When the temperature started to drop for winter, I made dietary changes. I craved different foods.

Keeping Sauvignon Blanc and LaCroix in the fridge gave way to a more pressing urge to keep dry pasta in the cupboard (In case, I’d get “snowed in”) along with a wider assortment of teabags. And, I stocked up on ingredients to make soup.

I make a great meatloaf and nice roast chicken, which can be appealing when the mercury goes down, but my go-to winter staple is SOUP.

During winter, I crave comfort food. And it seems like nothing else fits the bill the way a steaming bowl of soup does.

I like the whole ritual of it. Spending an afternoon chopping vegetables, pulling out boxes of broth from my pantry (a good friend of mine makes her own stock, a level of home-cooking I usually skip), adding herbs and spices by feel. Stirring the pot.

I have two sets of red lidded Le Creuset pots, Christmas gifts from an old employer. I often start many hearty concoctions in the round one, figuring I’ll just make a small batch, which I have had to transfer to the slightly larger, oval-shaped, pot.

This seems to be a universal law of soup-making. The contents expands according to the size of the pot.

I generally do not rely on recipes. I refer to this as “karma” cooking.

I know pretty much what might go into a soup, but I really appreciate that no two pots of the same type of soup come out exactly the same way. And that’s okay.

In an age that values predictability and consistency, it’s nice that we can still leave room for something to be exceptional, even if that means a SE (soup experiment) might miss its mark.

For me, the very idea of comfort food is tied to heartiness (the ability to consume a whole meal in one bowl), temperature (in an otherwise cold world, the hotter the better), and non-judgment, a requirement when you do not use a recipe.

There is no one right way to make chicken soup, or mushroom soup, or even pear and parsnip soup. Everyone can make their own version according to their tastes, according to what looks good at the store or what they have on hand.

This idea is tremendously liberating. It’s also great to think you can freeze servings in plastic tubs and thaw them out when you need a fix of “everything’s alright.”

During a recent trip to the grocery store, when the month couldn’t decide whether it was the end  of winter or beginning of spring, I saw something else that I never thought of as ”comfort food,” but in the moment, it struck me as very nurturing and hope-inspiring.

I passed a display of blueberries and I had to put a pint in my cart. I yearned to treat myself to blueberry pancakes, fresh off my stovetop griddle.

Yes, the berries were not bought at one of the farmers’ markets that pop up in nearby neighborhoods starting in May.

And they were expensive…

But they made me think about spring.

Lush green grass, long walks, barbecues, sunshine, baseball…

My mind became filled with this thought: Spring will visit my corner of the earth again.

Knowing that it’s not hot food or a warm blanket, but HOPE that brings the most comfort is no small thing.

Re-printed with permission.

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