I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, girl, of course you're posting about cabbage soup. It's January 6th, for Pete's sake, and we're all supposed to be on the New Year, New You! plan. You know, the one in which, just two weeks after Christmas, you swear to get up early each morning to sweat at the gym, eat whole-grain hot cereal for breakfast and drink nothing but green tea and think soothing thoughts about everything and everyone for at least, shall we say, two weeks before collapsing in a heap and eating an entire bag of Cape Cod potato chips for dinner in front of the television.

But no! You're wrong! That's not at all why I'm posting about cabbage soup. Sure, cabbage is good for you, all packed with vitamin C and flavonoids (or maybe it was antioxidants? Whatever it was, it's not goose fat or almond paste, thank Jeebus, because I can't look at either right now without wincing.). But take a closer look: There's ketchup in this soup, people. Ketchup. KETCH-UP. And brown sugar. And you're supposed to dollop sour cream on top. Okay? No diet soup here, no sirree, I don't think so.

It's not that I'm not into New Year's resolutions. Last year I made a bang-up list (uh, yes, drinking more green tea was on there, but so was stuff like "get a pedicure"and "buy a standmixer" (got the former, not the latter)). By February, though, it devolved into a to-do list of wedding-related errands and things like "open a German credit card" and "go to the cemetery in Kassel" and before too long, I hied that list of resolutions to the curb.

This year, I was too busy to make a list. I wanted to enjoy every blessed minute that Max was here over the holidays (two whole weeks!) and we had our very first Christmas at home (which has been one of my life goals since I was a small child - check!), replete with a candle-lit tree that the poor man lugged home the day before Christmas Eve and that is still perfuming our living room almost two weeks later. (Before you throw out your Christmas tree, have you seen this?)

Plus, I was sort of consumed with thoughts about the book, you know, and this other thing that has been occupying whatever spare part of my mind I've still got left (it's not much) (good grief, the parentheses in this post are multiplying like bacteria) (more on that, the other thing, not the parenthesiitis, in a minute)).

So there's no official list of virtuous resolutions this year. In fact, a few days ago I even canceled my gym membership (if you must know, it's because my gym stinks - well, figuratively, not literally). I was pretty sure the gods of January were going to smite me for doing such a profane thing, but miraculously I made it home in one piece. Being virtuous for a few weeks feels like a waste of time when I've got so much more in my lap right now. Instead I've decided to do things like "use up the vegetables languishing in the fridge instead of letting them calcify" or "embrace self-indulgence every once in a while, you mean old hag, you" and I've also decided I don't need a pretty list doodled on good paper to do that, either.

Which leads me back to the ketchup soup. The other night, I had nothing but three moldy carrots, half a green cabbage and several lemons so dried out you could have cracked them like eggs skulking around my fridge. The carrots especially were starting to seriously irritate me. Carrot frittata? I wondered as I stared at this motley crew. Lemon sandwiches? Cabbage spaghetti? No, no and no.

Instead I vaguely remembered reading something about a cabbage soup, but who knows when, my mind is a sieve these days. A few clicks later and there was Bess Feigenbaum's Cabbage Soup staring back at me from the computer screen. As I scrolled through the ingredient list, I felt more and more triumphant. I had everything I needed, everything except for the raisins which I didn't want in my soup anyway, no way, no how. How perfect was this?

Also, as I might have already mentioned, there was ketchup in this soup. KETCHUP. In the soup. People. When I saw that, I scrambled to the kitchen so fast that dust clouds kicked up under my feet.

To start, you make a simple tomato sauce base, really - sautéeing onions and garlic in olive oil, adding sliced carrots and canned tomatoes and tomato paste. But then you throw in a bay leaf and ketchup and brown sugar (and not a small amount either, though I confess to halving the sugar, because I just couldn't bring myself to use the full amount, not with a whole half-cup of ketchup in the soup to boot) and when this has cooked for about twenty minutes you render it coarsely mashed or puréed, depending on your taste, and then you add an enormous amount of sliced cabbage and water and what seems like far too much lemon juice, but do not skimp, please, because the lemon juice is crucial.

This whole messy concoction, cabbage strips sticking every which way, then gets cooked until it's good and silky. Two hours at least. I had a bowl after an hour and I don't advise you do the same. You want the cabbage to go limp and soft, really soft. Practically melting. And you want all those crazy flavors to meld into something a little less nuts (don't worry, the ketchup does blend into the background). (Also, it feeds a blessed multitude, so invite your whole block over for dinner or else be prepared to eat this for days.)

