Best Lentil Soup — A Pot of Something Warm for the Way Back

June. Three months since Marcus. The grief has not gotten smaller, but I have gotten larger — not physically, but in the ways that matter, in the capacity to hold the grief and still function, to carry the pot even though the pot is heavier than it used to be. The arms are adapting. The cook is adapting. The life is adapting, reluctantly, stubbornly, the way collard greens adapt to frost — not by retreating but by converting the damage into sweetness.

I cooked for the shut-ins this week. The first time in three months. I made chicken and rice and packed it in the Tupperware containers and Calvin drove me around the route I have driven a hundred times, and at every door a face lit up, not because the food was special but because the food was from me, from the woman who has been absent, from the kitchen that has been dark, and the lighting up was people saying welcome back without using those words, because in this neighborhood and in this church, food is the word and the arriving of food is the sentence and the sentence says: I am still here.

Sister Arlene opened her door and looked at me and looked at the container and said: there she is. Two words. There she is. And the two words undid me the way two notes can undo a melody, the way a single thread pulled can unravel a seam. I stood on her porch and cried, and she let me cry, and when I was done she took the container and said your mama would be proud, and I said I know, and I went back to the truck and Calvin did not say anything and we drove to the next house and I delivered the next container and the delivering was the return, step by step, door by door, container by container, back to the work that has always been my work, the feeding that has always been my feeding, the ministry that death cannot take because the ministry is not about the cook, it is about the fed, and the fed are still hungry, and the hungry need me, and the needing is the rope I am using to climb out of the canyon.

Made a pot of vegetable soup Wednesday for Calvin and me. Garden vegetables from the garden I did not plant this year because planting was beyond me in April when the garden should have been started. I bought the vegetables from the store and I thought about next year, which is the first time I have thought about next year since Marcus died, the first time the future has existed in my mind as anything other than an absence, and the thinking about next year was like seeing a light at the end of something, not a tunnel because tunnels are too neat a metaphor for grief, but something — a distance with a brightness at its edge. Next year I will plant a garden. Next year the tomatoes will be mine. Next year is still possible. Next year exists.

I still have not entered Marcus's room. I still set a place for him on March 3rd every month, the third of every month, a plate and a fork and a glass of sweet tea. Nobody sits there. Nobody touches the food. After dinner I wrap it and take it to whoever is hungry. The ritual has begun. The ritual will hold.

That pot of vegetable soup I made Wednesday for Calvin and me — it was something like this. Not fancy. Not fussy. Just vegetables in a pot with enough warmth to fill a kitchen that has been too quiet for too long. I used lentils because lentils are patient, the way grief requires you to be patient, and because a pot of lentil soup feeds you today and tomorrow and does not ask anything of you except that you stir it now and then. Next year the vegetables will come from my own garden. This year they came from the store, and that is enough. Enough is enough.

Best Lentil Soup

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 1/2 cups brown or green lentils, rinsed and picked over
• 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 cups water
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cups fresh spinach or kale, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Salt and black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Sauté the vegetables. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic, carrots, and celery and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add the spices. Stir in the cumin, smoked paprika, and turmeric. Cook for 1 minute until fragrant.
3. Build the soup. Add the lentils, diced tomatoes, broth, water, and bay leaf. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, until the lentils are tender.
4. Finish the pot. Remove the bay leaf. Stir in the spinach or kale and let it wilt, about 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Serve. Ladle into bowls. A piece of crusty bread on the side is all it needs.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 270 | Protein: 16g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 40g | Fiber: 14g | Sodium: 680mg