SOUP!

I think it was when I moved to Michigan when I really started making soup. I'm no pro, but I like doing it. A lot.

My grandma used to make the best soup in all the land. She only made 3 kinds. Matzo Ball soup, Chicken Noodle soup and Split Pea soup. All amazing. The aroma of seasonings and broth and veggies filled the house the minute we opened the door. It was always the first course. Oh yes, at grandma's we always had at least a four course meal. Soup and chopped liver (or gefitle fish) on a bed of lettuce and potato latkes and steamed carrots and brisket and dessert. Seriously I don't know how I stayed as thin as I did.

But it was always her soup that I would easily slurp up. Grandma's house was the only place I'd be allowed to pick up the bowl and drink the remaining bits. And the only place I'd actually want to, because soup anywhere else just wasn't the same.

One day her soup didn't taste right. I came home with a belly ache, and told my mom something was wrong. A month later she fell in the middle of the road. She died a few days after Mother's Day about 5 years ago.

Before she died she would actually send me mail. Remember mail? Usually it was just, hi I'm lonely and wish I could see you kinda stuff. But at the end of each letter she'd supply a recipe of something I'd love to eat. Like Split Pea soup.

Yesterday I found the recipe and made it. Everything was very vague. Like add onion, carrots, celery and split peas to a pot of water. She never really measured (as all good cooks shouldn't), so I just had to wing it as she would. Needless to say, as a newbie, the soup didn't come out nearly as good as hers. But the house did smell pretty darn good.