It's A Wonderful Day in the Neighbourhood And In My House With Ribolitta Soup

Neighbours.

We all have them.

Except, of course, if you live on fifty acres in the middle of a forest on a mountainside, you lucky bugger. I can dream, right? It's really the only reason I turn a blind eye to my husband's love of Lotto Max.

Humans are social animals, we all know this, we all feel this. We need a cohesive society in order for all of us to thrive and grow. However, as is touted in so many news articles and research papers, in this increasingly connected world, we are more disconnected than ever. We take screen time as social time and we suffer for it. We build neighbourhoods where our houses are so close together that you can touch your house and your neighbour's at the same time, and yet, we build higher fences, have clearly defined property lines, and use garages with quickly closing doors, eliminating all chances of random meetings.

I look to my own daughter to see how wrong it all is.

She asks daily to see different friends, which I totally understand. I want to see my friends, too. But life is busy for everyone at this stage of our lives. There's school, activities, family commitments, general housekeeping, and downtime that all need to be accomplished throughout a day. Not to mention when illness hits, then isolation becomes a matter of survival to keep it contained from other kids. Life at my daughter's age right now is actually pretty lonely compared to what we were used to. It's a stage in our lives that we'll get through until we find a new rythym again. But there's technology, right? That's what it's there for, isn't it? So we aren't so alone? Truthfully, I shut my phone off during hard, lonely days because I find typing chatter exhausting. I want a hug and a tea and a real conversation. My daughter craves it, too, and anything she could get from technology just isn't going to cut it.

As for neighbours, my daughter's actions have always shown me how wrongly we live "together." Everyday when we get home from school, I leave the garage door open so she can run out into the driveway and scan the street, looking for anyone to say "hello" to. She doesn't just want to run inside from the vehicle, she wants connection. And I want it, too. Children's lack of guardedness that most adults develop is the perfect icebreaker for meeting new people. Some days I inwardly groan because I have a billion things to accomplish before dinner, but most times, I rejoice at her forwardness (and admire it) because I want to know what that neighbour is up to as well. Not from a snooping standpoint, but from a genuine interest of who that person is and how they live their life. This person who lives close enough that I can throw a rock at their house (and I can't throw things very far) and yet, I don't even know their name. How did we both end up living on this street, in this neighbourhood, in this city at the same time? I want to know their story.Through my child and my dog, I have met a fair number of my neighbours. My child, as I said, will stop anyone on the street to have a conversation, and my dog, well, there's a few ways he helps me meet people. The most common way is when we're out for a walk and he spots a person, and once he does, he refuses to pass their house until he gets a pet. He literally plants his butt and waits. If I pull, he lays down. Thank goodness everyone has acquiesced to his request so far, otherwise we would have perished at the end of someone's driveway long ago while he waits for his self-entitled love.

The other way we meet neighbours is when he makes a break from the yard/house through an open gate or door and takes it upon himself to go to a neighbour's house and, if the door is open, let himself in.

I kid you not. He has been into seven separate stranger's homes uninvited.

My favourite was last summer when we thought Charles was in the back lawn, but half an hour after we let him back there, the two boys from across the street came to our door. They frequently lose balls in our back lawn, so I thought this was the case again, but it was not. They were giggling when I opened the door and the eldest said to me, "Hi, your dog is in our house. He's really nice and not bothering anyone but we're leaving soon and we'd hate to leave him in there alone."

We learnt that day that the child had just grown tall enough to unlatch the gate for our friendly guy. Perfect.

John had to go get him and pack him home. I was crying laughing the whole time.

This dog.

I'm part of a Facebook group for my street, kind of like an upgraded Block Watch program, and twice now, I just put my child down to sleep and I pop on to have a minute of scrolling before dishes, and there's a picture of my dog staring back at me with someone looking for who owns him. (Change out of jammie pants), shoes on, grab his leash, and off I go to meet a new neighbour. He has become infamous. When I meet new people, very often they say, "Oh, this is Charles." Yep. That's where we're at now. Whenever we notice that he's missing, we just listen on our street for a moment and where ever we hear people, that's where he is. I call him "aggressively-social:" He'll stop at nothing to meet new people. I have been known to describe my child in the same way as she shouts "Hi!" at the top of her lungs at people whipping past on bikes.

I swear they're socialized.

Considering all this, we are very lucky to have the neighbours that we do. As much as I don't know about them, I know that they are all very good people. They tolerate having Charles as a house guest, right? Not to mention being accosted as they're trying to quietly garden.

And through my daughter's very persistent friendliness, she found a kindred spirit.

If there was ever a term to describe my daughter and this girl, it's that. Thank you, Lucy Maud, you never fail to be an influence on my life.

Last fall, as we were hiking around the trails by our house, my beanie met a girl her age and within minutes they were holding hands and sharing confidences and for three whole hours, they ran and played and chatted and fell in love. The mother and I awkwardly made conversation as two strangers who are thrown together do, but we were happy enough to be in each other's company, especially given how happy our girls were. We made plans to meet again soon, as the girls were so upset to have to part, but those plans never happened. A year went by and my daughter still asked continually about her friend who, although she had only met once, had made such an impression on her that it was a great loss. I had no answers for her. They only live a street away on a route that we often walk, but passing their house became painful to my daughter and we stopped going that way. Then out of the blue, we heard from them again. Some personal events happened to their family just after we met them and they needed time to heal. The moment we got together again, the two girls picked up as if a year had never happened. Seeing the joy on their faces made me so glad that my daughter has very little reserve. There's still so much I could learn from her.

What I love about neighbours is the bits and pieces I do learn about them. There's an older lady down the street who I frequently meet on my walks with Charles. She lives with her grand-daughter and grandson-in-law who just had their first child. The absolute love and happiness on her face when she speaks of her new great-grandbaby is beyond describing.

Then there's a middle-aged man who has a deaf and half blind old golden girl that we run into often and who Charles, for all his nonsense, treats very carefully. This man had also had an encounter with the extremely aggressive deer this year on the trails where we normally hike. His poor sweet girl had been trampled by one, but luckily she was okay. He's from South Africa and his manner of speaking is a bit broken and his terminology always makes me pause and smile. He describes Charles' running style as though his "thong is pulled too tightly up his bum." