There is a woman in Pittsburgh who goes by the Instagram handle Brothmonger. She has a newsletter where she shares recipes and announces when and where she’ll be selling her soup next. I am not the sort of person who stands in line for exclusive sneakers. I like them, sure. Not enough to brave the weather, though. I am decidedly, aggressively unbrave in the weather. But I will endure for her soup pop-ups. I will stand in the rain. I will shiver in the cold. I will sweat in the awkward Pittsburgh summer heat, which vaguely replicates the experience of biting into a fresh-out-the-toaster frozen waffle that hasn’t cooked all the way through. What I am saying is that she has out-of-character-worthy soup. Her soup makes you question your choices.

This day, she broadcast that she was selling crab bisque at a deli close to my house. Crab bisque. Close to my house. It was like all the stars had aligned. Better yet, like all the stars had planned to align in my mouth.

I bought a quart of this bisque. I took it home. I heated it up immediately. I made one bowl. I was transfixed. Transported. It was everything I wanted it to be. And it was everything I didn’t know I needed it to be. It was thick. It was crabby. It was thoroughly seasoned. It was hearty. It was delicate. It was decadent. It was sexy, even. It sung and it made my mouth sing.

The best soup I’ve ever had, though, was from my mom. It was the soup she’d make after Thanksgiving. Maybe three or four days after the holiday. When there wasn’t much turkey left, not even a full plate serving, but there was enough to perform some alchemy and stretch those scraps into a full pot. It would be filled with kale, carrots and potatoes, some of which were also remnants of Thursday. Sometimes she’d add rice. Sometimes noodles. Sometimes both. The soup was always delicious, but the ranking here is rigged. Brothmonger’s soup is objectively better. But my mom’s soup holds that top spot, and will continue to hold it forever, because it represents how we, in our family, marked the end of Thanksgiving. Which means this soup, for us, defined the beginning of winter. It was a transitional reminder that even if things got lean, and they often did, we’d still have soup. Which meant we’d still have each other. Which meant we’d still have love. My mom has been dead for nine years now. And when I feel a need to be reminded of her sometimes, I think of her soup, and I can still taste her love.

And that’s what soup is about, really. Love. I have prepared food for people, and I have eaten food prepared by other people, that was delicious sometimes, and just edible other times, but not always made with love. Most foods are made out of convenience and are meant to be transactional. But just consider soup. Think about the people who’ve made soup for you. Think about the intention that went into the creation. Think about how you must consume it. It is not a food, like a slice of pizza, a taco or a sandwich, that you can eat on the run. If you attempt to run while also attempting to eat it, you will experience both the loss of soup and the gain of well-deserved shame. You need to sit with soup and take your time. If the soup is hot, you need to cool it before you place it into your mouth, and we mostly do this by blowing gently on to it until it is ready. It demands that you savor it, and it asks that you care for yourself while taking care of it.

Right now, between sentences, I am eating a bowl of the chicken soup my wife makes for our family. She has managed, through trial and error and effort, to find the minuscule intersection of medicinal and delectable. Our children are unadventurous eaters. We love most things about both of them, but not that, and we hope they grow out of it. They love her soup, though.

I didn’t quite realize the connection between food and love until having children, until experiencing the desire to watch them grow big and strong and smart and safe. It feels so good, so fulfilling, so satisfying, to prepare a bowl of soup for them, to blow on it until it’s safe, and to watch them scoop it into their mouths.

I hope that they eventually know what I now know about my mom’s soup. Soup is versatile. Malleable. Savorable. Stable. But mostly, soup is love.

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