Po'boys and beignets, okra and file

Although I have eaten in New Orleans just once in my life, I have returned to its food – the variety, the intense and enticing flavors – a million times in my head.

Senior year in college, my roommate and I booked flights from Providence on a whim. She wanted to catch Mardi Gras. I was game for nearly anything. So we left New England on a Friday morning in February. Neglecting to double-check the calendar, however, we didn't realize that we would actually miss the party by a few days.

On the ground, we decided to plan our own festivities. They don't call it the Big Easy for nothing. Over the long weekend, we would eat and drink as best we could on our student budgets.

For lunch, we had muffulettas and oyster po'boys. They are casual, convenient sandwiches, proteins and carbs in the same package. The first is a meatfest topped with an olive spread, the second a showcase for deep-fried oysters.

For dinner, we had red beans and rice, and crawfish etouffee, with bold spices we seldom encountered in the dining halls. They were foods my roommate knew from her Southern childhood, foods with which I had only recently become familiar.

We sipped hurricanes in bars on Bourbon Street and treated ourselves to beignets and chicory-spiked café au lait at Café du Monde.

Piled high with powdered sugar, beignets need to be handled carefully. One shake sends a cloud of sweetness across the table. One laugh out loud and there was snow on our noses, our hair and our shirts. We went through several plates of these signature pastries, laughing into the early morning.

Chicory with coffee, I later learned, is an age-old Louisiana tradition. The French added roasted and ground chicory to coffee to help stretch supplies during Napoleonic blockades in the early 19^th century. When naval blockades cut off shipments to New Orleans during the Civil War, people in Louisiana started to add chicory to their coffee as well, and came to appreciate the nuttiness it lent to the beverage.

***

New Orleans, it seems, has always been about good food. "We not only love to eat and to cook what we eat," Charmaine Neville says in the anthology "My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy By Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers." "We love to talk about what we are going to cook and what we are going to eat. Before we finish what we're eating, we're already talking about the next meal we're going to have together."

"In spite of our differences," editor Rosemary James says in the introduction, "we have sought out each other's company over, always, the very best food, ingenious dishes created from a poor people's basics: beans, rice, okra, fish, crabs, oysters, shrimp, peppers, garlic, onions, file… And elegant desserts created from everyday things like bananas and sugar and rum. Ours is comfort food even for the aliens among us."

Traditional Louisiana cooking blends a number of cuisines and techniques. Creole dishes might have been based originally on French stews and soups, but they were influenced significantly as well by the Spanish affinity for onions, bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic, by the African use of okra, and the Native American introduction of file, finely ground sassafras leaves. Like Cajun foods, considered country cousins, they were spicy and robust.

By the 1980s and '90s, avuncular chefs such as Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse had mostly blurred the lines between Creole and Cajun cooking, popularizing both in person and in print. Lagasse, for example, incorporated them at Emeril's, his first solo restaurant venture, and in the best-selling book "Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking," developing additional recipes further influenced by his Portuguese roots.

In the months following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, eateries were among the first businesses in the city to re-open. Some places unfortunately did not survive. "Their owners were getting on in years," food writer and radio host Tom Fitzmorris says in "Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans," "or their buildings had been too badly damaged to rebuild, or they had intractable insurance problems."

But others including Galatoire's, Commander's Palace, Brennan's and K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen still thrive. Home-grown chefs such as Susan Spicer, Donald Link and John Besh also continue to play with seasonal ingredients and innovative approaches at places like Mondo, Herbsaint and Restaurant August, respectively.

Before Katrina hit, according to Fitzmorris, there were more than 800 restaurants in greater New Orleans. These days, there are more than 1,200 – big and small, casual and formal, Creole, Cajun, Caribbean, French, Italian. It is a testament to the hunger people in the city have for good-tasting food, and the lengths to which cooks will go to feed that hunger. It speaks to their commitment and hospitality.

