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Life lessons from soup kitchen ingredients
Cooking on Saturdays at a soup kitchen over the years has taught me one very important lesson: every ingredient matters.
That didn’t come from an older, wiser grandma whose been cooking for years. It also didn’t come from a famous TV chef or one of those online cooks that make cooking seem like a fast-paced reality show.
The greatest life lessons usually don’t come from those people. They often come from places you can’t identify or have a hard time remembering. Unexpected people from unexpected places. The kind of people you might meet just once in your life.
At a gospel mission in rural New Mexico, a former hard-rocking hippy from the 1960s taught me that basil is a necessary life ingredient. His name was Kurt, and he grew up in the northeast, near a shore somewhere. I don’t think he was Italian, but every Saturday he would request a pasta dish.
Tomatoes, basil, garlic, and freshly shaved parmesan cheese were all he needed to feel complete. I like pasta as much as the next guy, but I could never reach the love for it Kurt had. On the Saturdays that pasta was on the menu, I would make sure that fresh basil was used.
Cutting each leaf from its stem, rolling the leaves together to slice them into long strips, and sprinkling them into a boiling saucepan made me realize…
