In Praise of Soups–Stone, Bone and More

 

One of my husband’s nieces changed her eating habits to have soup for dinner every night. She lost quite a bit of weight doing that. Jagdish and I enjoy soup. Sometimes he’ll make it using one of those broths that come in boxes. More often, we’ll have a can of something from Progresso. We try to get ones with lower sodium. For whatever reason, I’ve been eating less lately. I sleep more hours, so I often have just two meals a day. One might be soup. I’ve lost 15 pounds in about 5 weeks. I don’t know if it’s just lower caloric intake, or if it’s that soup thing working. I’ve decided to praise the soup.

 

The soups my husband makes are always broth-like. He uses those boxes I just mentioned as his base. He adds various fresh vegetables, usually some ginger, and a few spices. Lately he’s been requesting that I get the boxes that say “Bone Broth”. The subtext says chicken or beef; we prefer the chicken, especially because that’s usually available in low sodium.

 

I have no idea what prompted him to become a fan of bone broth, but it seems to be extremely popular now. Some people even drink it straight. I’ve made turkey soup from the leftover Thanksgiving carcass. But somehow seeing “bone” on a label creeps me out. The Healthline website says: “Bone broth dates back to prehistoric times, when hunter-gatherers turned otherwise inedible animal parts like bones, hooves, and knuckles into a broth they could drink.”

 

“Otherwise inedible parts” sends a shiver up my spine. The site says bone broth “may” benefit the digestive system and help fight inflammation; no promises, of course. Be that as it may, my husband is now a devotée of the bone broth trend. By the time he finishes making his soup, it looks like any other broth and smells appealing, too.

 

The Progresso soups are great go-to options when neither of us wants to make lunch or dinner. This happens more often lately. There are several flavors of Progresso that we enjoy, like their Savory Chicken & Wild Rice and their Southwest Style Black Bean & Vegetable. Those are both reduced sodium varieties. Their Light group doesn’t float our boats as much, but the calories range from just 130 (Savory Vegetable Barley) to 200 per can. The chain stores often have good sales on Progresso. If I pay attention, I can stock up at a reasonable price hoping to lose more weight on this “soup diet.”

 

This brings me to my favorite part of this essay. You may have heard of egg drop soup or bird’s nest soup. But have you ever heard of stone soup? I don’t know if it comes to mind because “stone” rhymes with “bone” or if it’s just because it’s a fun story. You may be familiar with the tale of the stone soup. For those who are not, I hope you enjoy it.

 

A beggar came to the kitchen door of a farmhouse, carrying a rock. He asks the woman inside if he can borrow a large pan in which to make some stone soup. Curious, she hands him a pan, shows him where the water pump is, and offers to let him cook it on her kitchen stove. He puts the stone in the pot, fills it with water, and begins heating it. He tests it in a few minutes and declares: “It really needs just a pinch or two of salt and it will be fine.” The woman hands him her salt bowl. He tests it again in a few more minutes. “If only I had one or two slices of onion, my stone soup would be even better.” “I have plenty of onions,” the woman says. “You’re welcome to have one.”

 

After considerable stirring and cooking, the beggar muses: “What would really make this stone soup wonderful would be a stick of celery.” By now, the woman is complying with his wishes without even thinking about it. Finally, he comments that the only thing his stone soup needs to make it perfect is a carrot. Of course, a carrot appears in the woman’s hand. More stirring and cooking. More sampling. Eventually, the beggar pronounces the soup ready to eat.

 

The woman produces two bowls and a ladle with which to serve the soup. They sit together at her kitchen table to eat the soup. The woman remarks: “I can’t believe how good this soup is! And to think you made it with just a stone!”

 

To which I say: “I can’t believe what delicious soup my husband makes out of bone broth!”

 

Copyright 2023 Business Theatre Unlimited

Retirement Pains - Dem Bones

For the past two weeks I’ve been undergoing physical therapy for severe pain in my back and arm. This is my first experience with PT.  The focal point of the pain seemed to be a spot just to the left of my right shoulder blade. It radiated through my armpit and down my arm to my wrist.

I thought all the lifting and carrying done as part of prepping the house for market is what caused the pain. Since my neck also bothered me part of the time, I assumed my condition was complicated by how much time I’ve been spending on the computer. An added factor is that the store where I usually get my 3.25 magnifier glasses has lately stocked only half-glasses. Those require me to tilt my neck back when I look at the screen.

My physical therapist believes that my neck is the primary source of the problem. She’s convinced that a disk is involved, but confident we can work out the kinks without my needing surgery. She is therefore spending a good part of the PT time working on my neck.

This naturally puts me in mind of that old song “Dem Bones,” (or whatever the title is.) You know, the song that goes: “The head bone’s connected to the neck bone, the neck bone’s connected to the shoulder bone,” and so on. What I keep hearing is “The neck bone’s connected to the wrist bone.”

My home PT is comprised of a number of exercises that involve repetitive stretching or scrunching.  The PT at their location employs a variety of devices.  One is an oversized tootsie roll-like thingy that I put under my back to help stretch things out as I lie on the floor. Then there are long strips of tubing that look like shredded balloons. They’re attached to the wall and you pull on them.

This week my therapist proclaimed that I’ve made excellent progress in the side-to-side mobility of my neck, but that the vertical stretching needs more work. To help with this, she puts me in a pneumatic traction device that pulls on my neck to elongate it and reduce the pressure on the problem disk.

She doesn’t realize that anything remotely resembling a posture issue is a lost cause with me. My freshman year in college, we were required to take posture pictures. Clad in our underwear, we stood on the marked spot while the phys ed instructor snapped our best attempt at good posture. The photo was developed with a white line up the middle, showing where our spine should be.

My spine meandered to and fro from that line with what can only be called willful abandon.  I was classified as having “Backward C-curve Posture,” also known as a sway back, and was assigned remedial posture sessions. Oh, the shame of it!

Back then, I had long hair that I often wore in a knot on top of my head. In an attempt to get me to stand correctly, the phys ed instructor would pull on my top knot. Up I would go, but as soon as she let go, my spine settled back into its familiar backward C. In theory, if you didn’t pass your posture picture, you couldn’t graduate.

I need to provide some context here. I was a freshman well before Title 9, and there weren’t many opportunities for women to engage in sports in college. This was just as well, because most of my peers saw phys ed as punishment. It was required only during one’s first year and the bloomers we had to wear were… well, bloomers.

Unlike most of my classmates, I was happy to sign up for sports like sailing (a club activity.) I tried to get fencing going, at which I had excelled in high school, but that was fruitless. I participated in an archery contest one weekend as a favor. There was one student who had the skill to win an individual prize, but they were short a warm body to field a team. Since I’d done archery in high school, I gave up my Saturday to enable the team to compete.

All of this served me well when the results of my final posture picture came in.  Even though my spine continued to play hard to get with the white line, I was stamped “passed.” They told me they knew I wasn’t doing this on purpose, that they knew I didn’t “have attitude” about phys ed like certain of my classmates.

I wonder what they would think if they could see me in my traction collar, or rolling around on the log. They’d probably think they should have pulled harder and longer on my top knot.