A dollop of something cool and creamy on top is sort of crucial when you serve the soup. Otherwise it could err a little on the sweet-and-strange side. You could go for sour cream or plain yogurt, if you were feeling virtuous (or if that's all you had in the house, ahem). But don't skip this bit either. You want that final hit of bracing acidity and smoothing lactic power, brightening the coldest and darkest of winter days.

My father arrived this morning for a two-week visit and I served this to him for lunch, along with a slice of dark bread. (He always eats a slice of buttered dark bread when he gets off the airplane in Berlin and then, with a deep sigh, tells me how good it tastes.) (Also, he is a cabbage man, if you know what I mean. Never met a cabbage he didn't like.) He said it tasted like the stuffed cabbage his mother used to make, which is exactly the point, according to Zoe Feigenbaum (Bess was Zoe's grandmother and Bess's stuffed cabbage was the inspiration for the soup.)

...

But wait! We're not done yet! There's still that thing I have to tell you about, the thing I mentioned just above. I have been wracking my mind for days (weeks! months!), trying to figure out a good way to tell you all, my darling readers, my friends who I've never met, and I keep on coming up empty. It's just too big, I guess, too good.

So. You know how I said I was hiding from you because I was so wrapped up in the book and all the craziness that goes along with the final weeks of revisions and writing? Well. Um. I might not have been telling you the whole, entire truth. Technically.

You see, that other something I mentioned above, well, it's not just a little thing, though, actually, it is pretty little. With wee legs and arms and delicious cheeks to nibble on soon and a thumpy, steady heartbeat and the cutest little profile I ever did see, already turning 2012 into the best year of my life, hands down, without a doubt, book or no book.

What I'm trying to say is, that thing occupying whatever space I've got left in my mind and taking up all the space in my belly is our baby. Our baby! A boy, our son, due in June. This June! Our baby! Our son!

Bess Feigenbaum's Cabbage Soup
Original recipe here
Serves 8

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup peeled and sliced carrots
1 28-ounce can plum tomatoes
1 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 pounds green cabbage, approximately half of one large head (tough outer leaves, core and ribs removed), sliced into 1/4-inch-wide strips
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional)
Fresh ground black pepper
Sour cream or plain yogurt

1. In a large pot over medium-low heat, heat olive oil and add garlic. Cook, stirring, until garlic is tender but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add onion and sauté until translucent. Add 3 cups water, carrots, tomatoes and purée, tomato paste, ketchup, brown sugar and bay leaf. Simmer for 10 minutes, then crush the tomatoes with a fork or wooden spoon. Continue to simmer until carrots are tender, about 10 minutes. Discard bay leaf. 

 2. Using an immersion blender, process mixture until it is coarse, not puréed. Add lemon juice, cabbage strips and 3 additional cups water. Place over medium-high heat and cook at a lively simmer until cabbage is meltingly soft, about 2 hours. Add water to thin to desired consistency. Ten minutes before serving, stir in raisins and a few twists of black pepper. Garnish each serving with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt.

I wish this was my excuse for disappearing on you with nary a peep for the past three weeks, but alas, it's not. I'll just say the following words:

My
Editor
Finally
Got
Back
To
Me
With
Revisions
And
A
Publication
Date
Comma
Holy
Hell
Comma
Which
Is
Next
September
Hyphen
SEPTEMBER
Hyphen
Which
Means
The
Final
Manuscript
Is
Due
In
January
Period
THIS
JANUARY
PERIOD
Even
Though
I
Think
It
Will
Probably
Take
A
Lifetime
Before
I
Am
Ready
For
The
Publication.
Period.

And then my head exploded! It's taken me a little while to gather myself.

So now that you're up-to-date on the state of the manuscript and my nerves, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to and take leave from several food combinations.

Beets and goat cheese.

Carrot and ginger.

Butternut squash and apples.

These are all lovely combinations, it's true! And once upon a time, they were fresh and novel and we gobbled them up with gusto. But, folks, I am sick and tired of them. They make my soul weary. When I see them on a menu or in a cookbook, my eyelids droop.