***

Since college, I have tasted different foods and visited a number of other cities. I have bitten into fresh scones, for example, topped with strawberry jam and lovely clotted cream in London. I have had cheese-smothered deep-dish pizzas in Chicago. I have feasted on Korean favorites like bulgogi and bibimbap in Los Angeles.

Why then, I wonder, do I return often in my head, and in my kitchen, to iconic New Orleans foods?

When catfish fillets are on special at the market, I grill them Louisiana-style, seasoned with paprika, black pepper, white pepper and cayenne pepper. I like the heat. When Christmas comes, I make a festive jambalaya. It seems the right project for a celebration. And when rain threatens to dampen my spirits, I gather ingredients for chicken and sausage gumbo. I have nearly perfected my roux.

Some foods, I suppose, are a part of who I am, who we are. They are the dishes we grow up eating, whether poached whole chicken or macaroni and cheese, barbecued pork buns or fresh baked apple pie. They are the flavors we know well, offered to us by our parents or grandparents.

Other foods, however, are a part of who I become, who we become, the people we essentially grow into. They are the dishes we discover on our own when we choose to travel and broaden our palates. They are the flavors we try to re-create when we can, combinations that started for me with a weekend trip to the South long ago.

Po'boys and beignets, okra and file. They are items my parents and grandparents never ate. After immigrating to the U.S. in the 1960s, my mother spent her time and effort at the stove fine-tuning Chinese dishes that reminded her of home. She knew of nothing else and wanted nothing more at her table in California. I would inevitably learn more and need more.

Maybe that's what New Orleans means to me. It is a terrific city with an extraordinary history. But it is also among the first places I found myself, when I began to look, when I hoped to forge an identity outside of family. There is that thrill. Maybe that's the connection. And the food? Well, maybe the food is just a splendid bonus.

(A version of this essay appeared originally on www.culinate.com.)

Soup is good food

When people in the Northwest talk about the incessant rain, I look out my window and curse the blue sky. More sun in California. I long for wet winters in Oregon and the afternoons I spent years ago in my studio apartment cooking soup. A pot would last a week.

I am reminded of the energizing chill in that corner of the country, the smell of the air outside after a night of hard rain and the red scarf that helped to keep me warm. Soft and thick, it was one of my favorite items of clothing. It now sits neatly folded near the bottom of a dresser drawer, mostly untouched.

When friends in New England speak of the biting cold, I sympathize. They grumble about the low temperatures and slick pavements; I worry about their health and safety. But I envy them as well. When they describe the icy weather, I think of the small, cozy kitchens to which they will eventually return.

I imagine the steam rising from the bowls of soup they will undoubtedly enjoy: hearty chowders prepared with russet potatoes, chopped clams and heavy cream, spicy gumbos simmered with chunks of seafood, meat and vegetables. I get nostalgic for places I am not.

On cold days in the Bay Area, when close friends and neighbors complain about falling temperatures and increasingly wet roads, I smile surreptitiously. Deep down, I welcome the wild weather. Finally, there is an excuse to make soup. Craving things like split pea and barley, I eagerly dig into recipes collected from books and magazines.

One rainy afternoon, I consider making a pea and ham soup by Australian food writer Donna Hay or a squash, parma ham hock, sage, onion and barley broth from British chef Jamie Oliver. In the end, I settle on hamburger barley soup, made from a recipe given to me years ago by an older sister. It promises to be easy and satisfying, tasty and comforting.

First, I brown the beef. Ground turkey could substitute well, too; I make a mental note for the future. Using a pot instead of a frying pan helps to facilitate cleanup. Into that large pot, I add chopped tomatoes, tomato juice, water, vegetables, seasonings and barley, saving the carrots and potatoes for later. When things come to a boil, the heat gets turned down.

As the soup simmers, I work on other things. I write. I wander through the house, tidying up the living room and bedroom. I flip on the radio. I surf the Internet.

Roughly 45 minutes later, back in the kitchen, now warm and fragrant, the colors in the pot are impressive: deep reds, dark and light greens, sprinkles of black. Carrots and potatoes go in next, giving the dish additional colors and textures.

