Apple Parsnip Soup, The Lorax, & Today

And a Riegel poem about growing

It is a bit hard having an online local newspaper in a place that a lot of people have attachments to or thoughts about because it’s a community that hosts a national park and that a lot of people visit.

I know that community and what to expect from it: good things.

But then there is a broader community around that where I don’t know the people.

When you have an online paper, you have to make a lot of decisions. What photos to use. What headlines to have. And people who you will never meet will be amazingly unkind to you because you do something as simple as cover a meeting or a protest. People will call you milquetoast (or worse) when you put yourself out there every single day.

And putting yourself out there every day?

That’s not very milquetoast.

Anyway, this doesn’t seem very comforting, doesn’t it?

I lost my comfort a bit this weekend. And right now, even as I’m writing this, I’m trying to find it again.

I’m forcing myself to remember the smile of joy on a protestor’s face when people called her name out in support.

I’m forcing myself to remember the way a cool and chubby squirrel came up on the deck and peered in at my dog Pogie. They stared at each other. It was adorable. Pogie got into her downward dog-play-with-me position. And I caught none of it on camera. I only caught it in my heart.

I’m forcing myself to remember that a friend gave me presents from their trip to Mexico when they didn’t need to.

I’m forcing myself to remember.

And I’m forcing myself to remember what my dad always taught me about people. They tend to like cookies. They tend to like being listened to. They do a lot of things because they are afraid.

If we want a better world, I think we need to have a less fearful world. We have to create a world where people don’t need to be quite so scared. We don’t need to widen wounds, but maybe cure them.

Soup and poems help. But what’s in our heart? That helps, too. So, I hope you can find some ways to sturdy up your hearts, keep it beating and loving and being. I’ll try too.

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POEM

Photo by Cristiane Teston on Unsplash

What I Would Like to Grow in My Garden

Katherine Riegel

Peonies, heavy and pink as ’80s bridesmaid dresses
and scented just the same. Sweet pea,
because I like clashing smells and the car
I drove in college was named that: a pea-green
Datsun with a tendency to backfire.

Sugar snap peas, which I might as well
call memory bites for how they taste like
being fourteen and still mourning the horse farm
I had been uprooted from at ten.
Also: sage, mint, and thyme—the clocks
of summer—and watermelon and blue lobelia.

Lavender for the bees and because I hate
all fake lavender smells. Tomatoes to cut
and place on toasted bread for BLTs, with or without
the b and the l. I’d like, too, to plant
the sweet alyssum that smells like honey and peace,
and for it to bloom even when it’s hot,

and also lilies, so I have something left
to look at when the rabbits come.
They always come. They are
always hungry. And I think I am done
protecting one sweet thing from another.

Copyright © 2018 Katherine Riegel. This poem originally appeared in Tin House, Spring 2018.

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AN OLD SOUP RECIPE THAT IS ALL ABOUT APPLES AND PARSNIPS

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

I’m not sure where this originally came from, but I think maybe the NYT?

• Juice of 1 lemon

• 1 pound parsnips, peeled and diced

• Water to cover (see below)

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 2 tablespoons butter or pareve margarine

• 6 shallots, diced

• 4 tart apples, peeled and diced

• 1 cup cider

• 8 cups vegetable broth (if this is homemade it’s a ton better, if you aren’t vegetarian, you can use chicken broth)

• Salt to taste

• White pepper to taste

• A few gratings of nutmeg

• 1teaspoon cider vinegar (optional)

FIRST: Put the parsnips in a big bowl and add the lemon juice to them.

SECOND: Add water to cover.

THIRD: Maybe 10 minutes later drain off that water. Dry the parsnips.

FOURTH: Heat butter and olive oil in a big soup pot.

FIFTH: Add apples, shallots and those parsnips sauté for about 10 minutes. The onions will be translucent like a good ghost.

SIXTH: Add cider.

SEVENTH: Cook for 5 minutes. Do not cover.

EIGHT: Add in all that broth. Bring it to a good witchy boil. Cover it and lower the heat to a simmer. Let it simmer (like my nerves) for about 40 minutes.

NINTH: Add white pepper, nutmeg, salt.

TENTH AND FINAL STEP: Puree it in a food processor or blender. Be careful! If you need it to have an extra snap and you are not married to my husband (you better not be), add the cider vinegar.

I think this is lovely with cheddary bread of any sort.

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THE PHOTO

Not from this wintery week. :) But a promise for the future.