This Week's Soup: Southwestern Corn Chowder

We’ve got your green chile, we’ve got your roasted red peppers, we’ve got your cilantro, and your cumin, and your crushed tomatoes. I love this soup.

There’s a lot of chit-chat at Soup Group.

It transpires over the clatter of knives, and the rushing of water, and the roar of the fans. I listen to it from my typical station, at the burners at the far end of the kitchen, facing away from the other volunteers, and straining to hear over the sounds of my saute.

Once we’re cooking, it’s not like the others very often address me directly about anything other than the soup at hand. My back is to them, and I’ve got the fire on, you know. I’m not exactly receptive to the initiation of a conversation with someone behind me and across the room. Plus, they know gobs of people in common. And we all have family and extended family to talk about. So one standard conversation is made up of various status updates, an intra-group survey of what’s going on with who, and since when. By now, I know most of the characters in these stories a little bit, at least by reputation, so it’s a pleasant enough undercurrent to the prep and cooking. It's funny - they know I’m listening, and yet these moments have a non-participatory quality, like I’ve got on a radio show, or I’m eavesdropping.

Yesterday was different. I was in the thick of things, shoulder-to-shoulder with the other volunteers, helping with the chopping, and Sher asked me if I’d seen the movie Leap Year. I told her no, and she said:

“Well, you need to see it. It’s set in Ireland, and they do all the old songs.” And she starts singing “The Belle of Belfast City”.

This is only one reason I love Sher.

You have to understand, this wasn’t a casual referral. Sher was alerting me to this rich source of classic Irish ditties because she knows I got my Irish citizenship last summer. (My dad’s dad was born in Belfast, and Ireland has an aggressive repatriation policy.) To Sher, a proud Irish lass, citizenship means I need to get on my song-learning, among other things.

Love Sher. And I couldn’t agree more.

Go have a listen. (This version includes the chords, so your guitar can embrace her paternal heritage, too.)