I’m thinking about soup—one specific soup, from my childhood.
It’s a little orange, and it’s even brighter in my memories. It has bulgar wheat and carrots, vermicelli and tomatoes.
In the beginning of my life, it was made with chicken. During my stint of vegetarianism, single-serving pots would arrive to my place at the dinner table: chickenless, for me.
A few years ago, I learned that the soup earned its orange hue from a bit of tomato paste, added near the end. I was living thousands of miles away from the woman who made the soup, and I asked my mom to go study her method, to please learn all her secrets, and she did. My mom used her Apple Pencil and recorded the family recipe in multicolored lettering (because even digitally, my mom likes to use all her colored gel pens). The recipe arrived as a pdf—I remember the text as the best text I had received in months. Thanks again, Mom.
When I introduced the soup to Will, he recognized its ability to stand alone as a full meal. It has protein and carbs and veggies—it’s hearty, he said. I remember thinking about how strange and wonderful it was to watch him taste the soup that had helped raise me.
It was always just called soup. It never really had a name. There was almost no way to name it, as the preeminent soup of my life—it just was. Whenever I had to pick a favorite food as a child, I always just said soup, but I always meant that one in particular. Any night she was making that soup was a better night because of it.
That was the founding good omen of my childhood: Friday night dinners when Mama Shahin made her soup.
I’m thinking about soup, and about how she always made extra for leftovers. I’m thinking about love and grief, and the texts from our moms that we remember as the most difficult texts to receive.
❤️❤️❤️