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A cold day in February, when soup, play, and imagination collide.
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We had been shopping earlier in the morning.
The half-full grocery bags sit next to the kitchen table, vegetables and fruit tumbling onto the floor. I haven’t finished unpacking the shopping yet because I am cooking three different dinners while I unpack – a chaotic multitasking habit I have developed in recent years. A sense that no one job will ever be the end of housework.. so I might as well just bob along in a sea of tasks, doing little bits of lots of different jobs simultaneously, never truly completing anything …
In a corner of the kitchen, our youngest two children are playing their usual never-ending game of “mammys and daddys”. The older child always decides to be "the mammy" and then instructs her younger brother in his role as “daddy”.
In the sitting room next door the fire is crackling away. Their older sister has found a safe, quiet corner and is reading her book on the couch.
I pull a net of onions from the top of the shopping bags and rip it open.
As I chop, I eavesdrop on the “mammy and daddy” game behind me. They have changed the babies nappies. Now they both need to “go out”, but can’t decide who should stay home to look after their babies. The babies are asleep now, they agree. Then the “mammy” suddenly remembers – invents – that she is wearing some kind of surveillancelance camera device on her arm.
“Actually - we can both go out!” she announces. “I will be able to see the babies on my camera. If they wake up, I will come back.”
“Ok,” her little brother agrees (as if he has any say in what is happening).
Then I hear them begin to pack to “go out”. This always involves putting lots of different things – a toy orange, a plastic plate, some stickers, a piece of ribbon, an empty perfume bottle – into lots of little bags and boxes and “handbags”.
I grab some garlic and ginger from the bags on the floor and begin to peel them. The young parents “head out” into the hallway on their big adventure.
I decide that I will make butternut squash soup. The day is grey outside. We need something warm and bright.
I leave the garlic and onion sweating and search for the butternut squash. I lift the bags up onto the table and rummage through them.
I can’t find them. I look around the kitchen, confused. That’s weird, I think – it’s not easy to lose two butternut squash. Then I spot the vegetables, over on the couch.
What is this? I think. Two squash nestled together, sharing a cushion, with a blanket on top?
I walk over, pull off the blanket and pick up the squash.
“No! No! No! Stop! Stop! Put them baaack! Put them baaack!”
The “mammy” and “daddy” have come rushing back from their outing. Tears are running down the youngest’s cheeks.
“They’re our babies,” his older sister explains, her arm around her younger brother. “They are our babies and, they are sleeping.”
I look around the kitchen: the basket of teddies, the many dolls in the room next door, lying unloved in a pile. I think about the many presents they received over Christmas, the unplayed-with doll’s house upstairs. Then I look back at the butternut squash "babies".
The older one picks up one butternut squash and cradles it in her arms, hushing it back to sleep, just like I did with her when she was a baby. Her younger brother follows suit grabbing the other squash from my hand. The butternut squash are the perfect size and shape for a toy baby – wider at the bottom, with a more narrow neck and head.
“We need them,” she pleads. “They are our babies … in the game.”
“Ok,” I sigh. “You can have them today. I’ll need them tomorrow.”
The squash babies are returned to their cushion, a soft blanket wrapped over them.
I go back to the cooker, leaving them to it.
I make carrot soup instead.
Carrot Soup (serves 6)
Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil or butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
1kg carrots, roughly chopped (alternatively, use butternut squash!)
1½ litres hot vegetable stock
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Optional extras (choose one direction, not all):
A small piece of fresh ginger (about 3 cm), finely grated
1 tsp ground cumin or coriander
A splash of cream or coconut milk
Method
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Heat the oil or butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat.
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Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook gently for 10–12 minutes, until soft and sweet but not browned.
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Add the garlic (and ginger or spices, if using) and cook for 30 seconds.
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Stir in the carrots, coating them in the oil, then pour over the stock.
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Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 25–30 minutes, until the carrots are completely soft.
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Blend until smooth using a hand blender or food processor.
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Season carefully with salt and pepper. Add cream or coconut milk if using, and warm through.
To serve
Good with buttered bread, toast, or something crunchy on the side. Even better the next day.
Words: Jo Anne Butler
Photography: Jo Anne Butler