Comforting Begins!
Butternut Squash Soup, Witch Hole Pond in Acadia, and Linda Gregg's "Winter Love"
Last night, I was losing hope. This happens to me about once a week, usually after an email from a man who is older, wealthier, and more connected and more educated than I am implying that I’m not doing a good enough job at one of the things that I do.
And instead of really letting his words sink in and eating a tub of ice cream or crying, I made the conscious choice to pivot. I went toward things that give me comfort.
A pep talk via text from someone awesome
Joining a Facebook group about soup
Creating this newsletter.
I stood up, drank some water, and stared at the pellet stove and just let it comfort me and felt really grateful for all those things. I even felt grateful that this man thinks I’m worthy enough/safe enough for him to be agitated at.
But it all got me really thinking about comfort.
Comfort can be a verb.
And comfort can be a noun.
And I’ve decided to go after it, and hopefully help you go after it, too.
Each week, I’m going to focus on things like:
Poems
Posts about soup and share recipes for soup because soup rocks.
Safety in community
Photos of this amazing Maine island where I live.
That’s it. Once a week.
THE POEM
This is a poem by Linda Gregg who died back in 2019 after a lifetime of poetry that delved into loss and survival and comfort and twists.
She found poems everywhere. Her first collection came out when she was 39. She ended up publishing six more collections and they are all really rich, really full of an inner life that’s pretty fascinating. And I find inner lives comforting, honestly.
Here’s the poem…
Winter Love
By Linda Gregg
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
THE PHOTO
Some beavers at Witch Hole got to work building their own coziness last week.
THE SOUP—BUTTERNUT BREVY
Why is soup comforting?
According to a piece in Psychology Today, it’s because it’s about loving care. A reminder of it, maybe? A creation of it.
This soup was originally from the Horn of the Moon cookbook, which I was in love with as a young human. Seriously. In love with it. If I could have lived inside this book, I would have.
The recipe is on the internet at Brookfield Farm and Spark People.
Butternut Bevy Soup of Awesome
1 peeled and cubed squash (6 cups)
5 cups water or stock
2 T olive oil
4 chopped onions (2 cups)
4 T butter
1/3 cup white flour
3/4 cup cream or half and half (can be fat free kind)
thyme to taste
1/2 t. ginger
1 T tamari or soy sauce
pepper (to taste), salt (to taste) and almonds if you want
HOW TO MAKE IT
Combine squash and stock in a big pot. Bring it to boiling and lower the heat.
Cook for 25 minutes.
Put some oil in a pan. Saute onions and thyme. Get them tender. Once they are? Add them to squash.
Puree it all in a blender until it’s smoothish and return everything to the soup pot. I’m using a cauldron because it feels more fun. I’m also using an immersion blender because I am wild like that.
In another pot or pan, melt the butter and add the flour.
Stir this for about 1.5 minutes. It wants to be mixed. And it wants to be the lightest of browns.
Add cream and wisk it up until it’s blended. You can also just stir.
Add this creamy mix to the soup and simmer it for 15-20 minutes.
At the end of that time? Add the rest of the ingredients. That’s the ginger, soy sauce and ground pepper.
Simmer 15 minutes uncovered.
If you have money, you can buy almonds and put them on top.
BONUS COOLNESS
This is a little video about Horn’s vegetarian burritos, which I was wicked into. This is not me in the video! It’s a human who is super into cookbooks.
LINKS AND CITATIONS
“Comfort.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/comfort. Accessed 13 Jan. 2025.
Copyright Credit: Linda Gregg, “Winter Love” from Chosen By the Lion. Copyright © 1999 by Linda Gregg. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. Source: Chosen by the Lion (Graywolf Press, 1999)
Psychology Today piece
Horn of the Moon cookbook
I love everything about this, Carrie. Thanks for creating it. <3