Fragment #5
Robert(o)
This is my own version of Roberto, the soup made famous by New Yorker writer Helen Rosner. I call it Robert because I’m not that fancy. It’s a forgiving soup. I’ve made it at least four times since the shutdown, all of them slightly different, no version appreciably better than the other, though the second one that I made with homemade stock was a category worse because I messed up the proportion of chicken to water and was unable to recoup. One time I used kale, which was perfect; another night I went for spinach, which was tasty but lacking in visual appeal. And speaking of … once I had some purple carrots in the crisper, so I decided to add those as well—and dyed the chicken and pasta blue. I still ate it for three days straight.
Ingredients
1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 cup pork or chicken sausage (or chorizo, or kielbasa, or anything really)
2 ribs celery, sliced into ¼ inch pieces
3-4 carrots, sliced into rounds
1 8 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 8 oz can cannellini beans
2 quarts chicken stock (boxed or homemade)
1 small Parmesan rind
1 cup small pasta (small shells, elbows, rotini, orechette, orzo, etc.)
1 bunch kale, Swiss chard, or other greens, torn or sliced into ribbons
Herbs (basil, oregano, bay leaf, parsley, maybe thyme)
Salt and pepper
Preparation
In a soup pot, sauté onion and garlic in a glug of olive oil over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until softened, then turn heat up to medium high and add crumbled up sausage (which you have taken out of the casing). Keep cooking, stirring so it doesn’t burn, until sausage is brown—maybe 10 minutes—then add celery, carrots, beans, and tomatoes, and a dash of salt. Simmer for a few minutes, then add the chicken stock, parmesan rind, and herbs to your liking. Increase heat and bring to a simmer then add pasta. Cook until pasta is almost done, then add the greens and simmer a few more minutes. Remove rind and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with bread.
***
I have so many things on my mind; thoughts about springtime, about the duck that has laid now six eggs in my yard. Thoughts about the new porch-drop economy, which I am finding strangely lovely. Thoughts about masks, and how we are all obsessed with how and when to wear them, or not, and who is good and who is bad, and how no matter where you fall on the mask spectrum you are in your own way manifesting the same belief in your own exceptionalism. I want to write about all these things but right now I am writing recipes, or, really mostly editing them, and until I'm done that's all I'm going to do.
Yesterday I sent the Robert(o) recipe in as a contribution to a cookbook being put together by some Chicago folks in the hospitality industry as a benefit for Connections for Abused Women and their Children, a domestic violence shelter and advocacy group in my neighborhood of Humboldt Park. Today I'm trying to finish up the preface to the new printing of the Soup & Bread Cookbook, coming this month from Belt's Parafine Press arm. (Preorder a copy today! All royalties will be donated to Chicago hunger relief efforts.) And as soon as I'm done with that I'm turning to the most delicious project of all: The Belt Cookie Table Cookbook, by my friend Bonnie Tawse. I put Bonnie up to this months ago and she jumped on the project with the enthusiasm and tenacity she brings to everything she does. The result—forty delicious, authentic cookie recipes straight from Youngstown, Ohio—will be out in June.
And, well, I'm trying not to be too, too "told ya so" now that the New York Times has declared the community cookbook to be cool. We (me, and Soup & Bread, and Bonnie, and Belt) always knew that. I guess we are just hopelessly ahead of the curve.
Stay well and safe my friends. I miss you so much! More soon after all the dishes are done.
xo