Ha Ha Ha! This is just too funny. I will definitely try Padraig's Soup. It sounds wonderful. 2 days ago I wrote this silly poem and posted a soup recipe on facebook which lightened my sombre mood:
MULLIGATAWNY SOUP
A recipe For Tenderness
Tender times are these....
Near the end of the year in December
So where is the Tenderness found here?
When we need it profoundly
it can feel like no Tender abounds here.
Sometimes at home and sometimes out there
It's unfair, where's my share of TLCare?
Especially now as more hardships surround us
We need to take 'stock' of our bounties around us.
Yesterday in the midst of some minor distress
I cleaned off the table, put that question to rest.
I started to sing.
And something happened.
A Tender thing.
I circled the sponge in slow motion
Then put up a hot soup with devotion,
of curry and lentils and raisins of gold,
I decided to walk for a while in the cold.
Inside, the house smelled like Paradise Found
Outside the silence shut out any sound.
As I put on my coat and stepped out in chilled air
My soul felt a warm rush of Tenderness there.
So whether you live in the desert or north
Weather sunny or rainy or foggy go forth
Or stay where you are in one place to regroup
And make some Mulligatawny Soup.
And if you care to make it come true
It is really quite easy to make and to do
I share this recipe with love and with you:
(BTW I cook soups and so many other things while listening to Poetry Unbound. I have started a practice of going back to the beginning of the series and listening to one each day as I cook.)
Oh how I love reading these filling messages Sunday mornings, drinking coffee in my kitchen. While I was reading Pádraig’s recipe, it made me think about how much more delightful (and it already is delightful) the Great British Baking Show would be if, accompanying the vague recipes in the technical challenge were poetic descriptions such as those found accompanying Pádraig’s recipe.
“Step one: make your Gâteau Basque.
Step two: While you struggle to do this in the allotted time, read or listen to Laura Villareal’s “My Worries Have Worries.”
I think I need to write my own recipe following this kind of formula. Haha.
 Padrig, what a joy of a human you are. As I awake to a dark winter morning, and reach for my phone I find your adventurous soup recipe in my inbox! The first sound to escape my mouth this morning is laughter. I must make this soup! Thank you for bringing poetry into my life. It has been so enriching and such a gift. I have learned so much from you. Your book is on my holiday wish list, so I hope to find it under the tree. If not, I will happily buy it for myself. Please keep doing this work. It has become such a solid companion and delight in my life.
This is exactly my kind of recipe. My grocery lists are suggestions to be abandoned, at least for fresh food, in pursuit of whatever looks good. I cook by considering what’s available and assembling it in whatever ways seems appealing. The results are generally good, but it drives my recipe-following partner a little nuts
Pádraig, this is the soup recipe of my dreams. Poetry, joyful cooking, Joni - everything I love. If you haven't read the cookbook Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger, I think you would enjoy it. Similar kind of approach to relaying the recipes.
I absolutely ADORE this soup recipe! It reminds me of some of my favourite recipes from James Barber, a Vancouver chef and marvellous raconteur who wrote my all-time favourite recipe book "Ginger Tea Makes Friends" in 1971. Here's a sample from Rainy Day Chicken Livers:
" Use lots of basil. If it comes out of supermarket jar, crush it before you use. If you haven't got a mortar and pestle, then use two spoons or, nicer still, put it in the palm of your hand and rub it around with your thumb until it smells nice. And use lots. About twice as much as you think you should. And another pinch for luck. And about half a teaspoon of salt. Use these things until they feel right. If you have to cook with measuring spoons and a balance, you might just as well become a druggist, which you won't like.
"...... Serve it on rice or potatoes with peas. Mop up the sauce that's left with bread, finish the wine, sit back and burp."
All of the recipes are like this, and they come with cartoon illustrations and many wonderful anecdotes. I think you and he would have had a fabulous time cooking together and sharing stories Pádraig!
Oooooh this gave me a good laugh as I thought back to trying to teach a friend to cook. Every time I said something like “add white pepper until you can smell its life force” she would grab my arm and demand more detailed instructions. Eventually, she would start releasing a series of threats to my person until we were both curled up on the kitchen floor, laughing. Thank you, Pádraig. I look forward to stewing up some gorgeousness and sharing it with a few friends. ♥️
I laughed when I read this recipe because I recently wrote a very similar poem that was a recipe for the communion bread I learned to make and that I now make every week ( which I had originally scoffed at doing!) which has become a beautiful spiritual practice. This must just be the way poets write recipes! ❤️
I wanted to add that I forgot to get pears, so I made toasted cheese sandwiches with a prepared pumpkin spread, manchego, and roasted garlic. Hubby said he will always add roasted garlic to his toasted cheese sandwiches from now on!
I was just listening to Joni Mitchell's "California" a couple of hours before I read this! I gently tease my spouse for making soup even in the hottest months, so I sent him this delightful recipe, and I expect that we'll try it soon...