While the ingredients continue to cook, I grab my keys, my coat and my red scarf, and head for the front door. I go for a walk around the neighborhood. The chill in the air outside keeps me alert. Life is good, I tell myself, wiping a raindrop from my forehead. When I return, there will be soup.

(A version of this essay appeared originally on www.npr.org.)

Benefits of broth

When the weather cools, I think about soup. Not the tomato-based soups I tend to make, the ones I have with oyster crackers or crusty French bread. But the Asian broths my mother makes, the ones that simmer on the backburner in her Chinatown kitchen.

She starts a pot from scratch, building flavors with each step, each new ingredient, adjusting seasonings along the way. One day, it is a pot of watercress soup, for example. On another, it is seaweed. Some days, pressed for time, my mother works with handfuls of ground pork, slivers of tofu and cans of store-bought broth. She improvises.

In "Classic Chinese Cuisine," Nina Simonds describes the prominent place soup has on dinner tables in traditional Asian households.

"Whereas soups seem to play a rather restricted role in western cuisine," she tells us, "in China they have a much broader calling... In a family-style meal, soup is served along with the other dishes to provide nourishment and to function as a beverage."

According to cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop, in Guangdong and other parts of southern China, it is usually eaten at the beginning of the meal and helps to whet the appetite.

Growing up in Oakland, my sisters, brothers and I were always instructed to finish our bowls of soup first. Only then could we proceed with the rest of dinner. Like classmates who had to eat their vegetables if they wanted dessert, we needed to empty our soup bowls if we wanted rice.

But in Chengdu and other parts of southwest China, Dunlop explains in "Land of Plenty: A Treasury of Authentic Sichuan Cooking," soup is generally "served at the end of the meal, and its function is to cleanse the palate after the intense, heavy flavors of a typical Sichuanese meal."

Soup, Simonds says, aids digestion and improves circulation. "Some soups have been used for centuries to treat certain ailments... Stocks simmered with assorted Chinese herbs were administered for a number of maladies."

Even now, she notes, new mothers often have a "chicken soup flavored with ginger in southern China and sesame oil in Taiwan" every day for a month after childbirth in order to restore balance and energy in their bodies.

Teresa M. Chen further examines the benefits of broth in "A Tradition of Soup: Flavors from China's Pearl River Delta." She provides substantial background information.

"The Chinese soup tradition started back in the old country where people knew many lean times," she writes in the introduction. "With humble ingredients, the Cantonese prepared a flavorful soup stock, to which practically anything on hand could be added."

Stock ingredients might include pork neck bones, for example, or chicken rib bones. For vegetarian soups, bases can be made with soybean sprouts, white turnips or Napa cabbage. These items are naturally sweet.

Frugal – and smart – cooks know instinctively that seemingly ordinary things can be useful, too. "Leftovers such as the carcass of a roast duck or a roast turkey, trimmings from a lobster or shrimp shells can all be turned into soup stock," she continues.

"Wealthy households and restaurants expanded the possibilities by using a whole chicken, a whole fish or a whole hunk of pork to make stock. After cooking for hours on end, with medicinal herbs and complementary ingredients, the broth would be strained and served hot."

Chen talks also about technique and kitchen equipment, and offers a comprehensive guide to both fresh and dried soup ingredients, including seafood and seaweed, oxtails and watercress, and a variety of Chinese herbs. She makes these accessible.

She interviews senior citizens at a community center in California's Central Valley, women and men who, like my mother, understand and appreciate the nutritional value soups afford. She collects and highlights their time-tested recipes.

Nursing a head cold and a seriously sore throat not long ago in Las Vegas, I look to hot and sour soup for comfort. Miles away from my mother's extensive home cooking, I rely on a restaurant at the hotel in which my friends and I stay. I make do.

