Mary Van Notes

The night before last I was thinking of something I could eat the next day.  I wanted to make something I hadn’t made in a while.  Surprisingly I was getting tired of making my Italian grandmother’s recipe for beef roast, so I decided to make what my Portuguese grandmother taught me how to make: kale soup with linguica.  I wrote down what ingredients I needed to get at the store the next day in my notebook–yellow onion, garlic, kale.  The day after Christmas I called my Portuguese grandma.  She was fine, complaining like she would usually do, “When you’re my age you’ll know what it’s like.  The younger generation doesn’t know how to treat their elders.”  We exchanged I love you’s.  And when I hung up the phone I thought, she is who she is.  This is the same woman who told me I was killing my mother, the same woman who would laugh infectiously causing an entire room to erupt in giggles, the same woman who would call my dad a gigalo, the same woman who would have a “jigger of whiskey,” the same woman who would teach her grandkids how to swear in Portuguese.  I loved every adorable, blunt and feisty inch of her.

I’ve been reading David Sedaris’ latest book When You Are Engulfed In Flames.  Wanting to procrastinate as much as I can, I’ll wake up in the morning and stay in bed reading it prolonging the time before I need to sit down in front of my computer and look at what the publisher sent back to me in a myriad of colors, having to answer questions like whether “vale tudo” has rules or not.  Yesterday morning I read the essay about how David bought a skeleton for his partner, Hugh.  Hugh wanted the skeleton in their bedroom.  So everyday David was constantly reminded of death.  The 300 year old bones would say to him, “You are going to be die.  You are going to die.  You are going to die.”  

Death truly entered my psyche last year when my Italian grandmother died.  I sat by her body for hours before the mortician picked her up.  For weeks I could only remember the look of her mouth gaping open and turning blue, instead of her holding my hand in church and whispering, “I’m so lucky!”

I was sitting down to breakfast when I got the phone call from my brother, ”Grandma died.” 

What? 

Wait, what? 

No matter how many times he repeated it I couldn’t believe it. 

I had just spoken with her. 

I was about to drive up to see her.  

She was totally fine.   

Even though sitting in front of my Italian grandmother’s body was so hard, at least I could see that she was gone.  My Portuguese grandmother is being cremated, which I was surprised by, since open casket viewings are so, I don’t know, Catholic.  And she was the most devout Catholic I’d ever known.  She was like that though, surprising you.  You never knew what might come out of her mouth.  And here she was, surprising us again by leaving this world.  And on the anniversary of her husband’s death, no less.  If I believed in heaven, I would picture my grandma with my grandpa laughing about the way she left us, “I really showed them.  And on the toilet too!” 

Unfortunately I don’t believe in heaven.  So all I could do yesterday was make that kale soup I was planning on making, have a glass of red wine, and feel alone–the way my grandma said she felt.  But at least the soup came out well.  It’s probably the best batch of kale soup I’ve ever made.  I’m sure grandma would be proud.

Kale Soup

1 Tb. olive oil or canola oil

8 large garlic cloves, crushed or minced

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

2 Linguica sausages, sliced

4 cups chopped raw kale

4 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

2 potatoes chopped to small bite size pieces

2 15-ounce cans beans undrained (kidney, black or cannellini)

4 plum tomatoes chopped

2 tsps. dried Italion seasoning ( or 1 tsp each of dried thyme and rosemary)

salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat olive oil.  Add garlic, onion and linguica; saute until soft and linguica browned.  Add kale and saute, stirring, until wilted.  Add 2 cups of broth, 2 cups of beans, all of the tomato, herbs, salt and pepper.  Simmer 5 minutes.  Add potatoes and rest of broth.  Simmer 15 minutes.  Ladle into bowls (optional: sprinkle with chopped parsley).

my addition to recipe:  If using bouillon cubes, make 2 cups broth.  Add to big pot when stated.  Start another 2 cups of water boiling for the potatoes, add half of bouillon cube.  When potatoes are soft, add to big pot.