And it's part of the reason why I've had a butternut squash sitting in the fruit bowl for over a month. Every time I've looked at it, it has bored me to tears.

But last night, I gave myself a stern talking-to (I think you would have approved) - it simply would not do to let that squash slowly rot into oblivion nor would it do to leave the blog silent for yet another day. So I pulled down the brilliant Essential New York Times Cookbook (which holds almost every recipe I've ever clipped from the New York Times and is, quite possibly, the desert island cookbook you've spent your whole life looking for, or at least mine) and went a-recipe-hunting.

It was a rather quick hunt. Right there on page 147 was a recipe from Molly O'Neill (from this article, which I've now read twice but still haven't understood how the recipes fit in with the piece - is it just me?) that has you roast butternut squash and turn it into soup with ground cumin, vinegar (hallelujah!) and cayenne. No apples in sight! (Though there's sugar in the soup, which gave me the heebie-jeebies, just a little bit.)

The soup is punchy and hot and sour (instead of the cream swirled in at the end, I added buttermilk), and a sprinkling of squash seeds (I actually used pumpkin seeds) toasted in oil and cumin provides a welcome crunch and additional top note of flavor. It's a fine little soup, just enough to get me out of my rut, just enough to fortify me as I start to revise the manuscript.

We're almost there, folks! I can hardly believe it.

Molly O'Neill's Roasted Squash Soup With Cumin
Original recipe here
Serves 4

1 large (about 3 pounds) butternut squash
3 teaspoons vegetable or olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds (or simply use the squash seeds from the butternut)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
4 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
Small pinch of sugar
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper
1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. With a large knife, split the squash in half (scoop out and reserve the seeds, if you plan on using them). Brush the cut side of the squash with 2 teaspoons of oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place cut side down on the large baking sheet and roast until very tender, about 35 minutes.

2. If using the squash seeds, remove any orange fibers from seeds and rinse them under running water. Drain and place on paper towels to dry. Toss the squash or pumpkin seeds with the remaining teaspoon of oil and 1/2 teaspoon of the cumin, and season with salt. Place in a small but heavy pan and toast over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until fragrant and golden-brown. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3. Scoop the flesh from the squash shells or peel off the blistered skin, using a sharp-edged spoon to help it along, and place the flesh in a pot. Add the chicken stock, garlic, vinegar, sugar, cayenne and remaining cumin. Bring to a boil, lower and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

4. Using an immersion blender, purée the soup until smooth and creamy with no lumps. Stir in the buttermilk and heat through. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve garnished with the squash or pumpkin seeds.

We came back from Greece, where the heat nearly felled us as we attempted to see the Acropolis, to a Berlin that had a chill in the air, not unlike the one that usually hits New York in early October. You know, when the sky is blue, but you find yourself needing not only a wool jacket, but a scarf, too, while brittle leaves crunch and scatter on the sidewalks. Okay, I thought, time to haul out the winter suitcase from the basement, time to put the warmer comforter on the bed, time to pick apples for apple butter and pull out the heavy pots for stew.

I couldn't stop thinking about my grandmother's pot roast, you see. Or about shredded pork. Lamb stew. Pot au feu served with hot mustard and grated horseradish. In other words, meat, meat and more meat. From one day to the next, salads and light dinners made up of flatbread and meze were out the window, gone the way of the mosquito and the drippy peach. Now was the time of thickened gravies and spoon-tender meats.

Well, at least until the next heatwave hit. Today, sitting in my office with hot sun streaming through the window, it feels a little silly to tell you about this lamb stew that requires cold temperatures and at least one article of wool clothing to be worn by the cook at the time of preparation. But I swear that last weekend it was just the thing to spoon over deep plates of couscous and eat, gathered at the table with friends who tried to guess every single ingredient in the pot.

Since that's a rather dull exercise anyway, I'm going to come straight out with it for you guys. It's a crazy mix. There's lamb shoulder and butter and onion. There is a trio of warm spices (cumin, coriander, cinnamon) and apricot jam and red wine vinegar and garlic. There are chickpeas and red pepper flakes, prunes and parsley. In short, this stew holds everything but the kitchen sink.

The recipe comes from John Willoughby's article in the New York Times on how to make savory stews without that tedious first step of browning meat (which, beyond the tedium, also spreads oily filth around my kitchen, irritating me to no end). (In fact, I'd say the step of browning meat is probably at the top of the list of reasons why I hardly ever, ever, ever buy meat to cook at home.) (Do you guys now think I'm insane for calling the gentle spatter of browning meat "oily filth"?) (Oh, parentheses, I like it in here.)

