A letter to Joe Biden

 

Evan’s Coronavirus Celeryroot Soup

   I developed this recipe based on the situation at hand (stay at home, lots of time) and the simple materials available to me. 

  This recipe has a zen quality to it. Do not try to complicate it, this recipe is about letting simple ingredients shine. 

   The key step which requires some explanation is the dice. The celery root must be chopped in a fine dice, less than a 1/4 inch dice, but maybe a little more than 1/8th of an inch. 3-4 mm 

With the other vegetables you can be a little looser with your precision, but basically this is the same dice for all the ingredients. Don’t try and use a food processor, you won’t get the evenness of the cut vegetables. 

As with most soups it’s better the next day, if I make it to eat for dinner I usually try and start in the kitchen 3-4 hours before I wish to sit down to eat. 

Ingredients:

Celery root

Onion 

Leek

Carrot

celery/parsnip/sweet potato/ something else?

Split peas (yellow, dried)

Cooking oil 

Olive oil

Paprika 

Salt and pepper

• Set some water to boil in a kettle

• Clean and chop your auxiliary vegetable, or two, set aside into a med/large bowl as mise en place

• Peel the celery root, use your chefs knife and not a peeler. Turn the root sideways and take a thin slice about the thickness of your dice. Set the root aside and lay the slice down on your cutting board. Make cuts along the root that go 90% of the way through, but don’t cross through the back end. The cuts should be parallel and very close together. You should now have something that looks like a white circular comb 

Now cut cross ways, to make your dice. Voila! You’ll have to cut up that last bit of the slice that the score cuts didn’t go all the way through. 

   Once you’re happy with the contents of your cutting board, transfer over to the mise en place bowl, and work on another slice. 

Yes this takes a lot of time, but you have nowhere to go right?

• Now dice up that onion and add it to the mise en place. You can be less precise here. 

A word about how much.  I usually use one small celery root for a batch serving two. Or a half of a larger celery root, the remaining half will keep well in the fridge. 

(If you make a double batch using a whole large celery root there will be a lot of chopping, consider recruiting help. )

For onion, a small onion or maybe half of a large one. For the other vegetable, just a bit, maybe 1 medium-small carrot, 1.5 stalks of celery, 1 parsnip, use your judgement 

The ratio should be about 

         60       /       20       /        20 

celery root / onion & leek / other veg. 

• Choose a pot (stainless preferred, double walled preferred, any pot will do) at least double the volume of your prepared mise en place. Add a healthy dose of cooking oil ( 2-3 tbsp) and place over medium heat, when the oil gets hot add the vegetables and turn down the heat to med-low, stir every 15-30 seconds for a few minutes. 

We’re not trying to get anything browned, but we do want the vegetables to get oily and shiny and a bit translucent (for the onion).

After about 4 minutes add the split peas,  at about the same amount as the onion, or a little more. Not too much though! Maybe a half cup?  Keep stirring another minute or two.

• Add the hot water until everything is covered by 1/2 inch of water. Stir.

• Add a tablespoon and a quarter of paprika, and stir. (Optional) (smoked recommended)

• Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down to low, cover and simmer.

• Stir every 10-15 minutes. The kitchen will start to smell wonderful. If the peas absorb a lot of water you may need to add a little more water. 

• After 90-120 minutes the vegetables will begin to break down. You’ll open the lid and notice that there is layer of water that has risen to the top, as you stir you’ll see that it’s drier and gloppy on the bottom. At this point you must stir a little more frequently to reintegrate the water and keep the bottom from scorching. I use the back of the spoon to forcefully press down on the soup against the bottom or sides of the pot to help break apart the vegetables and peas. Then stir again and cover. 

• after another 30+ minutes your soup is done. Add salt and stir in. Take off heat. 

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top and sprinkle with finely ground black pepper. Serve with a warmed chunk of hearty bread with butter. Other side ideas, bok choy, potatoes, tomato salad. 

After initial cooling it is a good idea to keep the pot covered and place it in a plugged sink full of cold water to help lower the temperature. Transfer to sealed clean containers. Keeps for about 5 days. Or you can freeze some. 

Smacznego!

Living Life with ‘Mo Regrets

    Often the opposite is said... a trite repetition in The Culture... a misplaced remembrance of a song lyric comes to mind, “Don’t look back”. 

I want to consider the value of regrets. 

There’s a huge asterisk here of course. For most people embracing and sitting with regret is a ripe context for the arising of self-hate, shame, worthlessness, and guilt-tripping. This molasses filled swamp envelops you and causes only pain and turning-away. I don’t condone any of these unproductive yet sticky & habitual mental states. 

But if you come to a place where you can at least recognize and discern what is the constant voice of self-hate and what is your intrinsic emotional flow. And if you can resist the loop of re-hashing the latest example of your worthlessness Then it’s time for you to consider the power of regret. 

Like all of our universal human proclivities, love, fear, gossip, and so on, it exists as a kludgy mental process which serves us in some way. The power of regret is not to mourn or commiserate the past. The power of regret is to help shape our future. 

This week I awoke one morning From an unpleasant sleep and felt a familiar feeling. The comedown from a slumberland sugar-high. Soon I identified within me the feeling of regret for my actions the night before. I am at a point in my life where I feel the winds of change around my main vice of binge eating. Feeling bad the next morning, both in body and mind, is not new. But this morning was different. 

I had the presence to avoid the well trod path of shame. The piling-on my present self for all the unwise actions of some previous Evan. I saw that I regretted my actions. I forgave myself. And I contemplated how I can respond to sugar craving in the future. I realized that this was the healthy path of change. That my regret would help me to make better decisions for myself. 

It was a revelation to see the positive process of regret in action, after so many years of exposure to the opposite message.  

I recalled another example of how regret can help us to make better decisions in the future. A while back I had dreamed to help coordinate a final reunion of my grandma and her best friend when they both were dying. Had I been living close to family at the time it probably would have happened. But I was across the country... and life is so busy as we make it.  When I got an email from her son to let me know that grandma’s best friend had passed away I knew the opportunity for a meeting had passed. I regretted not having tried harder to make it happen. At the time I was deeper in the swamp of self-hate. While I don’t recall how it went at the time, it’s likely those feelings of self-loathing and failure led me to an evening of dullness and binge eating. 

Years later when I was back home I spied an opportunity to help my maternal grandmother. Nana grew up an only child. When her family moved into a new apartment building, Beatrice, the girl who lived down the hall became her big sister. They spent the better part of a century living in the same neighborhood, raised kids, lost husbands; always the closest of friends. As Bea’s health worsened she went to live with her son out in the suburbs. She and Nana often talked on the phone, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. 

  Here was my chance. I had a car, and the nose to prod Nana a little to invite herself out to see Bea. The reunion was a joyful moment for all involved. I have no doubt that my priority and drive to help grew from the experience of regret with my other grandmother. 

So if you can, keep one mindful eye open to look for regret in your life. Watch for that pull towards the guilt trip, stay on center and see what power regret can put into your life. I know that’s what I’ll be doing from now on.