Answers Below 30

Yesterday morning saw the rooftops frosted white. 30 degrees Fahrenheit may seem tropical for people in places like Colorado, but with the salty Salish breeze just over the hill, it feels freezing! Combined with inadequate insulation and rogue germs, this wicked weather will most definitely give your house-hold a cold.

Cover your throat, put on a sweater...drink a lemon-honey infusion et met tes pantoufles! Slippers, sweaters and scarves were my mom's answers to winter. I loathed them. Where was the proof...the scientific reasoning? There is probably some psychological theory to explain how in rejecting these comforts I made them more a part of me, because as woowoo and nagging as they seemed, these preventative measures have surfaced in my adult life. I am still one for fuzzy moccasins. I feel naked without a scarf, and it probably doesn't come as a surprise when I say that my favorite under-the-weather remedy is a vegetable. Soup. For breakfast. I have discovered that sipping a tasty hot broth with a good book in lap, is the best way to start a Sunday.

Here is proof. Can you see the crisp light creeping in? The steaming bowl in hand? There was a day when I wished summer would stay forever, but I take it all back in cozy moments like these.



And I would be a fool for taking the credit. Miso soup has been breakfast for centuries. I even tasted savory maize breakfast soup in a village in Chihuahua. But as silly as it is to call this a recipe, I am telling you, this is a completely original recipe for Winter-breakfast Soup:

two eggs

homemade vegetable stock, made the day before:
two tablespoons of olive oil
once large yellow onion, chopped
one large leek, chopped
three carrots, chopped
three celery stalks, chopped
two bay leaves
one tablespoon of salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into big rounds
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
10 cups of water

the juice of one small lemon (choose a shiny lemon with tight skin)

Heat the oil. Rinse the vegetables and discard the tough outer layer of the leek. Saute the onion and leek for five minutes or so. Add the carrots and celery, salt and pepper, cooking for another 5 minutes. Add the water, ginger and garlic and simmer for twenty minutes. Let cool, and refrigerate until the morning after.

Ladle two servings (about six ladles) of liquid and 1 1/2 ladles of vegetables into a medium saucepan. Take care not to include the ginger rounds. Slowly bring to a boil. Add lemon juice. Poach the two eggs for about five minutes, depending on yolk consistency desired. Divide into two bowls and serve with olive-oil drizzled toast.

The soup may be strained and refrigerated or frozen for soup-stock, or preserved as is for several days of breakfast.