Making Minestrone with Monkeys

Warm the oil. Wait for that faint, sweet-hot smell of gently heated olive oil and then, deep breath, begin. First come the fruits from deep within the earth. The strong and the flavorful, heavily scented and full of their own magic oils - the onion and the garlic. Sizzle, stir and wait. Not too long, mere seconds... there it is. The garlic. Quickly now, the next layer. The hearty and the strong, roots and stalks - bright carrots and elusive but distinct celery. These are your work horses. They hold up to the heat, the longest simmerers, the taste of comfort. Throw in some salt to make them shine. Snipped oregano from the yard: pungent, peppery, furry little leaves to draw out the celery and make her dance. Cover and wait. Let the salt work its crystalline magic and coax the flavors, rooty and earthy, from these foundational elements.

A good minestrone is made in layers. When the corners are softened, it's time for the gentle greens of the fruits that grow from flowers: peppers, zucchini, green beans. These are more delicate bits, full of their own tears of joy. They need a warm bath to ease their company with the heartier roots. The stock, some tomato puree, a splash of red wine for its decadence and a little more salt. The pot is filling, these layers of flavor need time to mingle and sort themselves out. A gentle simmer and the lid goes on. Longer this time, leaving plenty of time for all to get acquainted. We wait. We wipe the counters, knead the bread. Tiny fingers dimple the surface to create divots that will catch melted butter and hold the crunch of sea salt. The focaccia goes in the oven and we dance a moment while we wait.

With a savory billow of steam, we lift the cover and check our soup so far. A sip of the broth and a sprinkle of black pepper, a pinch more salt, but not too much. These roots and fruits can speak for themselves and they are slowly assembling into a powerful chorus. We add the temperamental sopranos - fresh diced tomatoes and some baby spinach. The bass notes of cannellini beans and a handful of pasta. They rehearse together in the pot with burbles and a steady, thumping rhythm of a slow boil. The bread is done, fresh and steaming from the oven, wrapped in fresh white towels to keep the heat and the chewy, dense crust. My maestros of minestrone let it tend to itself after taking a tiny taste of its harmony and declaring it perfect.

Attention is turned to the sweets. Little, rich, decadent balls of batter - chocolate within chocolate - are carefully rolled in stark, white powdered sugar and carefully lined up on parchment paper. These little, gooey chocolate soldiers in ranks are cautiously directed to the oven where they will harden and crackle on the outside, while staying soft and yielding within. Tiny patient fingers and tongues wait until all the rolling and lining is done before they lick their sweet reward - remnants of sugar and chocolate dough. Again we wait. We smell and we linger, peeking in the oven's window through dish towel curtains, counting down the minutes. The raw taste of batter and sugar was only a tease and whetted our appetites for more - warm and fresh from the oven.

And now for the very best part. We fill bowls with lids, bag up loaves and cookies, write love notes, and load them in the car. One friend has been sick. Another has lost a loved one. Both said they were fine. We want to make them finer. The monkeys ring doorbells and dance from foot to foot in the excitement of a job well done and anticipation of being able to surprise.

A good minestrone is made in layers. The hearty and the homely work together with the delicate and fragile, they meet in common space and become sublime. A good minestrone is the hearty warmth of a rich soup with the light and verdant promise of brightness to come. It can warm you when the air is still chilly and speak to you quietly of summer days. When paired with the conundrum of focaccia - both light and airy and firm and substantial - it becomes complete. The warm yeasty pockets that were made to sop up the last of the broth, the crunch of salt to add the sea to the summer vegetables, the toothsome and the tender. And to round it out, a touch of sweetness. The dark excess of chocolate on chocolate, dipped in the flightiest of sugars to powder your lips and your fingers. The ending note of the grand symphony started by garlic and oil.

These layers take patience, they take time. They take a little bit of magic and a lot of love. They are the very least we can give to our friends.

Tangled Small Talk: The Sisterhood of the Blurt

Have I mentioned that I am a secret agent? Probably not. It's a secret. It doesn't have to be a secret from you, though. Unless you are in the marketing department of a major grocery store chain, in which case you should probably just forget you read this. It's mostly a secret because it embarrasses me. I am a mystery shopper and have earned (I am not making this up) "premier agent status" because of the timeliness and accuracy of my work. Which essentially means that when the company is in a pickle, they call me and offer me extra money to drop everything and go to the grocery store of their choosing. It is a great power I wield, I realize. Do not be too impressed. It is my academic pride that finds this whole affair embarrassing and I frequently get disgruntled that I am pretty much a digital age Donna Reed with much shabbier clothes and wonder if I should give Betty Friedan a call for some advice. Except she's dead.

