King's Daughter's Kitchen

I set the table for one. One napkin, one cup for Jasmine tea, and one large soup spoon will do it today.

I relax in my kitchen with the rest of the world shut out. My soup pot clangs on the stove. The ahh moment is coming. A sigh escapes as I place my ingredients on the counter. With each slice, crunch, and tick of dividing vegetables falling to the chopping block, my shoulders ease a little more.

I lose track of time as I work and dump the contents of the chopping block into my grandmother’s Pyrex bowls three times. Shredded cabbage overfills the top of one bowl. Another holds herbs oregano, parsley, and basil. The third is the heart of the soup: mushroom, garlic, onion, celery, and carrot. I add the heart to the pot. I pour oil and think of healing and anointing.  The stove burner click, click, clicks and lights. I begin to smell the scent of wellness and comfort.

When colors change, I add the bowl of seasonings to bloom in the heat. Next, I add the cabbage to the pot stirring slowly, slowly, watching the show as it shrinks. Last, I pour in my broth and wait for bubbles to appear. When I see the bubbles, I go to the cupboard and gingerly lift down a soup bowl from Grandmother’s Green Stamp dishes.

My grandmother bought the soup bowl with Green Stamps from a catalog. They look like Blue Willow China and have children on them with birds. As a child, I stood in front of her schrank for hours imagining where the children on the bridge were going. As a teenager, I discovered that the dishes said England on the back. I thought that Grandmother bought them there. Before Grandmother passed them down to me, she told me the story of saving books of Green Stamps to buy them from a catalog. The Green Stamp bowl now holds my soup. My heart holds memories of her.