Page 7 - Caroline Wright Cookbook

lifestyle supporting a healthy life in food, but with
been my emotional crutch. I would tell myself PAGE 5
things like, “I’ll starve for now, but if I’m good, I the feeling of abundance rather than denial.
will reward myself with a croissant or the empty
calories of endless bag of bread-sticks.” But the After six months of Caroline’s soup delivery and
desperation I felt before my gluten diagnosis finally getting my hands on her galley, I can
made all this fall to the background. I needed say that this book will give you the feeling of
my body back. abundance! Many disparate thoughts about soup
come to mind as I read the pages of this book:
In April of 2010, my parents came to live with soups don’t have to be bland; soups can be
my family and me for three months to help out bold and textural; soups are nourishing; eat your
when I was first diagnosed. My son was only vegetables in soup; soup builds community; and
three and my daughter a few months old. My no, you don’t always need broth for soup.
mom cooked soups, stews, and broths for us As I write this foreword, it is the beginning of
daily while I recovered. As she cooked, my mom soup season in the Pacific Northwest. I am
reminded me of the saying we have in Spain choosing five soups to make over the next five
when we refer to someone who is in dire need of days as a gift to myself to celebrate soup season:
some nourishment: “Hay que comer de cuchara!” French Onion + Potato (page 37); Carrot +
(“You must eat with a spoon!”) Because in the Za’atar (page 41); Sultan’s Chili (page 63); Kenyan
Basque Country where I come from, to nourish Black Bean (page 83); Toasty Tomato + Fennel
yourself into health means to eat foods that (page 115). The galley that I am reading as I
require a spoon: most likely brothy, full of beans, write this has a recipe for “Gratitude Brownies.” I
vegetables, and some bones thrown in there cannot imagine a better way to be grateful for all
for collagen. Like Caroline, I healed through our blessings than through Gratitude Brownies. I
someone making soup for me. I understand her will be baking some when the book is published
belief that soup changed her, and admire her and finally in my hands.
dedication to sharing her healing experience with
others — myself included. As a final thought, it is clear that this book is
so much more than soup. Seconds is a web of
I later learned that Caroline started Soup Club human stories. Caroline has built a soup com-
as a way to celebrate her dietary restrictions and munity through her Soup Club, not just in Seattle,
health, as she had changed her diet so drastically but around the country. This book holds stories
to fight her cancer and broke many of her own of how families made it through the pandemic
attachments to foods she loved. Her making soup by cooking for themselves and their loved ones.
was her way of integrating her diagnosis into Just like the Alvarez family writes on page 124,
her life through cooking, believing that a new “When there isn’t much I feel like I have control
relationship to foods that supported her health over, I look forward to making these soups for
could also nourish loved ones and gather friends people I love.” I couldn’t have expressed it any
around them. When you eat her soup, restriction better. Cooking for oneself and others is an act
is far from your mind; this is my goal when I cook of self-care but most importantly, an act of
also. It’s just delicious soup, as she eats it; just as love. And if asked, yes, I will always have sec-
the bread I make is as I remember it being from onds. Thank you, Caroline from the bottom of
the bakery back home, only gluten-free. It’s about my soup-fueled heart.

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