Cream of Spinach Soup
Today I am spending the morning in my kitchen, cooking the base for what will become a cream of spinach soup. I shall freeze the base that I am about to make and then defrost it over Friday night, ready for finishing off for the dinner I am making on Saturday for friends.
I look around the work surfaces and see a lot of mess and clutter. I shift the items that need to be washed up over to the sink and make some clear space for myself.
A clear work space
The first thing to do is to get that washing up sorted out (we do not have a dishwasher). I am rinsing the items under the tap and thinking about how I want to approach the morning. Should I regard it, for example, as a bit of a chore? That certainly doesn’t square with the book on Zen Guitar that I have been reading. I don’t want to start spouting a load of pseudo-Zen stuff here, but a better way to proceed would be if I take every step with care, and delight in what I am doing. I pause to look at the clean pile of stuff on the draining board. I’m glad I washed up first; the greengrocer at the market has to set out his stall afresh each day.
Washed up and ready to start
I open Julia Child’s book at the recipe for potage crème d’épinards (cream of spinach soup), which is based on her recipe for potage crème de cresson (watercress soup). I get a pan on for stock and hoy onion, carrot, herbs, and a good slurp of white wine into the water. I use bottled water because our tap water has a chemical taste and that won’t go away in the cooking. I tip out the spinach leaves and make a pile on the work surface: 400 grams.
400 grams of spinach leaves
I read the recipe. Julia requires the leaves to be chiffonade. This will take some time. I have come to a cross-roads. I could chop them in 5 minutes, maximum. I could cook them whole and puree the soup later. I am convinced that my dinner guests would not notice whatever way I decide to go. I choose to keep faith with Julia. I know this is going to be a challenge, but I need to enjoy it as such. I go and get a classical CD and put it on to play in my kitchen media unit. I have chosen the Brandenburg Concerto #1 by J.S. Bach. The music starts, and I take hold of my knife. I select a pile of leaves and place them ready for the cut. The CD player keeps jumping. I abandon the CD. I pause and think. I refuse to become annoyed. I have had the machine for about 20 years and I think it needs to be replaced at some point. I turn the radio on to our BBC3 classical station. The music is good, but there is interference. Maybe somebody is using a hedge trimmer or something like that, nearbye. I think about this for a little while. I decide to explore silence.
Leaves layered ready for cutting
I am chiffonading, something I seldom do. The pile looks enormous. I give myself a mental slap on the wrist. That sort of attitude will never do; it is most un-Zen-like. I decide that I must not think about getting to the end of the pile. What I need to do is focus on the present, on the here and now. Each leaf, each draw of the knife.
The chiffonade
The house is very still. Soon, I perceive that the silence is being filled. There is a quiet but rythmic muffled ticking sound, emanating from the kitchen clock. It reminds me of my paternal grandparents house: tick-tock, tick-tock. Soon, I realise that the kitchen rhythm section is more complex; the fridge freezer appears to be generating an improvised jazz solo across the beat of the clock. I can hear the sound of my own breathing, too. I check my watch. I have been chiffonading for 12 minutes. I decide that it would be good to make a cup of coffee and to sip that from time to time while I cut.
Coffee on the side
I am aware of the part that this part of the culinary preparation plays in the recipe as a whole. As I cut, and cut, I make the link to my experience of drawing a sketch of Orford castle. The sections of brick took me a long time and to do them was rather repetitive. However, I was rewarded for my attention to detail in the completed sketch; without patience the sketch would have had a different character and it would not have been mine. I feel good about making this comparison. I continue to focus on the present moment. If I have a thought, I let it go. In this way I avoid slipping into the world of daydreams. After an hour, I have finished. In the broader scheme of things, it does not matter whether I spend 10 minutes or 60 minutes chiffonading. Many folk routinely spend a lot longer than 60 minutes watching mind-numbing rubbish on TV. By way of contrast, I have had a very interesting experience this morning.
Cut, cut, cut, cut....
I melt some butter in a pan and sweat some chopped onion. Then I push in the chiffonaded spinach and leave that to wilt under a gentle heat for five minutes. At this point I stir in some rice flower and cook that through for a few minutes before taking it off the flame and beating in my strained stock. I simmer the soup base for another five minutes and then I am finished. I shall freeze it when it has cooled down, later today. I say that I am finished; that is not quite correct. If I am to bring closure to the Zen-kitchen experience, I need to wash and tidy up my stuff. First I eat an improvised snack made from the onion and carrot I used for my stock. Then I get squared away. One thing that occurred to me this morning was that I would very much like to find a bistro-style check table cloth to put on my round table in our sitting room. I have a very nice pale blue cloth that I use for the big 1×2 metre table I made but I shall not be assembling that on Saturday.
It is now time to practice some arpeggios on guitar. Speak to you later, my dear blogophiles.
John's Quavering Pencil 
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