the Ultimate Root Soup, my roots and Black Jesus

My challenge ingredient this week: beets.

My earliest memory of beets: dinner circa 1968 mid-town Manhattan East-side in the apartment of a woman who reminded me of "That Girl" -- except she was Russian and a friend of my mother. This was also one of my earliest memories of being in a white person's home. Life was pretty segregated in the 60's. We played Clue. I was Colonel Mustard. She served borscht which needless to say went gracelessly uneaten.

Fast forward to 1999. I awoke one day with an inexplicable taste for dirt. I thought beets would help and they didn't disappoint:-) When I eat beets it triggers a reaction in my brain that makes it think I'm digging my toes in the dirt during a sun shower on hot day.

This week's CSA food stuffs: beets, carrots, cabbage, potatoes. There was nothing else to be done except to make borscht as my Brooklynite-living-in-Bost

on friend Jamie reminded me. It's part of my Jewish heritage which as a New Yorker I feel perfectly comfortable claiming.

Composing this soup forced me to go zen -- my mediation: I deserve to love me (yes, I went there!). I made stock from vegetable peels and other stuff I normally send gleefully down the disposal. I shredded, minced, diced and chopped for over an hour. I was rewarded with a fragrant (even Pam said it smelled good though she's threatening not to eat it) jewel-colored soup. And lots of it! Borscht, my darlings?

on a not totally unrelated note: regarding the Brooklynite-living-in-Boston thing. I've lived in this city for nine years. New York will always be my city (and it's the best damned city on earth. Yankees rule!) but Boston is where I've chosen to lay down my roots. Provincial, slow, up-tight Boston has made me love it. Boston is home.

Last night I was chatting with my friend, Derek (who is the Program and Marketing Manager for Discover Roxbury. Thanks to him I'm discovering Roxbury and you can too. Go to: http://www.discoverroxbury.org/), about Boston treasures and he hipped me to the Roxbury Black Jesus. Apparently the brown people in his MIssion Hill aka Roxbury neighborhood decided the Jesus that looked down on them e'ry day needed to look like them. In an act of communal rebellion they painted white Jesus brown.

Wow, Jesus is black and beautiful. Repeat after me: I deserve to love me.