Like sweet and sour pork, for example, or beef and broccoli stir-fry, hot and sour soup has been on menus in Chinese restaurants across the country for decades. Unlike other Asian broths, though, it is relatively heavy, thickened with cornstarch. It contains slivers of meat, shiitake mushroom and tofu.

The soup, Chen explains, "was brought to Hong Kong in the 1950s" by the Sichuanese and by those "who had been in Sichuan during the eight-year Sino-Japanese War, which ended with the end of World War II." It was subsequently "brought to the United States by those who passed through Hong Kong in the 1960s" and shortly thereafter captured the American palate.

At the table, when my friends select noodle dishes and rice plates for lunch, I ask for hot and sour soup. I have one bowl and another bowl and another slowly and deliberately. It is potent and works wonders. The ginger acts as a recuperative tonic while the white pepper and vinegar deliver a heat and intensity my body seems to need.

With over-the-counter medicine my friends swear by, the cough drops I suck on throughout the day like candy and the tall cups of chamomile tea I drink religiously, they help to shock my system back into shape. They set me straight.

(A version of this essay appeared originally on www.culinate.com.)
 

More kale

Kale and White Bean Soup
from "Fine Cooking in Season: Your Guide to Choosing and Preparing the Season's Best"


1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 ounces very thinly sliced pancetta, diced
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 medium to large bunch kale, washed, thick stems cut away and leaves sliced across into 3/4-inch-wide strips
1 tsp. coarse salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 cups homemade or reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup cooked or canned cannellini, navy beans or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart low-sided soup pot or Dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat. Add the onion and pancetta and saute until the onion is softened and both are browned, about 12 minutes.

Add the garlic, stir and saute until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Add the kale and stir thoroughly to coat the leaves (and to de-glaze the pan slightly with their moisture).

Season with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper.

Add the broth, stir well and bring to a boil. Cover the pot, lower to a simmer and cook until the kale is almost completely tender, 10 to 25 minutes.

Uncover the pot, add the beans and simmer for another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the lemon juice and turn off the heat. Ladle the soup into four shallow bowls. Makes 4 servings.

Making soup

The days get shorter and inevitably colder. I think to make soup, using Lisa Schroeder's recipe as a decent jumping-off point.

Manhattan Clam Chowder
from Lisa Schroeder's "Mother's Best: Comfort Food That Takes You Home Again"

2 strips bacon, finely diced
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 ribs celery, finely diced
1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced into half-moons and washed
1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 10.75-ounce can tomato puree
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 1/2 cups fish stock or 2 14-ounce cans clam juice
1 10-ounce cans baby clams in juice
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 dashes Tabasco sauce
3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Place a heavy soup pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add the bacon. When it starts to brown in spots, lower the heat to medium. Continue to cook until most of the fat has been rendered and the bacon is almost crisp, about 4 minutes.

Add the vegetable oil, onions, carrots, celery, leeks and green bell peppers. Saute, stirring occasionally, until very soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for another 2 minutes.

Add the diced and pureed tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme and potatoes.

Add the stock or clam juice. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the potatoes are fork tender.

Add the clams with their juice and season with salt and pepper. Add the Tabasco and Worcestershire. Bring back to a simmer for several minutes.

Ladle into bowls and serve with crusty bread or crackers. Makes 7 servings.

Shrimp on the brain

Edited by C.J. Jackson, director of the Billingsgate Seafood Training School at Billingsgate Market in East London, "Seafood: How to Buy, Prepare, and Cook the Best Sustainable Fish and Seafood from Around the World" is a comprehensive volume with more than 300 classic and contemporary recipes. It checks in at a remarkable 400 pages.

I find myself flipping past sections on tuna, trout and scallop, for example, but hone in immediately on shrimp. I have two-pound bags of shrimp in the freezer waiting to be cooked. I have shrimp on the brain. I begin to think of shrimp gumbo with okra and bell peppers, of pan-fried shrimp with olives and tomatoes, and of spicy shrimp with garlic. And I smile.