Oh Padraig! What a gift you are, and oh how wonderful to have taken this journey with you! Can't wait to try your soup recipe, as we are a family who loves poetry and soup in equal measure. We owned a restaurant in the Northwoods of Minnesota for twenty years, and soup and poetry were an integral part of how we "fed our guests!"
Nollaig Shona! PS....Can't remember in the moment if the i is supposed to be in there!?
Padraig, thank you for the recipe for soup and the accompanying poetry recommendations! I have so looked forward to them this week and hoped for them ever since reading the wonderfully genuine and funny section on "How to use this book" in your book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community. Two notes with this:
1. Please know that book has been accompanying me mornings and evenings now for a while; I find it a solace and a challenge, giving fresh breath of wisdom, fresh insight on prayer.
2. My grown children also are a bit exasperated with me as I share how I cook , with so little regard for measured amounts! I find "How many do you need" to be a more perfectly acceptable answer than they do! As with your friend, we find a way, because we love each other, and cooking together at special times in familial chaos is one of this mom's great joys.
May you all have times such as this in the season ahead.
My mother cooked in the same way as your recipe prescribes. I learned her techniques from watching as a child and then cooking along side her as an adult. My sister never quite grasped her methods. As someone who also likes quantities and precise recipes, she always thought our mom intentionally withheld key ingredients in the recipes she shared because they never turned out just right for her. I know my mom wasn't intentionally withholding, but each time she made something, it might turn out a little differently. I cook the same way.
My mom passed away this summer after three gruelling months of inadequate care in a hospital decimated by the pandemic. My sister and I were with her every day, and it was horrible, delightful, sad and joyful. I was honoured to care for her until she left us in July. I read four different volumes of Mary Oliver's poems to her over and over again. The poems evoked all the unsaid things she could no longer express.
When I wrote my mom's obituary and the program for her celebration of life, of course, it referenced all the delightful things she cooked and baked for her progeny and how she produced generations of wonderful cooks and bakers, some intuitive, some not. I included a Padraig-style recipe for her famously delicious cinnamon buns.
My children and I will be channelling her as we cook our Christmas feasts - by intuition.
"Mix with panache" - love this and everything else about this recipe! My love and I sat on the floor at the coffee table in front of the fireplace last night where we lingered with wine between intimate, satiating, cozy bites of crusty soft bread soaked in this wonderful bowl of soup. And oh, the roasted garlic, pears, and cheese - heavenly!
Ha Ha Ha! This is just too funny. I will definitely try Padraig's Soup. It sounds wonderful. 2 days ago I wrote this silly poem and posted a soup recipe on facebook which lightened my sombre mood:
MULLIGATAWNY SOUP
A recipe For Tenderness
Tender times are these....
Near the end of the year in December
So where is the Tenderness found here?
When we need it profoundly
it can feel like no Tender abounds here.
Sometimes at home and sometimes out there
It's unfair, where's my share of TLCare?
Especially now as more hardships surround us
We need to take 'stock' of our bounties around us.
Yesterday in the midst of some minor distress
I cleaned off the table, put that question to rest.
I started to sing.
And something happened.
A Tender thing.
I circled the sponge in slow motion
Then put up a hot soup with devotion,
of curry and lentils and raisins of gold,
I decided to walk for a while in the cold.
Inside, the house smelled like Paradise Found
Outside the silence shut out any sound.
As I put on my coat and stepped out in chilled air
My soul felt a warm rush of Tenderness there.
So whether you live in the desert or north
Weather sunny or rainy or foggy go forth
Or stay where you are in one place to regroup
And make some Mulligatawny Soup.
And if you care to make it come true
It is really quite easy to make and to do
I share this recipe with love and with you:
(BTW I cook soups and so many other things while listening to Poetry Unbound. I have started a practice of going back to the beginning of the series and listening to one each day as I cook.)
Beautiful. Thank you so much. This post is a perfect example of why I love your writing and your work and your soul. This.
Oh how I love reading these filling messages Sunday mornings, drinking coffee in my kitchen. While I was reading Pádraig’s recipe, it made me think about how much more delightful (and it already is delightful) the Great British Baking Show would be if, accompanying the vague recipes in the technical challenge were poetic descriptions such as those found accompanying Pádraig’s recipe.
“Step one: make your Gâteau Basque.
Step two: While you struggle to do this in the allotted time, read or listen to Laura Villareal’s “My Worries Have Worries.”
I think I need to write my own recipe following this kind of formula. Haha.
 Padrig, what a joy of a human you are. As I awake to a dark winter morning, and reach for my phone I find your adventurous soup recipe in my inbox! The first sound to escape my mouth this morning is laughter. I must make this soup! Thank you for bringing poetry into my life. It has been so enriching and such a gift. I have learned so much from you. Your book is on my holiday wish list, so I hope to find it under the tree. If not, I will happily buy it for myself. Please keep doing this work. It has become such a solid companion and delight in my life.
Thank you. I hear your voice whenever I read what you write. That's an added gift.