His lamb tagine has you basically simply dump all the ingredients into a pot at once before stewing everything together until the meat falls apart with a gentle nudge. Now here's the funny thing: I wanted to cook the stew for a dinner party on Saturday night, but because I didn't want to waste any time on Saturday cooking (my Saturday hours are preshus), I decided to make the stew the day before, figuring that all stews benefit from a little ripening. Wouldn't you say? But on Friday, as my stew-cooking drew to a close, I was rather taken back as I stared into a pot of lamb soup that looked absolutely nothing like the lush, moody photograph of the stew in the paper.

My stew was wan and gray, even a little thin. Vaguely gruel-like. Instead of looking like the kind of lusty fare you'd imagine gorgeous women in a harem feeding each other, my stew looked like boarding-school stew. (I've never attended boarding school, but I'm pretty sure I read every English book ever published on the subject before I turned 16 years old and have also been blessed with an active imagination. Therefore I am an authority. Also on Moroccan harems. Thank you, good night.)

Huh, I thought. That is peculiar.

Was my German lamb shoulder to blame? Or the low lighting in the photographer's studio? I stared at my tagine-style stew for quite a while on Friday afternoon, completely stumped. Food coloring? I thought. Molasses? Did I miss the red wine? Finally, at a loss, I resigned myself to serving our guests a grayish dinner. This hardly qualified as a kitchen disaster, but all the same, I told myself that worse things had happened. I'd survive the humiliation. It might even taste good. I put the stew in the fridge and went on my way.

The next evening, I pulled the pot out of the fridge and carefully scooped off the top layer of bright orange fat that had risen and solidified overnight. I don't think you have to do this step, but lamb fat can sometimes taste a little...barnyardy and I didn't want that adding to the already unfortunate visual. Then I started to warm the stew, adding chopped prunes instead of the apricots that the original recipe called for. They swelled and plumped in the fragrant gravy, adding sweetness to the air. Just before serving, I added lemon juice and some chopped parsley. Somewhere in a Moroccan harem, someone's stomach growled.

And wouldn't you know. In that last half hour, the stew changed color entirely, going all mahogany-colored with little shimmering dots of oil, bobbing chickpeas and nuggets of prunes and lamb in varying shades of rich, warm brown. Just like the photo. Just in time.

A few minutes later, doled out to a table of hungry guests who seemed especially charmed by the prunes, that whole pot of stew was gone. The chickpeas and prunes all velvety-soft, the lamb swollen with flavor. I even had to bring out spoons for some of our eaters who had been staring rather forlornly at the sweet-savory gravy, brightened by the lemon and parsley, pooled at the bottom of their plates after the couscous and bulk of the stew was eaten.

Just like a bunch of English boarding-school students, really, heading for warmer climes.

John Willoughby's Tagine-Style Lamb Stew
For the original recipe, click here.
Serves 6 to 8

2 pounds lamb shoulder
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small onion, grated (about 1/3 cup)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup apricot preserves
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 20-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped prunes
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Cooked couscous, for serving

1. Trim excess fat from the lamb and cut into 1-inch cubes. If your shoulder was sold to you with the bone and joint still in it, add it to the pot while you stew the meat for additional flavor (discard before serving).

2. In a Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the lamb, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, red pepper flakes, apricot preserves and vinegar and cook, stirring frequently, until the aroma of the spices is strong, about 5 to 7 minutes. (Do not allow the meat to brown.)

3. Add chickpeas and stock, bring just to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer gently until the lamb is very tender, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.

4. Twenty to thirty minutes before you're ready to serve, pull the pot from the fridge and gently scoop off the orange layer of fat that will have risen to the top. Put the pot over medium-low heat, adding the chopped prunes, and bring the stew to a very low simmer. Continue to cook, uncovered, until the pieces are nicely plumped, about 10 minutes more. Remove from heat, stir in the parsley and lemon juice, and serve with couscous.

