Veggies from my Iowa December garden
Life is Like a Bowl of Soup
A new year has arrived! And I have decided that life is like a bowl of soup. Cooking up a tasty life begins with a few necessary ingredients. We just need to dice up the day, make some preparations, savor the flavors life has served us, stir a little, love a lot, stir that love into the soup, mix with some sweet and sour. It takes a little bit of everything to create the glorious dishes, an even more glorious life.
I have been thinking about soup as I write my New Year’s resolutions, because after much traveling in November and December, we returned home on a cold gray mid-December day. The first thing I did was check on what was remaining in my summer garden, shivering, but warming my soul, I gathered sage, oregano, thyme, parsley, arugula, chard, collard greens, tarragon, mint, and even tiny leaves of red leafed lettuce that I planted in September. Didn’t really think it would grow. It barely did, but I so loved those baby leaves on an Iowa December day—seeds that I sowed not believing in them.
And now that the new year has arrived in the blink of an eye, hauling with it cold arctic blasts, we have the perfect opportunity to write our resolutions, our dream recipes for our life this year. Even if you don’t have a garden, you can easily buy glorious rainbow-colored vegetables. Be sure to use lots of deeply colored vegetables as they have more antioxidants than colorless ones, so important to our health and well-being. Choose sweet potatoes, kale, green beans, butternut squash, red cabbage and so much more.
Writing my resolutions I season it liberally to create a rich broth of mouth-watering ideas, chopping in fresh dreams, marinating them, brushing old habits with a new mixture of flavors and textures in every spoonful. Delicate but full-bodies deliciousness. Resolutions, like soup should lift our spirits and help us manifest the life we love.
When preparing my soup, I take the time to choose the recipes I love, just like my new year’s resolutions are focused on what I love. Take the time to dream how you can infuse more flavors and color into your life. Include crispy crunchiness just like topping off the soup with croutons or toasted pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, or salted roasted peanuts. How can you elevate the nuance of your life like a soup topped with aromatic parmesan cheese?
In case you need inspiration, here are two of my favorite soup cookbooks: The Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy by Domenica Marchetti and The Daily Soup Cookbook by Leslie Kaul.
Let me know how it goes–Writing and eating soup! Let me know your thoughts on how your life is like a bowl of soup. Hunker down to the basics–a little soup, a notebook for resolutions, and a fire in the fireplace on a cold winter day to prepare your 2018 recipe for adding more flavors in your life this year and beyond!
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Learn more about traveling to Italy on Lenora’s Italy Retreats For Women
Find out more about Lenora’s Sweet Life Workshops and Sweet Life Happiness Coaching.
You are welcome to reprint, copy, or distribute Lenora Boyle’s article, provided the above author credit is included.
Love soups. We’ve been enjoying tomato bisque quite a lot this winter. Enjoying your blog as always.
Maryanna,
That sounds yummy and quick and easy! Will have to try it. I loved making pasta fagioli, (pasta beans), from the Glorious Soups and Stews of Italy cookbook. I bought fresh borlotti beans at the At Home Store. They’re also called cranberry bean or Roman bean. Soak them overnight first. I used gluten-free pasta too even though I’m not gluten-free. So delicious! Kept it on the stove during the day over the holiday, so my kids who were visiting or their friends dropping by, could eat when they felt like it!
I loved the recipe, warming our inner self and those around us is ‘happy inspiring’!
Debs,
So glad you tried the recipe and it inspired you!