This is exactly my kind of recipe. My grocery lists are suggestions to be abandoned, at least for fresh food, in pursuit of whatever looks good. I cook by considering what’s available and assembling it in whatever ways seems appealing. The results are generally good, but it drives my recipe-following partner a little nuts
Pádraig, this is the soup recipe of my dreams. Poetry, joyful cooking, Joni - everything I love. If you haven't read the cookbook Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger, I think you would enjoy it. Similar kind of approach to relaying the recipes.
I absolutely ADORE this soup recipe! It reminds me of some of my favourite recipes from James Barber, a Vancouver chef and marvellous raconteur who wrote my all-time favourite recipe book "Ginger Tea Makes Friends" in 1971. Here's a sample from Rainy Day Chicken Livers:
" Use lots of basil. If it comes out of supermarket jar, crush it before you use. If you haven't got a mortar and pestle, then use two spoons or, nicer still, put it in the palm of your hand and rub it around with your thumb until it smells nice. And use lots. About twice as much as you think you should. And another pinch for luck. And about half a teaspoon of salt. Use these things until they feel right. If you have to cook with measuring spoons and a balance, you might just as well become a druggist, which you won't like.
"...... Serve it on rice or potatoes with peas. Mop up the sauce that's left with bread, finish the wine, sit back and burp."
All of the recipes are like this, and they come with cartoon illustrations and many wonderful anecdotes. I think you and he would have had a fabulous time cooking together and sharing stories Pádraig!
Oooooh this gave me a good laugh as I thought back to trying to teach a friend to cook. Every time I said something like “add white pepper until you can smell its life force” she would grab my arm and demand more detailed instructions. Eventually, she would start releasing a series of threats to my person until we were both curled up on the kitchen floor, laughing. Thank you, Pádraig. I look forward to stewing up some gorgeousness and sharing it with a few friends. ♥️
I laughed when I read this recipe because I recently wrote a very similar poem that was a recipe for the communion bread I learned to make and that I now make every week ( which I had originally scoffed at doing!) which has become a beautiful spiritual practice. This must just be the way poets write recipes! ❤️
I wanted to add that I forgot to get pears, so I made toasted cheese sandwiches with a prepared pumpkin spread, manchego, and roasted garlic. Hubby said he will always add roasted garlic to his toasted cheese sandwiches from now on!
I was just listening to Joni Mitchell's "California" a couple of hours before I read this! I gently tease my spouse for making soup even in the hottest months, so I sent him this delightful recipe, and I expect that we'll try it soon...
Happy holidays, Pádraig and all!
Oh Padraig! What a gift you are, and oh how wonderful to have taken this journey with you! Can't wait to try your soup recipe, as we are a family who loves poetry and soup in equal measure. We owned a restaurant in the Northwoods of Minnesota for twenty years, and soup and poetry were an integral part of how we "fed our guests!"
Nollaig Shona! PS....Can't remember in the moment if the i is supposed to be in there!?
Padraig, thank you for the recipe for soup and the accompanying poetry recommendations! I have so looked forward to them this week and hoped for them ever since reading the wonderfully genuine and funny section on "How to use this book" in your book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community. Two notes with this:
1. Please know that book has been accompanying me mornings and evenings now for a while; I find it a solace and a challenge, giving fresh breath of wisdom, fresh insight on prayer.
2. My grown children also are a bit exasperated with me as I share how I cook , with so little regard for measured amounts! I find "How many do you need" to be a more perfectly acceptable answer than they do! As with your friend, we find a way, because we love each other, and cooking together at special times in familial chaos is one of this mom's great joys.
May you all have times such as this in the season ahead.
My mother cooked in the same way as your recipe prescribes. I learned her techniques from watching as a child and then cooking along side her as an adult. My sister never quite grasped her methods. As someone who also likes quantities and precise recipes, she always thought our mom intentionally withheld key ingredients in the recipes she shared because they never turned out just right for her. I know my mom wasn't intentionally withholding, but each time she made something, it might turn out a little differently. I cook the same way.
My mom passed away this summer after three gruelling months of inadequate care in a hospital decimated by the pandemic. My sister and I were with her every day, and it was horrible, delightful, sad and joyful. I was honoured to care for her until she left us in July. I read four different volumes of Mary Oliver's poems to her over and over again. The poems evoked all the unsaid things she could no longer express.
When I wrote my mom's obituary and the program for her celebration of life, of course, it referenced all the delightful things she cooked and baked for her progeny and how she produced generations of wonderful cooks and bakers, some intuitive, some not. I included a Padraig-style recipe for her famously delicious cinnamon buns.
My children and I will be channelling her as we cook our Christmas feasts - by intuition.
"Mix with panache" - love this and everything else about this recipe! My love and I sat on the floor at the coffee table in front of the fireplace last night where we lingered with wine between intimate, satiating, cozy bites of crusty soft bread soaked in this wonderful bowl of soup. And oh, the roasted garlic, pears, and cheese - heavenly!