So here's a little story for you. On Saturday morning. I was strolling around my favorite green market, filling my bag with snappy asparagus, hyacinths and peonies, rosy little radishes and rondes de Nice, those round zucchini that you're meant to stuff with seasoned ground meat and bake in the oven. I didn't expect to find them at the market, and I couldn't help but buy four of them, round and glossy and firm. Inspired with memories of the petits farcis of Nice, I stopped at the organic butcher to look for ground meat. As I stood in line, though, I decided to use ground dark chicken meat instead, lightening the filling.

Suddenly it was my turn. I asked for chicken thighs, ground. The butcher stared at me, asked me to repeat my request. I pointed to the chicken thighs and asked if he could grind them. Realizing he'd understood me the first time, he shook his head, almost disappointed in me. Maybe even a little indignant? "We don't do that." Now it was my turn to stare. "If you order five kilos? In advance? Then we'll grind the thighs for you. Otherwise, sorry, it's just too exotic."

Exotic! Ground chicken meat! Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

Back at home, hungry for lunch, I decided to put the zucchini away and turn to something else I'd been craving for a while, armed with an old recipe of Molly O'Neill's for red lentil ragout. Yes, I was craving legumes. I suppose that's pretty exotic(!), too.

The original recipe starts with a roasted panful of carrots and onions and ends with ancho chile and other exotic spices. It sounded absolutely wonderful. The only problem was that I didn't have ancho or chipotle chile powder. (Note to self: add to shopping list for May.) So I decided to improvise a little, which turned out to be just fine, because, man, that recipe was wonky. I almost charred my sweet little carrots to a blackened crisp, before realizing that roasting them at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes is definitely not the best path to delicious food. Untested recipes! They make you a better cook, I guess.

Instead of ancho and chipotle chile powder, I decided to use a mixture of cayenne, Aleppo pepper and smoked paprika. And let me tell you, folks, this turned out to be a serendipitous choice. Also, exotic! (I'm sorry.)

So here's what happens. You roast a bunch of carrots in the oven with lots of salt and olive oil (and pepper) until they're soft and browned. It is almost impossible not to eat these carrots with your fingers the minute they come out of the oven. Resist! You must! (Onions are tossed in at the very end in rings and they go all fragrant and shriveled.)

Then you chop the carrots into bite-sized pieces and scrape the onions and carrots into a pot with some olive oil and the spices. These cook for a minute and start to release all their wonderful oils and flavors. That's when you add the red lentils and stock. You let the whole thing simmer away for about half an hour, stirring occasionally, while the lentils break down into agreeable sludginess.

What you're left with, in the end, is an improbably sweet and spicy stew. The sugars concentrated in the carrots through the roasting infuse the soup with honeyed sweetness, and are a good balance to the heat of the spices that will warm your body as you spoon up lunch.

The amount of cayenne that I used resulted in a very spicy stew. Not mouth-numbing, but enough to make you stop and take a bite of bread every once in a while. This is what I was going for, maybe just a little bit out of flounciness towards that butcher. Exotic? I'll show you exotic. If you'd rather have a milder stew that's no less nuanced and delicious, just leave out the cayenne or use less of it.

I loved this soup. Loved it. Loved the nubby red lentils, the sweet, melting carrots, the blessed heat that made my nose run, the fragrant soupiness of each spoonful. I sat on my balcony in the sunshine and ate my spicy, stewy soup and thought about that butcher, so solid in his traditions and his convictions, so unbending in the face of a customer's request. Living in Germany is a pleasure and a trial, just like any place, I guess. Thank goodness I've got my kitchen to keep me anchored, no matter where I am.

The first time I went to Spain was ten days after 9/11. I worked in Rockefeller Center that year, as an assistant at Simon & Schuster. When I got to the office that morning, oblivious to all that had already happened while I was at the gym, in the shower, on the subway, a girlfriend of mine in the marketing department, whose father was a firefighter, was standing next to the elevator bank in the lobby and sobbing. She was the one who told me about the first airplane. I remember thinking that none of it made any sense. Don't worry, I tried to soothe her. I'm sure it was just an accident. As I rode up to the 14th floor, I thought that maybe a window washer, hanging outside on the face of the building, had startled the pilot of a small prop plane and the accident had ensued from there. I suppose your mind goes in absurd directions when it's forced to take in the incomprehensible.

