There’s nothing better than a lazy Sunday morning to get life in order.

I puttered around the house for a while this morning and then decided to clean out the refrigerator before going shopping. I had a vague idea that there was a collection of limp vegetables that were one step from the compost bucket and I didn’t want to stack crisp, firm produce on top.

When I throw vegetables away, product of my own negligence, I suffer from sharp pangs of guilt. There are too many people without food in the world to be squandering good nutrients.

I pulled out the vegetable drawer and sure enough, things were getting precarious. I did not want to be responsible for so much unnecessary waste, so I figured it was time to get creative. Without question, the best recipes are born of obligatory improvisation. A culinary accident was about to happen and I had no idea the results would be so astounding.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite stories was Stone Soup, by Marcia Brown. I could picture the book cover as I was weeding through the flaccid vegetables, a soldier and two peasants dancing around an enormous, steaming pot- everything brown and orange. I read it dozens of times, always marveling at how food, sharing and a little trickery could bring folks together (my earliest attraction to socialism). I figured I would trick myself into making lunch, even though I was entirely uncertain if it would be anywhere near as successful as the soldiers’ spontaneous creation.

This is what I cleaned out of the vegetable drawer:

• One large carrot
• Four medium sized potatoes
• Three stalks of celery
• Half of a zucchini
• Four tomatoes
• One green pepper
• Half of an onion
• Five cloves of garlic

I diced up the carrots and potatoes first, as they would require a little more cooking time. The rest of the ingredients I cut up and threw together in a large bowl, awaiting their destiny in solidarity.

Once the potatoes and carrots had enjoyed a bit of a head start (five minutes or so) I threw everything else into the pot, sautéing not necessary. I wanted the soup to be free of anything that even mildly resembled fat. Taste was a concern, though, so I rummaged through my unorganized collection of spices.

Just to make sure it wasn’t too bland, I added these:

• One teaspoon of turmeric
• One teaspoon of curry
• A few dashes of black pepper (probably half a teaspoon)
• Several dashes of soy sauce

I should also confess that I am not particularly fond of soup. I’d usually rather have something solid to bite into, rather than sipping from a spoon, but when this concoction was done it was thick and chewy, since I didn’t add very much water. The whole process only took about thirty minutes and as soon as I took the mystery soup off the burner, I was so curious that I took a steaming bowl and put it to the test immediately.

At the risk of shameless self-glorification, it was probably the best vegetable soup that I have eaten. The turmeric added just enough zest to make my tongue tingle. Somehow, the garlic had diplomatically permeated every other vegetable in the pot. The curry complimented the vegetables and the turmeric, and also gave the broth a rich earthen color.

After the initial taste test, I let it sit for a couple of hours, so the flavors could harmonize without my intervention. The second bowl was significantly better than the first, even though I had created high expectations.

To think, all that flavor would have been rotting with the worms.

Author: Peter Schaller 

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: via the author