Comfort Food

I know that I should be posting informative, politicized information. But it's December, and I just want to hunker down in a warm nest and fatten myself up. If you like, you can read Barry Estabrook's take on organic agriculture's ability to feed the world (after the proof, a zinger: "Given that the current food production system, which is really a 75-year-old experiment, leaves nearly one billion of the world’s seven billion humans seriously undernourished today, the onus should be on the advocates of agribusiness to prove their model can feed a future population of nine billion — not the other way around"). However, this post is going to be about comfort, and soup.

Some unanalysed part of me feels secure when certain numbers increase. Not money in my bank account, which would be sensible, but quantity of food that I've put up makes me feel happy. I'm not talking freeze-dried packets to be eaten in a steel bunker in the nuclear aftermath. I mean jars of applesauce and tomatoes, bags of potatoes and onions, and a freezer of pies and meat. I ascribe to Sharon Astyk's principle of food storage: store what you like to eat, so in a situation where you have to eat it (job loss, ice storm) you will enjoy your food rather than have it add to the suffering. Last week, I decided to make a meal entirely from stored food.

I grew onions for the first time this year. I've come late to an appreciation of onions, and I didn't know how many to plant in our limited space. It turns out that I planted enough to last until last week in storage. These are the last onions, and the last carrots. (I grew many carrots, but correspondently ate more and found more ways to use them in recipes because they were so tasty.)

 I added canned tomatoes. I added garlic:

 

Vegetarians, avert your eyes. I added ground beef:

I added spices, and noodles, and voila:

I made comfort.