a stand-in chemist

as it turns out, sickness happened. bust.
last night during a waning last quarter moon snow fell and disrupted everything: my sinuses, the back roads, the volvo and my ankles. in a mouthful: the first snow in a mountain town is the only allowable night on which one can drive like a maniac (or in my case, be passed by a maniac), imbibe great lungfuls of panic at the carnival ride the road has become and cuss at the general state of things: namely clogs full of snow and cold ankles, a car that won't hump up over the last hill before home and losing a glove. and thus today, plied with tissues and wrapped in a sleeping bag, this lady has presided over the couch and set only two goals for herself.
i. resting
ii. making soup

i have learned quite a few things about soup, i think it's because my brain is spongiest when it comes to combining snacks and philosophy. soup benefits from slow consideration, patience, intuition and the simmer burner. there are no rote instructions to go through mechanically, no alchemical proportions, just attentiveness. further,  you don't have to peel or even cut up the vegetables, you simply tip everything into a pan, cover it with water, and see how long you can fight the soup smell before you ladle yourself a mugful. there are of course some common sense parameters that no one would find surprising:
-if you wouldn't eat it out of your fridge that ingredient is not soup fodder
-if you wouldn't eat that ingredient with the other things you put in your soup pot, that ingredient probably won't taste good in the soup. (for example, chicken, parsley, carrots, celery, onion and parsnips would likely not taste good with olive juice or cottage cheese.)
-leave your spices out until the soup is completely done; additions like peppercorns or cloves if left in for too long will impart bitterness
-the longer the cooking time the better the soup.

so this is all well and fine, every can understand the base appeal of soup. but. the old 'jewish penicillin' tag frequently affixed to chicken soup is not as hokey as it might sound.

the long slow process of boiling a whole chicken, and if you're lucky enough a few other chicken or turkey bones especially the backs, promotes the release of nutrient rich gelatin into the broth.

gelatin is a superfood. though low in the crude protein we look to for building muscle, it contains proline and glycine, two 'essential' amino acids. of course, when we refer to an 'essential' nutrient of any kind we are simply acknowledging that it necessary for good health but is not produced by the body. (to be sure, both proline and glycine are produced by the body but not, accordingly to clinicians, in amounts sufficient for the body's daily requirements.)

proline and glycine (and gelatin as a whole), have a range of uses in the body. primarily they are involved in the integrity of joint tissues. however they are also able to
-aid in detoxification by aiding in the export of toxins such as benzoic acid, a common food preservative
-encourage the secretion of gastric acid, thus improving digestion
-aid in wound healing, due to their function in skin and joint membranes
-act as a remedy for those with 'sour stomach', by virtue of its colloidal properties
-aid in the digestion of milk and milk products (especially useful for babies)

in addition to gelatin, a traditional chicken soup recipe will provide a good dose of antimicrobial palmitoleic acid (from chicken fat), substantial hits of vitamin c (in the form of carotenes) from parsley and carrots, and additional butt-kicking, antiviral, antifungal and antimicrobial compounds found in onions and leeks. 

nutrition aside, sitting in a house that is slowly filling with steam and good smells, boiling off a pot of the widest, chewiest egg noodles you can find, and sitting in front of the fire with a deep bowl of soup while the snow falls is way more healing that bundling up to wipe your nose and sniffle in line at the pharmacy for a bottle of god-knows what. 

(a whole mouthful of goods on gelatin and broth-rich diets in this article)


while i am fending off the sniffs, the chills and the swoons, i am still thinking about seeing and trying to differentiate between 'looking' and 'seeing'. for me, 'looking' is a responsive, reactive sensation while 'seeing' is voluntary, dynamic and unique to each set of eyes. being in a newly colored world (white from brown) the exercise for the day has been re-orienting to Place using only the covered contours and quiet of the day.