Shrimp Gumbo
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

6 Tbsp. butter
2 1/4 pounds raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
4 Tbsp. crab meat
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
4 ounces okra, trimmed
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 14-ounce cans tomatoes
4 1/4 cups shellfish stock
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of thyme
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp. file powder
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the shrimp in batches and stir-fry over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes or until cooked. Lift onto a plate to cool.

Add the crab and flour to the butter, cook over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes or until the flour is golden brown. Add the cayenne, onion and garlic, and cook for a further 3 minutes.

Stir in the okra and bell pepper. Pour over the tomatoes, stock, herbs and lemon zest. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes until thick.

Stir the shrimp into the gumbo to warm through, add file powder, and season to taste. Serve with rice and Tabasco sauce. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Pan-Fried Shrimp, Olives, and Tomatoes
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
12 large raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined, tail left intact
splash of dry sherry or dry white wine
6 tomatoes, skinned, seeded and chopped
large handful of mixed olives, pitted
salt
freshly ground black pepper
handful of basil and flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion, and saute for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a few seconds, then add in the shrimp and cook over high heat, until they are just turning pink.

Add the sherry and continue cooking for 5 minutes, stirring, until the alcohol has evaporated. Add the tomatoes and olives and cook for a further couple of minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes start to break down. Season well, and stir in the herbs. Serve immediately with fresh crusty bread. Makes 4 servings.

Spicy Shrimp with Garlic
from C.J. Jackson's "Seafood..."

4 Tbsp. olive oil
6 garlic cloves, grated or finely chopped
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp. dry sherry
9 ounces raw shrimp, peeled and de-veined
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the garlic and red pepper flakes, and cook gently for 2 minutes.

Add the sherry and shrimp, increase the heat and stir for 5 minutes, or until the juices have reduced by half. Season and serve with crusty bread and a crisp salad. Makes 4 servings.

Comfort cooking

In the months before my grandmother's death, my mother cooked.

She bought pork and lamb at the store, glad to take advantage of grocery specials. She marinated beef to roast in a hot oven. She trimmed Chinese greens. She chopped and braised, steamed and stir-fried. She spent time in her kitchen with the television on but often ignored.

My mother cooked not for my grandmother, who by then hardly ate, cancer stealing the best of her appetite. She cooked not for my father. He would be fine with simple soups and porridges. She cooked not for my sisters, brothers or me. Though we dropped by on weekends, we could only eat so much. Imagine the leftovers. She cooked, I believe, for herself.

At the counter or the sink, my mother stayed busy. She prepped chicken perhaps or removed scales from a fish. She gave herself these things to do. Meanwhile, her mind wandered.

She thought about the food she did not have growing up in China and the access she enjoyed when she arrived in California. She recalled years of scrimping to send money back to family across the Pacific and the relief she finally felt when her mother arrived in the United States as well. She cooked and cried.


We talk of comfort food: a scoop of ice cream, for example, or a slice of cake, a barbecued pork bun or an egg custard tart.

Jonathan Reynolds wonders whether the term is redundant. "All food is comforting," he says in the memoir "Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, With Food," "or we'd be eating nothing but hot dogs at Shea and warm tar (indistinguishable in a Times blind-testing), with possibly a few vitamins thrown in.

"Unless you're... undergoing a fraternity initiation or briefly lapse into Joan Crawford territory with one of your sons, there is no such thing as 'punitive food'."

I suspect there is the idea of comfort cooking as well, the notion that kitchen work can help to reassure us, that time in front of a stove can keep us centered. My mother cooked, it seems, for the same reason others might ride a bike or read a book. She needed the diversion.


The moment my mother spied my grandmother in hospice care, the day after my uncle had admitted the woman, she ran to hold her. It was something I had seldom seen my mother do: openly embrace anybody. It felt like a clip from a Chinese-language soap opera.

Outward displays of affection had been rare in our house. Hugs and kisses were things other people traded. My mother demonstrated her love through food instead.