Up on my floor, half the office was missing, stranded in Brooklyn while the subways ground to a halt across the city, the island sealing itself off. The people who had made it in stood in my boss's office, the only one with a television set, and we watched the coverage together, staring in disbelief, some people making terrible noises, as the towers crumpled and fell in real time before our eyes. One man left and made a beeline for his office, closing the door behind him. His wife worked part-time on the 96th floor, I found out later. That Tuesday had been one of her days in the office. They had three small boys at home, beautiful children who sometimes stopped by the office and smiled shyly at me. She never did come home that day. Months later, they found her remains.

I had a secret boyfriend at the office those days. We tried to be discreet about our relationship, not wanting to be water-cooler gossip, but I think we fooled only a few. We'd long had plans to take a trip in September together, settling on a 10-day journey from Madrid, for a friend's wedding, to Seville, Cordoba and Granada in the south of Spain. In those horrifying, paralytic days after the 9/11 attacks, when I could barely bring myself to get on a subway, much less an airplane, we had to decide whether to cancel our trip or whether to go. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe it was all that idiotic "don't let the terrorists win" mentality, but we decided to fly. I was half-mad with fear on the way over the Atlantic. I remember my boyfriend telling me, trembling before takeoff, that it wasn't too late to get off the airplane and go home. But I forced myself to be brave.

In Spain we were treated like war heros. Everywhere we went, when people found out we were New Yorkers, there were free glasses of sherry, long, sympathetic looks, even a mortifying standing ovation at the wedding we attended. We watched footage from New York on the Spanish news, saw Giuliani's grainy image here, there and everywhere. I looked away when the airplanes flew into the towers again and again.

It's surprising, in retrospect, that I remember anything about the food. But three things I do remember. Unwieldy chunks of chorizo in red wine at a tapas bar near the train station, salty and sour. A leg of jamon behind a bar, with plump, fat-lined slices on a plate in front of us, next to our water-beaded glasses filled with pale yellow sherry. And pan con tomate for breakfast, salted and drizzled with olive oil. In another frame of mind, I would have loved that breakfast, so foreign to me, so new. But heartbroken and angry is really no way to go out into the world. I resented the stale bread, the mealy tomatoes, the pockets of oil first thing in the morning. All I wanted was a nice bowl of American cereal with milk for breakfast and to be home again, back in New York, with my people and my grief and that gaping wound at the south of the city.

Back in New York, my boyfriend and I didn't last long. That was the thing about 9/11, it threw a lot of things into relief. You had to make decisions about what you wanted if today was going to be your last day, or tomorrow. That was one of the last trips I took with a film camera and after I got the rolls developed, I packed the photos away without even looking at them. It would be years before I unpacked them and had a look. I'm still a little baby-faced, standing in a tiled room in the Alhambra. Sitting by the banks of the Guadalquivir in a mini-skirt and flip flops. Smiling gamely in front of the grand Cordoba mosque.

I didn't eat any ham for a long while after that trip. Couldn't face potatoes or eggs or any of the other things we ate ad nauseam whilst in Spain. It would be years before I went back to a tapas bar in New York. In the meantime, though, through cooking I discovered smoked paprika and Marcona almonds, I fell in love with Manchego cheese and quivering slices of membrillo and the sour little boquerones that Zabar's carried. I made paella and golden potato soup and eventually went back to Spain, under much happier circumstances.

But the truth remains that I can't really eat Spanish food without thinking of our September vacation. And I can't think of that trip without thinking of that Tuesday and all that we lost. As improbable as it is, the two are forever linked in my head. Just like the rest of life, really. The sweet and the salty, joy and despair.

Janet Mendel's LA Times piece on the importance of chickpeas in the Spanish diet included this little purée garnished with shreds of toasted, garlicky bread and salty, chewy bits of bacon or jamòn. It's the kind of soup you can make with your eyes closed, really, just a simple weeknight soup made a little bit special with a crunchy, savory topping of fried bread and ham. I like how the crusty bits of bread fight back against the hot, smooth soup, nicking the insides of your mouth. You're supposed to use dried chickpeas, but I used canned ones and it was still very nice.

And I liked how, as I cooked, the aroma of the food on the stove made me think back to everything that happened all those years ago and how lucky I am to get to call all this the fabric of my life, sometimes vibrant, sometimes wrenching, but always, always worth living.

Chickpea Soup with Crisp Croutons (Crema de garbanzos con pan frito)
Serves 6
Note: 1 cup dry chickpeas makes 2¾ cups cooked. Soak the dried chickpeas in water for 8 hours. Put them to cook in hot water and simmer until tender, about 3 hours.

