Lentil, Kale, Potato Soup
A brief housemate journey
For many months, or years, I have been assessing how to bring more joy to my work. My writing is innately serious and I can’t help but analyze human interactions and societal injustice but how do I make it a little less miserable? And bring more of my dimensions to you? How do I give myself, and my readers, the gift of something warm and hopeful to take away while I tell you that once again life has kicked me in the ass? Over the past months, I’ve had some interesting experiences surrounding food, diet, nutrition, and I realized that in some way food—what we eat and how and why—is a background player in nearly every story. Not only that, but I love to cook, I enjoy hearing about how others make food work in their homes, and I see an opportunity to pull from a shared constant in our lives. For the next few weeks, I’ll be publishing essays weekly on Monday that share more of my journey than before, with a dash of seasoning.
Lentil, Kale, Potato Soup
I fell in love with Lentil, Kale, Potato Soup in the early years of becoming vegan*, back in the leafy heyday of kale. I’d made soups before but never with so much intention and not without a distinct bean or chili-based slant. Lentil, kale, potato soup reminded me of fall, of warmth, of what it must be like to feel at home.
Preparing this soup involves making a commitment to spend quite a bit of time with the ingredients but once you’ve committed, there are many rewards waiting. First, it is meditative: the chopping, the calculating, waiting until just the right moment to add the next ingredient so nothing is cooked over or under. All of these actions require complete attentiveness, thoughtfulness, and to exist solely in the moment. The stakes are low, but somehow seem crucial. Necessary for the reward. By making this soup, you have given yourself an opportunity to tune out the rest of the world. Next, there is the joy of seeing everything come together, a stockpot of goodness, an ode to nutrition, a force to get well soon. Finally, you are rewarded with a kitchen that smells distinctly of love and coziness and the satisfying joy of warm soup belly. Making soup is a labor of love that feels like a gift to both the cook and the diner. I have made this particular recipe everywhere we’ve lived, and even some places we were just visiting. It is a connection to the home that’s within, a reminder to bloom where you stand. An invitation to heal.
A few weeks ago, my housemate announced that she had a fever, and then shortly after that said she didn’t. She wore a mask one morning, and then had taken it off by the afternoon. Unsurprisingly, my son got sick and the first thing I did was order ingredients and prepare our healing lentil soup. Before long, I was sick too and so was my other son and we were all surviving on decreasingly great varieties of homemade soup. We had fevers on staggered days, we were up all night coughing uncontrollably…you know, we were sick. A generally miserable time in which one wants to lie suffering in silence but the constant need to cough betrays them. It is at this time that my housemate (you know the one who was sick, but then not, but then was again, then not all within a span of 24 hours, and then got us all sick anyway?) sent me a 5 AM text message about how she wasn’t sure things were working out and how even with multiple sound machines she can’t get any sleep. By “things” she meant our housing, the stability of the roof over our heads, the agreement we’d made to keep my kids from having to live in a Buick Enclave. And, make no mistake we were friends but the house was hers and no amount home repairs, or cleaning, or carting kids that weren’t mine to school, or going to bed two hours earlier to suit her schedule was going to change that. The power was hers and she wasn’t sure the set-up was sustainable, and she decided to tell me so while my children were feverish and too congested to breathe.
Blink. Blink.
So, the soup. I rinse the lentils and pretend I am picking stones and bits out like it says to on the packaging. I get potatoes and carrots and chop them just so, stacking them in two piles and waiting for their turn to be added to the pot. I cut the ribs from the kale and vegan butcher it into manageable bites. I know that the end result requires forethought and I steady my hands and mind to reach my ultimate goal, something delicious, and warm, and fulfilling, that feels like home. This approach is not unlike the approach I’d taken to once again becoming someones housemate. We communicated… a lot. We’d had no less than two dozen check-ins in a matter of weeks about how things were going and if everyone felt okay, good even. We adjusted our seasonings; we asked what can be made, what can be moved, changed, undone, redone, reimagined. to make sure everyone in the house was benefitting from the commitment to shared space. I had been told over and over that everything was great, and when it wasn’t we talked it out, there was a telltale simmer of a symbiotic pot. Everything was working together, and everyone could be better for it. I had no idea it was boiling over until it was too late to turn down the heat.
I am generally quite fascinated with how sharing space can work, with honest communication, and with letting go of the idea that you can control other people. It’s interesting to watch a space expand to fit the beings it houses, it’s a reminder that we can all give a little more, fit a little more, and often without sacrificing too much. I have been on the giving side of sharing my space, I understand what it takes, and I also know that if we can all just move first with compassion these situations could be a balm for folks who really need it. Even in moments of frustration with the friend I shared my home with it would have never, ever crossed my mind to threaten to leave her and her child without a home. There are a handful of things that might push me to that point after exhausting all options, but the general noise of living—not loud, not late, not excessive—is certainly not one of them.
Having lived this life of mine, I was unwilling to see “unsustainable” and “not working” and her refusal to respond to my troubleshooting and unwillingness to discuss anything outside of texts as anything other than the blazing red flags they were. So we left. Over a few 100 degree days, while I had a fever, we packed up our stuff and our car and, once again, moved on. I went back and cleaned the entire space so it looked like we were never there, a somewhat spooky reminder that perhaps we never should have been. And, ultimately, I’m glad we left when we did. It’s a triumph, a new skill, to stop the damage before its done.
When you are making lentil kale potato soup, the soup looks full and hearty, almost done even, well before the kale is added. You could stop there, I suppose, and end up with a different dish altogether. You could decide not to make the adjustments, you can put your apron away and pat yourself on the back for a job well done. But then you’d be missing out on the true reward, the magic that happens when you fit in handfuls of unruly, poofy greens. You get a glimpse of a few seconds where it doesn’t make sense until it does, everything in the pot benefits from making space for that last ingredient. From those moments where the pot is overfull until it’s not. Sharing space is a lot like this, if you take care with what you’re building and give it time to simmer something wonderful can happen, even if that something wonderful is just making sure your friend doesn’t have to consider what winter might be like living in their car.**
Hi, I need this lil’ Substack to grow so please leave a comment? Thanks!
*We’re now sort of modified pescatarian/vegetarian, and most of our meals and snacks are vegan.
**Not living in a car, but it was a strong contender.
The original Lentil, Kale, Potato Soup Recipe
Recipe Note: I add an embarrassing amount of coriander and other seasonings and generally stopped measuring while I make this soup. It’s forgiving and versatile.
Help us gain housing stability, or at least have a cup of chai:
A recent episode of Scam Goddess podcast in which host Laci Mosely and Adam (Ruins Everything) Conover have an entertaining and enlightening intro conversation surrounding the WGA and SAG strikes and how (some) tech companies continue to prey upon the rest of us.
We came across these Shakespeare in the Park clips while actively modernizing and diversifying our base homeschool curriculum. We are all in love with this rendition of Much Ado About Nothing and I’m searching for the full version somewhere—let me know if you can find it somewhere! More Danielle Brooks in everything, please.
On Bonfire
This is gorgeously written. Kale and poetry and warmth and life and what it looks like to make space (and what is lost when you don't). Thank you for sharing all of this with us. I'll be making this soup soon, and thinking of you and this post.
My go to is either ham and split pea soup or gizzard stew. Not sure what that says about me lol. We will definitely give the lentil, kale and potato a try. Please keep trying community. Its beautiful when done in a just way.