She treated scrapes my siblings and I got playing in the back yard with a little Bactine and a lot of candy. She marked our achievements with dumplings and broth. She greeted our returns from college with dishes we favored: braised eggplant, tofu and beef, vermicelli with egg and barbecued pork. She wasn't about big gestures but small everyday concerns. I realize this now.

"When am I going to get better?" my grandmother asked, her voice a soft but steady whisper. "I don't know when I am going to get better. Maybe this time I won't."

A friend told me once her heart grew three sizes the day her daughter was born; my heart broke into a hundred pieces that afternoon at the foot of my grandmother's bed.

My mother insisted that if my grandmother simply ate more, her health could improve. "If you don't have the nutrients," she reasoned, "how would you ever get well?"

I knew enough Cantonese to understand this exchange. From talks earlier with doctors and relatives, I also knew the truth: That no matter what or how much my grandmother did or did not eat, she wouldn't get better. The disease had taken a toll, wreaking havoc on her pancreas, stripping her body of the energy it required.

My mother punctuated her visits to the hospice with trips to Safeway or Trader Joe's nearby or to Chinatown, recognizing the severity of the situation, I'm sure, but needing still to collect ingredients for her own meals. In this way, she continued to live as my grandmother was about to die.

After all, my mother needed to pay attention to herself, too, did she not? She needed to look to the future and occasions she would inevitably get to spend with the rest of her family. Food - thinking about it, shopping for it, preparing it - provided a way for her to exert control over something when so much around her had been beyond her control. It was the happiness she allowed herself. In this backyard scrape, it was her candy.

The short market trips were also a way, I suppose, for her to fool death personally, to not let it follow her straight home from the hospice. She wanted to open and close car doors, enter and exit other buildings, walk up and down wide aisles, to ditch death randomly. She was superstitious like that.


In the months since my grandmother's death, my mother continues to cook. She shops for exceptional deals and brainstorms menu ideas. Her tears, however, no longer flavor the food.

She tells me about a visit with a friend to their neighborhood Lucky for 99-cent eggs. She wanted to limit herself to a couple of cartons. Her friend, however, dismissed the restraint.

"The people in the store know us," the woman said in Cantonese. "They see us all the time anyway. They know we're greedy. It doesn't matter how much we buy or don't buy." They shrugged, gathered four or five cartons each and headed to the register.

With joy I have not seen in a while, my mother tells me of the day she spent with a nephew from New Jersey. During a last-minute business trip to California, he made it a point to invite her out to eat.

In San Francisco, they came across a Chinese buffet. Though inexpensive, the food they spotted on people's plates seemed unappealing.

He placed his hand on my mother's back and guided her away from the entrance of the restaurant. "The two of us," her nephew said, gently and genuinely, "let's go eat something better. You and I, we deserve something better." She agreed.

My mother tells me these stories, peppered with humor, irony and insight, one night over dinner. I listen and laugh.

(A version of this essay appears on the website for The Atlantic.)

When toes get cold

When it is cold as all get out - when two layers of socks, for example, still cannot keep the toes comfortable - there is nothing to do but make soup. To put a large pot on the stove, chop vegetables and season homemade broth. To heat the kitchen nicely.

In the refrigerator, there is turkey stock made from Thanksgiving leftovers. There are potatoes to peel and a package of greens from Trader Joe's purchased Sunday after the basketball game.

Hoping to riff on a potato and kale soup recipe from Culinate, I set to work. I dice and brown sausages and onions. I add broth and turn up the fire. I search the cupboards for bay leaves and happily grind salt and pepper. I let things simmer.

It is the best idea I have had all week.

Chicken soup

A visit to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and "There's a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak," on exhibit through Jan. 19, reminds me of Maurice Sendak's classic children's title "Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months."

I can hear Carole King singing the words.

This is an excerpt:

In March the wind
Blows down my door
And spills my soup
Upon the floor.
It laps it up
And roars for more
Blowing once
Blowing twice
Blowing chicken soup
with rice.