A Taste of the Old Country
By Nicholas Reardon , Art By Sam Horne
I remember the good times i had as a kid. I remember playing sticks and rocks with the neighborhood. I remember driving bicycle w/o a helmet, jumping out of large trees. I remember the nights yelling really loud and throwing glass bottles into metal trashn m cans.
I remember late nights, after a really long game of sticks and rocks, we’d be lying on the street and hear in the distance sound of dinnerbell ringing in kitchenwindow. We’d scramble over each other,tripping on rocks we left out, running back to the house as fast as possible.
My mother (Norah) stands in the doorway, magnificent smile, arms outstretched to accept the the neighborhood into her home.
We'd rally around the dinner table, my brothers and sisters already ready with their spoons. I’d look up at Norah, asking her from the bottom of my empty stomach:
“I wonder what’s for dinner.”
“Son,” Norah would say with that magnificent smile, “it’s soup time.”
Recipe #1: Nicholas paul reardon signature soup (the house guest)
This soup comes from a recipe my hippie aunt from colorado taught me in pennsylvania. that summer, I moved around the east coast and stayed in many different homes belonging to family or friends, each time making this soup for them to show my gratitude. This soup is very sentimental to me and is also very exciting because still it seems like every time I make it, it ends up tasting different.
4 sweet potatoes (japanese)
Can chick peas (also called garbonzos)
Saute onions, garlic, celery and sweet potatoes in the biggest pot you have with olive oil until its starts to smell like something (5 minutes)
Add spices (consult spice guide) and the water and cover the pot with a lid, simmer, walk away (15 minutes)
Come back and add other veggies and chickpeas and tamari (or garbonzos), stand over the pot and look at the vegetables until they are soft as you want (~10 min)
Recipe #2 - Chicken noodle soup
Invented in the months preceding WW2 by cambell’s soup company, chicken noodle soup may be one of the most famous soups ever conceived. Combining chicken and noodles, this soup’s iconic status lies in its simplicity, eaten by both sick children and sick adults. As a vegetarian, I’ve decided to put my own twist on this soup classic.
Fill pot with water, watch until it boils
Add great spoonfuls of miso paste, soysauce until broth is as powerfulas you want
Add udon and mushrooms and cook until they become edible
Recipe #3 - Salty potato soup
This soup was born out of trying to use all the leftover potatoes on top of the fridge. Somehow every time it’s made it ends up being too salty idk how this keeps happening.
Coconut milk orAlmond milk
Splash of heavy whipping cream
5 garlic cloves smashed and sliced
Pepper, oregano, thyme, salt (you must be careful)
Saute garlic and white onion in a pan over low heat until they become delicious
Boil pot of water with salt
Put potatoes in the water and have patience, stir when the urge comes to you
When soft, mash the potatoes that made you wait, leave some big chunks
Add garlic and onions to pot along with butter and milk(s) and seasonings and more salt to taste
When you discover you made it too salty, try adding more water or milk to counteract this
Concede that there is no way to turn back the clock and learn to be happy with your mistakes (it tastes salty good)
Recipe #4 - conceptual grandma’s soup (the longest stew)
Look at this guy smoking, ho h!o This a beautiful book I-
I didn’t even open it. I wanted to open it with you.
Look the end of it. It’s signed. Feel it.
Part of the idea, part of the recipes I’m writing with the soup chapter, I wanted to umm— include in the chapter the soup that you told me your grandma—or grandma— made for you when you were growing up. The carrot stew.
Oh ho ho yes— yes. Ye-he-he-hes hahahaha. Do you know what it is honestly? It is–it is the most cheap thing that you could do. She would go on the—she’d go to the butcher and the chunks of meat that we’re kinda cutoffs—yeah, yeah yeah, and then we’d take that home and make a little [unintelligible] bunch of it, and then she’d throw it right in the pot with water in it. And then she would, and then she’d throw the cut—I’d help cut the carrots, and cut the celery— uhh just basic stuff just that was maybe even it.
Put some carrots in there—
Can you go over just the basic ingredient list?
Well I just did. Meat, water—
Uhhhh, I think she put salt in there. Maybe a few other stuff out of a shaker. Maybe something out of a shaker though. The spices, a rack, 2 or 3 things in there. So—
—the water. Like uhhhhhhhhhh, I think she went in like—it’s a deer look! Wait. Is that a creature or—?
Okay well, so it was uhhh chunks of meat for sure, and then lots of em, and then a lot of potatoes! And I’d peel the potatoes and we’d chop em—
What, what, what seasonings would you—
Seasonings. I think it was uhhhhh… [long pause]. [unintelligible] yup, she put in [unintelligible] I think it was celery, the celery seeds. The seed right? Celery I thi–celery she would, celery seed. The celery seed in there. Maybe some, nothing spicy it was so bland it would kill a horse. Okay? And it was purely for survival purposes only it was inexpensive: carrots, celery and beans [beef?]. And potatoes. And mostly potatoes; spread the meat out. So we’d make 2–3 pots of that because there were 2 tables with kids. And the big table with the adults, and the little table with the kids.
So what was the preparation for the—soup?
So back to the spices. Okay then pepper was in there for sure. Pepper. Not fresh ground but out of the McCormick’s thing. And uhhh… [very long pause] …and the salt too frankly was. Thes— oh look there it’s another dead creature in the road. Uhhh. [pause] Maybe rosemary actually, ro-rosemary, rosemary, thyme… Nothing fresh in there at all, ha except the celery looked green.
I heard that thyme is running out.
What thyme is running out?
Oh. So yes, we eat that stew—there see the sacred grounds [long unintelligible section].
Okay. So back to spices. So okay? Then it would boil for—she would go to sleep for 8 hours—she’d come home from work, she’d go to sleep, and then we’d eat it for 3 days.
She was a miranda[?] she worked on men’s surgeon board[?], on her feet for all night from 11 to 7am, come home put in on the 9 kids, and then wake up at 3, we’d all come home, maybe she’d get up at 5 so we’d help cook dinner—
—chopping. A lot of soup—
—a lot of stew. That’s what she called it—
Focus—focus on the preparation, the recipe
—all day she cooked it. She’d put a lid on it big pot—
So, what? So you’d chop the, you’d chop the—
—chopped it, chopped the—
—you’d chop the—the, step-by-step
—you’d chop the carrots, into chunks two inches or so long, chunks, and slices, and chunks! I don’t know. It was uh umm.
Carrot sticks, okay? Carrot sticks. And everything boiled to the point where you could apply it with a plaster of paris knife[?]. Okay? Everything was so overcooked it was unbelievable. The st—the potatoes would melt in your mouth like mush and be like: mashed potatoes! Because while she’s sleeping it's cooking.
It would be for a dog. And then—sorry mom—and then, and then it kept us alive that was the idea. So nobody overate because it didn’t taste very good and then you’d fill it with peanut butter jelly. That’s it! That was the Reardon Hoagie, and that was mom’s stew.
That’s all I want to say about that.
…Is that forest gump? A forest gump quote?
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