2 tablespoons plus 1½ tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/4 cup diced pancetta or jamòn
1 cup sliced carrot
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 boiling potato (8 ounces), peeled and cut in pieces
2 3/4 cups cooked chickpeas (I used a 28-oz can)
1/4 cup tomato puree or sauce (not paste)
2 quarts water, broth or chickpea cooking liquid
Pinch of cayenne
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 cup diced bread, cut into ½-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon coarsely chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon smoked hot pimentón

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a soup pot over medium-high heat. Fry the pancetta or jamòn until the fat is rendered and the pork is crisp, about 2 minutes. Remove the pot from heat and tip the pot so fat drains to one side. Skim out the pork bits and reserve.

2. Return the pot to the heat and add the carrot, onion and garlic. Sauté over medium heat until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the potato and cook 1 minute. Add the chickpeas, tomato puree and water. Season with cayenne, salt, pepper, thyme and bay leaf. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover, then reduce the heat and gently simmer until potatoes and carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Discard the bay leaf.

3. Purée the soup in batches in a blender. If desired, sieve the purée. Sieving the soup after it is puréed eliminates the chickpea hulls and makes for a smoother soup. I didn't bother.

4. Shortly before serving, reheat the soup. In a small skillet, heat the remaining 1½ tablespoons of oil. Toss the diced bread in the oil until lightly toasted, 2 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and the reserved pancetta or jamòn and sprinkle with the pimentòn. Fry briefly to crisp.

5. Serve the soup in shallow bowls. Scatter the croutons, garlic and pancetta over the soup and serve.

I made chicken stock the other day. Trudged down to the butcher to buy two organic soup chickens from France, ankles bound indelicately, skin cast in a yellowish hue. Passed the grocer on the way back home where I found wilting soup greens, as the Germans call that bundle of aromatics made up of two halves of a leek, a carrot, a slice of celery root and a spray of parsley tied together, in the dark recesses of a shelf close to the floor. At home again, I sliced an onion in half and charred each side in a pot with no oil, as every German recipe for chicken stock will instruct you to do, then filled up the pot with cold water, peppercorns, the yellow French chickens, bay leaves from my mother's garden in Italy and the soup greens, washed and peeled as best I could, plus a little bundled bouquet garni. The pot simmered away for hours, clouding up the kitchen windows, making the kitchen and my office smell like a Jewish grandmother's house.

The stock lasted us all week. A ladleful in risotto here, a golden puddle with tiny semolina dumplings there, a jar for my mother, a container in the freezer. If I had a bigger freezer, I'd make stock once a month. There's something so elemental about cooking it (and if you have two chickens floating in the broth, you can salvage one after an hour to actually eat, dipped into HP Fruity sauce, for example, my little guilty pleasure) and finding yourself supplied with the groundwork for a great many delicious meals.

The other day at lunch, inspired by a recipe from a German cooking magazine called essen & trinken, I sliced a small pile of onions thinly and cooked them in a little olive oil along with some unusal aromatics (star anise, juniper berries) until they were soft and translucent and going pale brown in the pan. A few sprigs of thyme from the balcony gave the onions an herbal touch. After a while, I poured a glug of dry white wine to deglaze the onions, then filled up the pot with some ladlefuls of chicken stock and let everything simmer away for a little while, while I sliced bread and spread the slices thinly with mustard before showering them with a carpet of grated Gruyère cheese. Under the broiler the bread slices went, until the edges were crisp and browning quickly and the cheese had melted and blistered in the heat.

I filled each soup plate with onion soup, then floated a toasted cheese tartine on top. The soup softened the bread, turning the bottom-side custardy and easy enough to cut with a spoon. We slurped away as carefully as we could, marveling at the depth of sweetness in the soup, crunching away at the edges of the toasts before they sogged entirely.

You always dream, when you work in an office, of being free one day, free to work in your pyjamas, free to be your own boss. It's a misleading little daydream, because the truth is that working from home for yourself is so much harder than being in an office. At least it is for me. I miss my commute to work, my colleagues, my office uniform. I spend too much time in my own head at home, feel far more oppressed under my own expectations of myself than I did under any employer. But in one respect, working from home really does beat everything else and that is the luxury of being able to emerge from the fog of work to cook my own lunch. To spend a half hour standing over the stove in the middle of the day, making a little salad, setting the table for the two of us, is bliss.

