Soup-er Saturday

As the temperatures drop in our part of the world, we’ll pack away our shorts and tank tops with a sigh, and most of us will grudgingly consign our flipflops to indoor use. We’ll also adjust our eating habits as we welcome back hearty stews and soups to our culinary menus. When I last asked, McDonalds hadn’t yet pulled out their soup kettles, but I’m hoping that will happen sooner rather than later, as their broccoli cheese soup is a tasty drive-through option for lunch on a chilly autumn day.

While I will miss the fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes of summer, I am ready to savor soups of all kinds over the next few months. One of my Western New York memories is chowder from the volunteer fire department fund-raisers, a mish-mash of vegetables, beef and chicken that had cooked all night over a wood fire in huge cauldrons. My attempts at replicating that remembered taste have been in vain, but the soup’s still flavorsome and filling. And as an added plus, I’ve discovered that Chellie Pingree is right: “There's great value to knitting or digging up your garden or chopping up vegetables for soup, because you're taking some time away from turning the pages, answering your emails, talking to people on the phone, and you're letting your brain process whatever is stuck up in there.”

Among my other favorites are Italian wedding soup, lobster bisque, clam chowder, chili with cheese and onions on the top, and the broccoli cheddar filled with tiny noodles – yum! When I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, I’m tempted to skip the entrees and fill up on soup. A bowl of soup and a crusty heel of bread are always welcome at my table.

If only soup was always a pleasurable, filling option on the buffet, rather than the tasteless gruel of famine or what a young girl in war-torn Syria calls “water soup.” A recent video on YouTube captured an interview of a ten-year-old girl from Al Hajar Al Aswad, who sat on a street lined with destruction, picking crumbs of bread from the rubble. When asked what she was doing, she indicated that her family was always hungry, as they ate water soup, or spice soup, accompanied by whatever scraps she and her younger brother could scavenge.

When faced with such abject hunger, we do what we can in the form of humanitarian aid and missions offerings, but realize there is little we can physically do to ease the suffering of children in Syria, Liberia, or North Korea. Yet right here in Ashland County, we have the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of families who, even though they may have a SNAP card (food stamps), do not have a safe place to live or a pot to prepare soup in. While we wish homelessness was only a big city or third world problem, it isn’t, and scores of families have been housed and cared for over the last few years since ACCESS (Ashland Church Community Emergency Shelter Services) began to offer temporary shelter to those without a place to rest. Our arms may not reach around the world, but our arms can reach down the block in the provision of a meal or transportation, or by sitting prayerfully through an over-night vigil, keeping watch so others might sleep.

ACCESS is sponsoring a Soup-er Saturday fund-raiser today, and it’s all about soup, which makes my heart – and my stomach – happy. It’s happening at Grace Brethren Church, starting at 11 a.m. and continuing until 8 p.m., and will offer soups of all kinds, breads and desserts. It’s their first attempt at a community fund-raiser, and I’m hoping it will become an annual event, much like the Ashland Christian Health Center’s chocolate extravaganza. October – soup, April- chocolate –I’m good to go!

Do you remember Marcia Brown’s book, Stone Soup? From its inception, ACCESS has been a Stone Soup kind of ministry. One by one, Ashlanders have contributed their carrots, cabbage, turnips and spices to the making of a nurturing soup that has enriched the lives of the ACCESS guests and of the helpers. We, as a community, bow our heads in thanks.