Thyme and Patience Soup

Clunk, clunk, smash, the muffled sounds of catastrophe rattled my pillow, reverberating into my eyelids and snapping them open like blinds. I shot out of bed and skidded across the smooth hardwood floor toward the sound of the noise, like a child playing around the house in their socks. I stood at the entrance of my bathroom door, where the scene inside confirmed my worst suspicions about the origins of the sound. Sasha, and Charlie frozen by my sudden appearance, stared wide eyed up at me from their perches on the toilet and bathroom floor (respectively). Eugene, too mired in mischief to notice my arrival, was helping himself to the contents of my medicine cabinet. Toothpaste smeared on the sink with little tufts of cat hair sticking out, my jewelry dish was smashed to pieces on the counter.

Sasha blinked her wide blue eyes, which against the dark background of her face fur, seemed to hover in space. Charlie, propelled by a train of meowing that characteristically starts the moment I open the bathroom door and ends when his little orange nose gets to the food, waddled right past me. Eugene pricked up his grey ears and turned toward me, one white paw still hovered in the air as though to say, one false move and I'll knock the rest of this loot right off the shelf. My anger subsided when he twisted his little face in an awkward way that reminded me that he was a cat.

I picked him up and placed him down on the living room carpet. The winter air delivered a cold blue stillness to the morning. It was beautiful and calm, but soon was chased away by the yellow light that climbed across the carpet. I was feeling irritable and inconsolable. I walked out into the afternoon, too bundled to feel the light of day. The farmers market was closed. It was too cold to smell the pine trees at the Christmas tree lot, and I walked by un-enticed. It wasn't until I exited the elevator on our floor of the apartment building, and smelled the root vegetables cooking from all the way down the hall, that my chilly mood began to lift. This soup is made of bitter vegetables that can only be sweetened with thyme and patience. It has a creamy texture and the flavor of the crispy caramel richness that gathers at the bottom of the frying pan. It is the perfect way to sooth a winter mood.

Thyme and Patience Soup

3 golden beets

4 parsnips

3 Yukon gold potatoes

1 1/2 Vidalia onions

salt

1 Rutabaga

1 leek

thyme

6 cloves garlic

vegetable stock (or chicken stock, or water)

olive oil

3 Tbsp butter

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Peel beets, rutabaga and 2 of the parsnips and cut into 1/2 inch pieces. Place in a roasting pan, salt bath veggies in oil. Add 1/2 sliced Vidalia and the garlic cloves (peeled). Roast covered for 40 min, then remove cover, add 3 Tbsp butter and roast for an additional 20-30 min.

During the final 20-30 min of roasting, heat a soup pot and add 1 diced Vidalia, some olive oil and some salt. Cook the onions until they begin to brown, stirring patiently and constantly to release their sweetness. Ignore the noise around you. Ignore the noise in your mind. Focus. Enjoy the time you have set aside to stir the onions. Add a little thyme to the mix and inhale deeply. Now add the potatoes, peeled and diced, and the remaining parsnips. Stir until they begin to soften. Add 1 cup of stock and cover.

Now is a good time to clean off the counter. When you are done, add another cup of stock, and a pinch of salt and cover again. When the timer goes off for the veggies in the oven check to see if they are done..not yet? add another ten min. Continue cooking the potatoes. Add the white part of the leek (diced) and continue cooking. When everything has reached it's desired softness, pour the roasted vegetables into the soup pot, add stock to cover and cook together. Blend with a hand blender and serve thick (Christina said she likes it when she finds a potato or beet that has escaped the blender in her soup, so if you prefer, don't blend it all the way!)