Zippy Spanish Rice Soup

The first full week of pandemic. The bakery is takeout only and the revenue has dropped forty percent. Forty percent. The number sits in my stomach like a stone. The lunch service is gone — no one buys soup to go the way they buy soup to sit, because soup is a sitting food, a table food, a food that requires the particular companionship of a bowl and a spoon and a window to look through, and the to-go cup does not provide these things. The farmers' market is closed — indefinitely, the organizers said, which is a word that means "we don't know" dressed in formal clothing.

I am not taking a salary. The second time in five years — the first was COVID, wait, this is the first. The first was when the bakery opened and I didn't take a salary for three months. Now it is a pandemic and I am not taking a salary again because the money has to go to Graciela and Maricela and Leticia, because they have families, because their families need to eat, because Rosa didn't lay off people when times were hard and neither will I. The people stay. The salary goes. That is the order of priorities. People first. Money second. Always.

Luis Jr. called. He said: "Mom, are you okay?" He is in a war zone asking if I am okay. The reversal — the son worrying about the mother instead of the mother worrying about the son — is the most COVID thing that has happened to me, because COVID has reversed everything: the children are at home instead of school, the bakery is closed instead of open, the son who is in danger is worried about the mother who is in safety, and the safety is not safe because safety requires money and the money has dropped forty percent.

Diego built a contactless delivery system. From his bedroom. Using a drone. He designed a drop mechanism — a small basket attached to the drone via a release cord — that can deliver a bag of conchas to a customer's front yard without any human contact. He tested it in the backyard: the drone lifted, flew twenty feet, released the basket, and the conchas landed intact. He said: "Delivery solved." He is eleven. He just solved contactless delivery. I don't know if it's legal. I don't know if it's practical. I know that my son built a solution from his bedroom during a pandemic, and the building is the Gutierrez response to crisis: don't panic, build.

I made sopa de fideo this week — the simple noodle soup, the poverty soup, the soup of when-there-is-nothing-else. Because this week feels like when-there-is-nothing-else. The revenue is down. The tables are empty. The farmers' market is closed. The children are home. The son is deployed. The world is locked. And I am standing in a kitchen making soup from noodles and tomatoes and the belief that soup is stronger than a virus, and the belief is irrational and Catholic and exactly what Rosa would have believed, and I am my mother's daughter, and my mother's daughter makes soup when the world stops, because the soup doesn't stop, and the not-stopping is the resistance.

This Zippy Spanish Rice Soup is not fancy — and that is the entire point. It is the kind of soup that asks almost nothing of you: a can of tomatoes, some rice, a pot, a little heat. When the revenue had dropped forty percent and I was standing in my kitchen trying to believe that building something small still meant something, this was the soup I made. It is Rosa’s kind of soup — the kind where the simplicity is the strength, where making it at all is the act of resistance.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with green chiles, undrained
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3/4 cup long-grain white rice, uncooked
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lime
Fresh cilantro, for garnish

Instructions

Saute the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Add tomatoes and spices. Pour in both cans of diced tomatoes along with the cumin, smoked paprika, oregano, and cayenne. Stir to combine and cook for 2 minutes, letting the spices bloom.
Add broth and rice. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Stir in the uncooked rice. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Simmer until rice is tender. Cover the pot and simmer for 18 to 20 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until the rice is cooked through and the soup has thickened slightly.
Season and finish. Squeeze in the lime juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. If the soup has thickened too much, add a splash of broth or water to reach your preferred consistency.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh cilantro. Serve with warm tortillas or crusty bread.

Nutrition (per serving)

Zippy Spanish Rice Soup — The Soup That Doesn’t Stop