I’ve always felt an affinity for. It’s steep green hillsides, foggy environs, and craggy coastlines make me so at peace. I wandered the beach alone chewing on a crusty hunk of bread, observing the swooping seabirds. I walked uphill to the library and flipped through giant art books and cookbooks awhile. More ambling ended me up in a tiny museum where the docent had a free hour to show me around talking about native basket weavings, model trains, adobe ranchos, Italian artichoke farmers and such. I found a great cappuccino, read Steinbeck for hours, and thrifted a $5 forest green sweater that I wore all day long. I watched the molten sun break the mist and melt into the sea. At the Thai restaurant where I snuggled into a corner table for dinner with my book, the owner exclaimed that it was “so hot today!”. I laughed and nodded agreeably, the high had been a glorious 64 degrees.

I hope you find a way to crack the pressure cooker of your week, through delusional soup making or a disappearance into the coast not too far away. Don’t forget the bread to take with you.