120 ~ Snow soup
Saturday afternoon, after a good morning at the writing desk, cold is pulling another fall of white snow from a gray sky. Time to make soup.
The night before I'd put to soak some beautiful beans from last summer's garden, and took venison broth out of the freezer. But these alone will not a worthy soup make, except perhaps for a monk. So I pull on my Swiss flannel-lined wellies, grab a small spade, and break trail through the snow to the back garden, in search of more flavor. There, when old man winter was still a youth, I mounded loose straw around the last stalk of kale and the remaining leeks. Now with my mitten I push aside the snow and straw to expose a shout of rich green kale in an otherwise minimally chromed winter world. Inside the protection of its small snow and straw igloo, through temps that have approached -20F, the kale's leaves have held fresh and crisp. I've been harvesting from this stalk on occasion for a few weeks already, and now I take the last of its good leaves.
A few steps away I push aside another hump of snow and straw, and with the spade probe and chip the hard, somnolent ground and manage to free a few leeks. Somewhere in the woods beyond, deer, turkeys and squirrels have also been pawing through the snow in search of food. The leeks are frozen, but, as I soon discover in the kitchen, not to their cores, and even the frozen layers remain flush with leek flavor.
Working back around to the herb garden below the kitchen windows, I beg pardon of the cardinals, chickadees, and nuthatches that flush from the feeders, and find a stalk of sage rising from the snow, like a flag on a summit. In this year's particularly stark and cold winter, the leaves have dried well in situ. I snap off several and return to the kitchen with my bounty. I chop the leeks, sauté them in my Italian nephew's olive oil, add the sage, some Szechuan pepper brought home from Laos, the broth, beans, and some slices of remnant carrots from my housemate, and put it all to slow cook. The kitchen soon smells very good - feels and smells warm. Life is good on this day.
There is both a solace, and a confidence, that comes from feeding yourself well in the depth of winter. The world is ceaseless in its generosity, and sometimes all we have to do is look, and be grateful.
~~~
Postscript: Brrr, -21F in this Iowa County holler as I publish this post this morning (cold I braved for the top photo above!). Late on yesterday’s chill afternoon, after I’d finished writing this, a young and healthy doe appeared and made a direct line to the back garden. Because I’d taken the last best leaves from the kale for the soup, I’d not reburied the stalk in protective straw and snow. She went straight for it, and finished the older leaves I’d left.
After the kale she moved over and munched some of the remnant brussels sprouts. Nice to know that my winter garden nourishes others besides me and my Homo sapiens homeys.