Three Things

Reset soup, cookies for leftover candy, things you can't throw away

Nov 01, 2023

Greetings readers and eaters. This Sunday will be my first ever New York City marathon…or, well, the first ever I’m watching in person, anyway. (Hey, it counts!) Whether you plan to race 26.2 miles or, like me, just go on a very recreational 3-miler at some point soon, now might be a good time to remember Haruki Murakami’s most famous quote about running: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you start to think ‘Man this hurts, I can’t take it anymore.’ The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself.” OR skip the suffering and running altogether and just go right to the fun part, i.e. the night-before pasta-party carbo-loading. To that end: Rigatoni with Chard, Butternut Squash, and Hazelnuts, POTUS’s “Lucky Pasta” with Pesto and Chicken, Cacio e Pepe with Brussels Sprouts, Marcella Hazan’s famous Bolognese or a room-temp Chopped Pasta Salad that makes excellent use of your supermarket’s antipasto bar. Break a leg, eaters, readers, and runners! Here are your Three Things…

1. Reset Soup

I’ve been traveling for eight of the last ten days, mostly watching various collegiate sporting events as my daughters’ fall seasons wind down, and I’m sorry to report that I have not been my best Weekday Vegetarian self. It was somehow very hard not to eat the pepperoni-and-hot-honey pizza Abby ordered for her birthday dinner, then a week later, visiting Phoebe in Minnesota, Andy decided it was culturally important for us to finally try a Butter Burger at Culver’s. (“Phoebe’s a senior, we might not have another chance!”) In between, there were carnitas and literal smorgasboards. Needless to say, when I returned home on Sunday, I wanted a reset, craving a vegetable-based soup that would simultaneously provide an elixir to the yet-another-rainy-day-in-Manhattan energy that greeted us upon arrival at LaGuardia. We hit on this suuuuper basic tomato-rice soup. Like all of the best tomato soups, it feels like a cousin to Marcella Hazan’s legendary Three-Ingredient Sauce, relying mostly on tomatoes, onions, and butter. And the rice lets it double down on comfort.

Simplest Tomato-Rice Soup
Serves 2 (can be doubled)

3/4 cup uncooked white rice
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
1/2 cup vegetable broth (or chicken broth or water)

Prepare rice according to package directions. As it cooks, add olive oil and butter to a medium soup pot set over medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the onions, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes and cook for 5 minutes until the onions are soft. Add the garlic and stir another minute, then add tomatoes with their juice along with broth or water. Using kitchen scissors, snip the tomatoes into chunks right in the pot. Bring to a boil, lower heat, then simmer for 20 minutes. Using an immersion blender, whirl everything together until it turns a bright orange and reaches desired consistency. (I like it smooth like a smoothie.) Serve with a few spoonfuls of rice stirred in and a hefty drizzle of good olive oil.

We had our soup with crusty bread and a salad made of greens, feta, orange peppers, and cucumbers — if you want something more inspired, check out a few leafless salads like my go-to Broccoli with Pickled Things, above.

2. Leftover Halloween Candy?

It’s always a good day when I get to tell you about a new book from Yossy Arefi, member of an elite crew of recipe writers who meet me where I am, namely: in no-fuss, no-brainer baked good land. Her latest book, Snacking Bakes, speaks my love language, offering up baked treats (bars, brownies, cookies, cakes) that can be made in under one hour, in one bowl, with no fancy ingredients or equipment. Last night, I made her gluten-free chunky chewy Monster Cookies (an Arefi family favorite and an excellent use for extra Halloween candy) and it lived up to its promise: One bowl, no mixer, and no waiting around for butter to soften or eggs to come to room temperature. You can get the recipe over in my Cup of Jo column today.

Up next in my kitchen: Yossy’s Chocolate Malted Cookies (I’m such a sucker for anything malted), Mocha Banana Cake, Olive Oil Shortbread, or Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Bars.

You can order Yossy’s book here.

3. My “Things I Can’t Throw Away” Folder

When I was packing up to move, I picked up a copy of Margareta Magnusson’s mega-selling The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning hoping it might at the very least make the job of downsizing my life a little less intimidating. I thought the book was good, not great — my friend Liz called it an ersatz Marie Kondo — not nearly as enjoyable as the follow-up on “aging exuberantly.” Magnusson’s best tip, in my opinion, was to take care of bigger items first (like furniture) and save the emotionally difficult tasks, (like sorting photos) for last. When we finally devoted a weekend to the no-joke thousands and thousands of photos, we found it nearly impossible to stay in the Ruthless Zone, which until that point had been so necessary for keeping things on track. If we had confronted the photos early on in the packing, Magnusson was right, it would’ve slowed everything down.

But anyway, there was one chapter in her book that I wanted to mention here because it bore basically the same name as a folder I’ve tucked away in a filing cabinet for decades. It’s called “Things I Can’t Throw Away.” (Hers was “Stuff You Can’t Get Rid Of.”) The chapter essentially gave me permission to just move the folder directly into the “Keep Box” without taking any kind of emotional inventory. I found that folder to be a gift from my past self to my present self — and especially so when I opened it up to discover a Jane Hamilton quote inside that seemed like it was filed away by my 25-year-old self as if she knew I would someday need to read it at this exact moment. The paper it was printed on was freckled by pushpin holes because along with a Sports Illustrated cover of Derek Jeter as Rookie of the Year, the quote lived on a bulletin board in my office at A&E TV, one of my first jobs out of college. Here’s what it said:

“When I used to grieve for my mother, and later for my Aunt Kate, I told myself that although they were certainly as dead as they were ever going to be they were still mine, that they inhabited my interior world, which was at least as noisy and various as life itself. From early on I valued the gift of memory above all others. I understood that as we grow older we carry a whole nation around inside of us, places and ways that have disappeared believing that they are ours, that we alone hold the torch for our past, that we are as impenetrable as stone. Memory seems a gift to me and I hold tight to those few things that are forever gone and are always a part of me, while the new life, the changing view, streams by.”

A whole nation inside of us…impenetrable as stone. I needed to hear that. I was so glad that piece of paper never made it to the shredder. In fact, the “Things I Just Can’t Throw Away” just got fatter as I packed up for the move. Who knows what message I’m saving for my future self?

Related: For anyone moving or even just renovating, you’ll like David Pogue’s essay in New York, My Quest to Downsize Without Throwing Anything Away. I really related to his stories about his Facebook marketplace transactions — talking to the people buying my stuff was the most satisfying part.