Soup

One could choose to mark days by a checking them off a calendar, but I personally believe it an affront to vacations to look at calendars or clocks--even glancing at the sun to determine its position in the sky is a little dodgy when trying to bask in the nirvana of timelessness. Living with my father, though, makes one marker of the passage of time inescapable. I am, of course, talking about soup.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is "mouth watering."

If there is one constant in my father's household, it is the perpetual stovetop simmering of soups, chowders or spaghetti sauce (which is basically another kind of soup that is poured over noodles). For my father, the preparation of soup fulfils some very basic needs. At times he uses soup as a refuge from the stresses of day to day life; at times, wanting to make sure some of the ingredients in his fridge are put to good use, his approach is utilitarian; then there are those times when he uses soup as service. Sometimes it is difficult to know how to help those in need, but soup is always welcome and rarely inappropriate.

It's not that my father likes ice cream that much. It just that empty
ice cream containers make for such effective soup delivery mechanisms.

At my father's, a new soup means a new day, and a new soup means a new reason to get out of bed in the morning. We arrived to fish chowder, then there was a nice tomato soup with a bit of bite, then came the corn chowder and the beef vegetable with a tomato base, and after that there was clam chowder and today the spaghetti sauce is seductively simmering away.

Before we moved to Abu Dhabi, my father's soup was always an option. It's constant presence meant I took it for granted and that there were days when I foolishly didn't take my father up on his offer of soup, thinking that there would be soup when I wanted it. In the last week and a half, neither myself nor any member of my family could be accused of taking my father's soup for granted. We have availed ourselves of each bowl offered and even though we know that the more soup we consume, the less he has to give to the more needy and deserving, the guilt we feel is minimal at best.

What would soup be without a wide array of soup bowls?