one/two/twenty-one

Snow Day Soup, A Recipe

lard, a dollop

1 lb of ground pork, pulled from the barn freezer, hastily thawed

1 onion, less the creeping brown spot, chopped

The Last Two Carrots, peeled, cut quick-cooking small

garlic, 3 (was likely actually 4) cloves, thinly sliced

3 potatoes, vaguely soft, peel left intact, cut similarly to The Last Two Carrots

frozen unprocessed tomatoes from this summer's garden, briefly considered but abandoned

1 dusty can of crushed tomatoes pulled from the back corner of the pantry, opened carefully

1 quart of last week's chicken stock

1 quart of this week's chicken stock, ladled from a bubbling pot on the stove

frozen greens, impulsively added

enough salt

enough pepper

First- disabuse one's self of the plan to head into town for the shopping; the barreling snow will help.

Thaw pork a careful distance from the wood stove; eventually run under cool water when things become urgent.

Retrieve frame of picked over roasted chicken from the refrigerator, vegetable scraps from the freezer. Marry the two in a stockpot. Scrape in chicken jelly from bottom of pie plate that previously held roasted chicken while reciting the basic layers of winter wear to feral children in various states of undress. Yes, a hat, you say! And, yes, water! Yes, salt! Yes, pepper! to the stock. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover, and-

flee! the confines of your lovely but wanting-of-snowt interiors. Shovel. Swing. Snowball. Ski. Skiss sthe sgoats. Repeat.

Stumble back inside hours later on numb limbs to find only the stock has done the good work of being ready for the lunch hour.

Quickly melt dollop of lard in favorite soup pot. Add pork, season generously, stir regularly, cook thoroughly, promise baby a thousand times, a thousand ways- lunch is coming.

While pork cooks- chop, everything. Also slip baby slices of carrots that will be later found chewed up and spit throughout the house.

As vegetables find themselves appropriately cut (and once pork is fully cooked), add them to pot. Onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, amen. Season lightly with salt and pepper with each new addition. Cook for a minute or two or more or less.

Add tomatoes. Swish chicken broth in tomato can to claim all that there is. Add chicken broth, this week and last week's. Ask - should there be something green? Impulsively toss in frozen greens before you've given answer.

Bring soup to a boil and reduce to a lively simmer. Cook for around 45 minutes, which should be just long enough to get the potatoes and carrots tender but not short enough to feed the baby before her nap. Feed her yogurt and regret not having arrived there sooner, at least before the carrots.

Enjoy!