“Good soup is one of the prime ingredients of good living. For soup can do more to lift the spirits and stimulate the appetite than any other one dish.” — Louis P. DeGouy

Soup.

It is one of my favorite meals. I love the simplicity of the word, of the ingredients in a bowl with a slab of bread, butter, and a salad. I ignore the mess that got it there — the pans in the sink, on the stove, the list of ingredients, the cutting board and knife. Because it’s all comfort when I’m spooning it in.

Last night, we had one of my favorite soups. It’s an Italian soup my friend Tracy learned to make when she was a nanny in Italy. We call it Tracy Soup. While I haven’t seen Tracy in ages, I think of her every time I make it. She brought it to me when I had my youngest son. Or maybe it was when I broke my ankle 10 months later. I can’t remember the details, the messy parts of life that led her to bring me the soup. I just remember the soup. The love and comfort.

I made three pots yesterday: A veggie version for Noah, a chicken-broth version for us, and another for a family at church whose 8-year-old daughter is going through chemo for Hodgkins lymphoma.

It was an insane day. In addition to a crazy number of deadlines, between 3:30 and 7:30 pm I had to pick up Sawyer, run a friend’s daughter home, pick up Noah, take him to interview an architect friend of ours for a school project, rush back home to get the meal ready for delivery, take Sawyer to guitar, deliver the meal, lead the missions meeting at church, and let someone from Noah’s school interview me. When I was frantically making the meal that afternoon, my thoughts kept going back to Tracy and the many good friends I’ve had like her through the years. And to Piper, the little girl fighting every day in ways most of us will never know.

And I slowed down. Every onion I cut, every clove of garlic I minced, the beans I rinsed, the parsley I diced … it was all meant to nourish somebody — Piper’s family or mine on this particular evening. Piper’s mom told me that while it’s weird to take so much help from friends — to be on the receiving end of our church’s care corps instead of the providing in — she sure does rely on it during these tough chemo weeks. And she should. I happily left the meal on their porch in a Hannah Montana cooler friends decorated for just this purpose.

Several years ago, I had such love delivered to my porch when I had a much less dramatic need. That morning on the way to church, I got caught in marathon traffic (I still annually curse the White Rock Marathon for this very reason). Noah, who was about 8 at the time, had his first solo. I walked in on the last note and burst into tears. Another friend named Tracy sat in the choir and got a full view of my meltdown. That evening, on my porch sat a chocolate raspberry linzertorte and a sweet note.

Regardless what life throws at us, it’s good to know we have friends who will hide all the mess — if just for a moment — and leave us with a warm bowl of soup or a beautiful linzertorte on the porch. Sometimes we’re on the receiving end, sometimes the giving end. Either way, it’s simple comfort. One of my favorite meals.

“A poor man with nothing in his belly needs hope, illusion, more than bread.” — Georges Bernanos

I seriously thought this would be easy.

I read as I was considering this project that the average American family eats together 4.8 dinners together each week (for full disclosure, I can’t find that statistic right now; but I know I read it). And I thought these average American families were pretty lame. If you’d asked me two weeks ago how often our family eats together, I would’ve said pretty much every night.

Clearly I was either delusional or our schedule started mainlining amphetamines about the time I stared this blog.

I honestly have no idea how we’re going to pull off dinner tonight and wasn’t aware of this complication (long story short, 7th grade may have me mainlining amphetamines before it’s over) in time for us to have a family breakfast. Does family pie and hot chocolate before bed count as a meal? I’m reaching. I know.

Tonight aside, here’s this week’s meal plan.

• Monday: We had frozen gnocchi whipped up in five minutes with a cream pesto sauce; crispy kale (tossed wtih olive oil, salt and pepper and broiled for just a few minutes) on the side.

• Tuesday: I’m hoping something at Whole Foods will inspired me. We have okra so eating whatever goes goes with okra is the plan.

• Wednesday: Between 3 pm and 7 pm, we have chess club, tutorials at school, guitar, Noah’s interview with an architect for a school project, dinner for a family at church whose 8-year-old daughter has cancer, and our Mission & Social Justice meeting at church. Luckily, I’m cooking one of my favorites for the family at church — Italian soup with white beans, pasta and parsley. That, a yummy bread and salad outta do it. Oh, and brownies. Nobody should have to fight cancer without brownies.

• Thursday: I’m celebrating a friend’s birthday over dinner so we’ll have another family breakfast. I’m out of breakfast ideas so asked my Facebook friends. This week’s winner: Wheat waffles, frozen fruit and cream cheese (thanks Karla!). Boys will have tacos for dinner.

• Friday: I’m dying for a burger. Think it’s about time for a little late-night grilling after rock climbing practice.

• Saturday: Sawyer has a football playoff game, Noah has exams to study for and a sleepover that night. Skinny healthy friends are coming over for dinner, which always makes me stretch my recipe repertoire. I’m thinking grilled chicken (I just have to have meat when Noah’s not around) and whatever veggie I get from that morning’s co-op pickup and a salad. Come on kale!

• Sunday: Again, dictated by Saturday’s co-op pickup. My favorite new menu planning trick is to see what I get, type in two key ingredients, and see what recipe comes up. Cooking with the food you’ve got. What a concept. Makes me feel like an urban farmer … with wifi.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mohandas Gandhi

The weekend was completely filled with the Global Village Market, a two-day event I help organize annually at our church. It’s an inspiring alternative holiday market where people can buy fair-trade goods or “gifts” — like a pig for Heifer International that changes a family’s life in a third-world country or a necklace that helps a woman in refugee camp in Uganda put her family’s life back together. You get a gift card designed by an artist in our church, an insert that explains what the gift gives back, and voila, Christmas gifts done.

Congo Restoration's table at Global Village Market

This year we raised about $22,000 for 26 organizations, including $1,310 for Congo Restoration, my latest passion. It’s exhausting. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My house is a disaster. My kids have been ignored, shipped off to various sports events by friends who make you realize it really does take a village, especially on weekends like this. We’ve eaten hot dogs, sodas, donuts, lots of pie, candy — the kind of crap you put into your body when time is short and options are limited.

And yet, amid it all, we had an impromptu family breakfast this morning. We never have breakfast together. The boys don’t even sit in their usual dinner table seats at breakfast (they sit in ours) because they know there is no chance Clyde and I will actually sit down. And now we’ve had two together in the past week.

This morning, the boys just wanted orange banana smoothies and mint tea. I wasn’t sure when I’d have time to eat lunch so I joined in with a wheat bagel and Snofrisk (a goat cream cheese my friend Andrea turned me onto). Although the kids practically spit it out when I introduced them to it last month, today it was manna from heaven. So everyone wanted some, with a bagel or cracker as carrier. Even Clyde, who never eats breakfast, added a bagel and Snofrisk to his Bubba Keg of coffee he’d poured for the morning.

An voila, we had a family breakfast. Maybe it was just that everyone was slowly drawn in, like party guests around the hostess in the kitchen. Maybe it was the Snofrisk (which, at $5 a pop, I told them not to get used to as we can only afford it when it’s half price at Whole Foods). Or maybe we’ve gotten used to this daily meal ritual. I knew Clyde and the boys needed to get to Sunday School and I needed to get moving, setting up the Market. But we all lingered as long as we could.

Weekends like this are uncommon. We don’t usually spend them raising money for orphans and lingering over mint tea on a Sunday morning. Tomorrow morning the kids will be back in our dinner table seats for a frantic breakfast of scrambled eggs and an insane number of immune-boosting pills. We’ll go to work and school and meetings, thinking more about what’s right in front of us than what’s going on in the rest of the world.

But being the change was nice … if only for a couple of days.