Favorite Pastime

What does a Brooklyn Peasant do when the weather turns breezy and brisk?
This past Sunday I headed out to the local grocery, making a quick detour to the new bakeshop, Joyce, for a black and White cookie. I picked up a few things at the store then headed home to partake in one of my favorite pastimes, making soup. I spent the entire day doing what I love, cooking and singing along like a goof ball to Etta James, Carmen Miranda, and Elvis Presley.

As four pots of broth gurgled on the stove top, I fluttered about the kitchen to the Big Band jive of Cab Calloway, It’s the jim-jam-jump with the jumpin’ jive, makes you nine foot tall when your four foot five, Hep Hep!

I seared, I shredded. I swung and I swayed to the swing of Billy Holiday, deep rhythm captivates me, hot rhythm stimulated me, can’t help but swing it boy, swing it brother swing!

I minced, grinded, rattled and rolled to Lightnin’ Hopkins, Wow Baby, I don’t know your name, but I do believe oh yeah, you can shake that thing come on, come on baby, wow come on baby shake that thing.

It was a wonderful day, but somewhere in the back of my mind I had an awful feeling that I had forgotten something incredibly important. I reviewed the day in my mind. Was it the coffee? No, I had brewed myself the perfect cup at home, then had a wonderful latte from Joyce. Did I forget to add an important ingredient to one of the soups? That couldn’t be it, the soups, all of them, turned out as expected. The day was a complete success, perfect damn it! It was as I finished the last minute seasoning of the soups that I was captured by Lester Young’s incredibly hip and relaxed scat intro in It Takes Two to Tango. It was then that I realized what it was that was missing from my nearly perfect day. There is only one thing better than spending the entire day alone cooking, and that is spending it cooking with somebody else.