Kitchen Note: Soup. Lots of Soup

So…hi. I opened the blog just now and was astonished to see people are still reading…I mean, the prevailing wisdom out there in blogland is post regularly or wither on the virtual vine. And nobody can say I’ve been posting regularly lately. Thank you for reading anyway.

Where’ve I been? Parting ways with a molar. Farewell, tooth number 31.

Much as I’d like to be lighthearted about this, I’m not. Call me selfish, but even if I weren’t into cooking, or writing about said cooking, I’d still have a passing interest in chewing. And you know, teeth are rather necessary if you like chewing. Implants? No can do. Shallow sinus cavity, pre-existing condition, yada yada.

Yes, it could be worse. The possession of dental insurance and pain medication, along with the good fortune to be here and not elsewhere are hereby duly noted.

I’m now at the irritating point of recovery where you are well enough to be bored, but not well enough to do much else.

Hi.

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Having a hole in your mouth means a limited menu. So the days before oral surgery saw me in the kitchen, prepping not only for a liquid diet, but ensuring a few meals were cooked and frozen for John, too. He got steak and lamb chops. Me? I got soup.

In Still Life With Menu, Mollie Katzen breaks recipes down into pieces that may be prepared well ahead, showing readers tips and tricks for meal planning. One of these tricks is placing all the ingredients for one recipe in a container, like this:

These are for tom yam soup: limes, lemongrass, garlic, lime leaves, chicken, scallions. Normally I don’t need to do this kind of prep; after all, I’m at home. But I had no idea how I’d feel after the oral surgery. So I made up two Tupperware containers of soup ingredients and cooked a pot of rice.

Lime leaves are available at my market, but I always seem to get there just as they’ve sold out or the lime leaf truck is about to arrive. For once, the leaves and I were in the store simultaneously.

I also made a lentil-ham-hock soup, which isn’t photographed. This kabocha squash, meanwhile, may end up being Paula Wolfert’s Autumn Squash Soup, if I don’t end up so sick of liquid nourishment that I resort to mushing solids into the left side of my face, engaging in the art of post-surgical chewing.

In all seriousness, healing is coming along nicely. The pain is diminishing–two days after surgery, I’m off medication–and I look forward to returning to the kitchen, to cooking, and to sharing my adventures here.

For now, I am off to eat more soup.

Thank you for reading. It means more than I can say.