Today I had on my secret agent hat. It looks very much like my every other day hat. Which depends on what day it is, what the weather is, and the state of my hair. Today my secret agent hat was a basic gray knit toque - the sort that are favored by bank robbers and hipsters. I felt my bowler hat was a little conspicuous, my red silk cloche has grown suddenly to Mushmouth proportions and tickles my nose and it's not quite time yet for my cream linen floppy hat. These are essential details, ones over which I agonize most mornings when leaving the house. So I and my secret agent hat dropped the Hooligan off at school and then off to a local natural foods store where I had a list of 88 items for which to collect pricing data. Glamorous, no? It involves a lot of skulking around, pretending to be reading labels while glancing at the products in question, making a mental note of the prices, then running around the corner to a vacant aisle and scribbling down the prices on my oh-so-official sheet of paper before I forget them. And repeat.

Except today I ran into an acquaintance in the midst of my duties. Actually, I was pondering the six different brands of tofu in all of their assorted flavors and consistencies and wondering why, with so much selection, was the brand I needed absent? And this acquaintance of mine tapped me on the shoulder and said hello. Startled out of my secret agent tofu reverie, I jumped and said hello. She is a lovely woman. Her daughter is in the same grade as my daughter and they live up the hill from us. We see them occasionally on our walk to school and chat a bit. Have I mentioned that my small talk skills are appalling? The last time I saw this woman, we were both hurrying our respective charges up the last few stairs into the playground as the late bell was ringing, simultaneously advising the girls to "RUN!" So as we walked back toward home, we had a few blocks to chat. We discussed the new, earlier, start time at school this year and how it is well into the second semester and we are all still adjusting. I admitted to a certain wasting of fossil fuels from time to time in just driving the jBird the twelve blocks to school to save time and tardy slips. So far, so good. One more block to go without saying anything alarming or embarrassing. I could do this. Or not. "Yeah! Sometimes I just drop her at the corner and watch her until she goes into the school grounds so that I don't see anyone because I haven't brushed my teeth and I may be wearing my husband's shoes!" This was the last sentence I had said to this woman before I bumped into her in the grocery store today.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you. I was mesmerized by the tofu!"
She laughed and said, "Yes, it can be overwhelming." Yes, of course, tofu can be completely overwhelming. Everyone knows that.
"I suppose it doesn't matter much which kind I buy because I just grind it up and hide it in my children's food." I don't do this very often and when I do it is more out of financial considerations than nutritional or spiritual ones.
"Well, you should try this kind. It's to be savored, though. It's delicious." She hands me something that looks like a shrink-wrapped turd.
"Oh look! Tamari soaked grilled tofu! Mmmm." Both my monkeys and my husband would outright revolt if I served them shrink-wrapped turd for dinner and told them it was "to be savored" so, of course, I throw it in my cart.

Our discussion carries quite naturally from tofu to eating disorders and our own particular neuroses and how we create worse neuroses in our children by trying to rid them of all neuroses, etc. Meanwhile, in this tiny urban grocery store we are sandwiched between the tofu and the gluten free bread and at least five other shoppers are forced to edge around us and ask us to pass them things. And then the most glorious thing happened: an event of such epic proportions that has won me a dear friend for life. We got to that awkward point in a chance meeting chitchat sort of conversation where you know it needs to end or become strange but you're not quite sure how to make an exit, especially if you're blocking traffic in prime grocery store real estate discussing eating disorders.

Brief pause, and she says:
"Well, I have to go now because I am on my period and I feel like I might fall over because it's so heavy."
I very nearly hugged her and danced for joy. I have met, in the flesh, a kindred spirit in blurting bizarre personal information in inappropriate circumstances. In this simple declaration, she freed me from ever being nervous about talking to her again. Sure, she's beautiful and fit and smart and has the curly red hair I have coveted my whole life, but she blurts things! Giddy with our new found discovery, we stood blocking the grocery aisle* another five minutes or so, happily blurting things at one another. And then, as if it could get any better, we both did an awkward about-face and trotted off in our separate directions while blurting a few additional tidbits about constipation and not showering regularly over our shoulders.

I trundled around the grocery store for another hour, collecting prices on my list and some random groceries in my cart to make it look like I was doing something, feeling no longer like a beleaguered housewife doing housewifely things, but empowered. I am a secret agent, an odd duck who does random things to help out her family, and a Blurter. I am part of a sacred sisterhood who will never show up to Pilates with a skinny no-whip mocha and a fresh manicure. We of The Blurt will occasionally schlep to school in strategically disguised pajamas and men's shoes but we will never be called upon to solicit big-ticket items for the PTA auction. We are a sacred society of the un-cocktail party, where we can speak earnestly and suddenly, with too many exclamation points of bodily functions, strange growths, or the rat we found in our garage! We are there, diverting our morning breath with a cups of coffee, giving and receiving shrink-wrapped turds which we never intend to eat, hiding our premier agent status behind a journal and a grocery list, and lopping off conversations with non-sequitur! We are small in number, but mighty in courage! Hear us blurt! We are not alone!



*This sort of aisle hogging behavior, when conducted by others, sends me around a bend I don't like to visit. I completely realize the hypocrisy in this. I would, however, consider not getting upset if the aisle hoggers were of the Sisterhood of the Blurt. I would probably just blurt something random at them.