In a few months, our lunchtime ritual is going to change. Max will be working far away during the week and I'll be left to my own devices, probably sentenced to a great many peanut butter sandwiches at midday. It's just not as much fun to cook for yourself than it is when you're sharing a meal, is it? That seems to be one of the great truths of a cook's life. So until then, I'm counting my blessings, boiling chickens and making onion soup.

Simple Onion Soup
Serves 2 for lunch

3-4 tablespoons olive oil
5 medium yellow onions, cut in half and sliced thinly
1 star anise
A few stalks of fresh thyme, minced
10 juniper berries
1/4 cup (100 ml) dry white wine
4 1/4 cups (1 liter) chicken stock
Salt, pepper
4 slices country bread
Dijon mustard
Gruyère

1. Put the oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat and cook the onions, star anise, thyme and juniper berries slowly in the oil for 20 minutes, until the onions are limp, silky and starting to turn brown. Deglaze with the wine and let most of the alcohol cook off, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour in the chicken stock and let the soup simmer for another 20 minutes.

2. Spread each slice of bread very thinly with mustard and top with a layer of grated Gruyère. Put the cheese toasts on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and slide under the broiler in your oven for a few minutes, just until the cheese is blistered and melting and the edges of the bread are toasted.

3. Ladle the soup into deep soup plates and top each plate with a cheese toast. Serve immediately.

In winter, Berlin's vegetable offerings can be bleak, but cauliflower is one of the few things for sale at green markets and grocery stores that stands proud and tall, creamy white within its tightly furled green leaves. I like it steamed and served with a lemon vinaigrette or cloaked in a creamy mustard-dotted béchamel, roasted in the oven with capers and parsley or stewed on the stove-top with anchovies and mashed into a silky pasta sauce. But I'd never really thought of it for soup the way I do when I see a squash or a leek. Then a single spoonful of an ethereal cauliflower soup at a restaurant in Paris made it difficult for me to concentrate on anything else, so a few days after getting back from our holiday, I got to work.

Now, a word about appearances. Cauliflower soup will never win a beauty award. It will never enchant you with its looks. Unlike a glowing squash soup, for example, or a vivid spinach one, cauliflower soup is the quieter, younger cousin tending towards having bad posture. But that's kind of its appeal, too. It's quiet and unassuming, but deeply comforting and creamy (despite having nary of speck of dairy or animal fat in sight) and, actually, if dressed up in the right way - a sprinkling of Espelette pepper here, a pretty china plate there - it can be rather elegant.

Like all puréed vegetable soups, it barely requires a recipe. You stew a leek in olive oil until soft and translucent, though you could use an onion instead. You wash and slice your cauliflower roughly, tip the creamy florets into the pan for a little while, then add water and boil quietly until the cauliflower is soft and tender. What's important, I find, with cauliflower soup is that you must really lean on your immersion blender. You want the soup to be impossibly silky, free of the tiniest of lumps (unlike that little one lurking up there in the lower righthand corner). Purée until the soup takes on a gentle sheen and drips from the spoon like oil.

Turn to your seasonings, which are nothing more than salt and half a lemon squeezed into the soup. For color, you can sprinkle piment d'Espelette on each serving, but it's hardly necessary. I like a few homemade croutons, chewy peasant bread that you've roasted with a little slick of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt in the oven for a while, floating on top. The crunch and toast are a nice contrast to that sweet, vegetal purée.

Cauliflower Soup
Serves 4 to 5

1 leek or 1 onion
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cauliflower, green leaves and trunk removed
Water
Salt
1/2 lemon
Piment d'Espelette, optional
Homemade croutons, optional

1. Peel and clean the leek and cut into thin slices, discarding the tough green tops. Warm olive oil in a heavy pot and gently sauté the leek in the olive oil until wilted, 5 to 7 minutes. In the meantime, wash the cauliflower and slice thickly. Add the cauliflower to the pot and stir to combine. After 2 to 3 minutes, add enough water to cover the vegetables.

2. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the heat and, using an immersion blender, purée until smooth and creamy. Add salt to taste and the juice of the 1/2 lemon.

3. Serve dusted with piment d'Espelette or homemade croutons.