| Sunny Side Up Jan 19, 2005 �2005, Kathleen Gibson Mom's soup ladle I want that ladle, I told my mother once, as she dipped it onto the soup pot to serve me a second helping. In her eighties, she's still famous for her homemade soup. I never saw a recipe, except this one she wrote for me: "a handful of celery, enough onions till it smells right, as many carrots as you like. I sometimes add split peas, but then you have to stir it so it doesn't burn." She looked at me, at the ladle, and smiled. "When I'm done with it, you can have it." But it's just a tool to you, I thought, a way to get the soup from the pot to the bowl. Not so to me. A heaping helping of memories overflowed the scoop at the end of its stubby gray handle�. "Daddy's coming home for lunch girls, get the soup on. Beverly, get the crackers. Kathleen, quit your daydreaming! We need spoons, not forks! David, for goodness sakes, stop licking the salt off the crackers. Pour two scoops in Mary's bowl. Crumble in five crackers. Let it cool before you feed her. Who moved Ginny's bib? WHERE IS THAT MAN?" Heads bowed, words of thanks rose from each chair around the table. As each child tested expanding vocabularies on the Lord, our soup got progressively colder. Dad finally suggested we take turns saying grace - only one a meal - a relief to some of our foster brothers and sisters who'd never talked to God before. Our dishes seldom matched, our chairs never. Even our last names weren't consistent. The soup was a stable constant. Even the smell nourished. Chicken noodle, split pea, vegetable, cabbage borscht, beef vegetable, oxtail�.. Life was slower then. A day spent soup-making was considered a "day well done." Noodles hung over the back of every kitchen chair, and we ate more raw than boiled. Mom fussed, but never stopped us. She taught us the art of noodle-sucking. Lips pursed, one quick intake of breath, and a boiled footlong noodle disappeared down the hatch. Her shoulders shook, and a wicked twinkle ignited her eyes. It always did when she was 'up to mischief,' as Dad called it. The day I said I wanted the ladle, I bought her two new ones. Mom put them away and thanked me, but she wasn't ready to give the old one away. Maybe it was more than a tool to her too. It arrived by mail later that year. It hangs in my kitchen now, harkening me back to a time when families ate together. Waited for and served each other. Prayed aloud. It connects me to my past, to the sacred place I called home, to the child that was me. I've finally realized that when my mother makes soup she's not only feeding bodies. Long after the soup pot is empty, and the soup-maker gone, the children of Agnes Neufeld will still be nourished by the fragrance of her spirit. I covet her recipe. You can respond to this column at [email protected] Return Home |
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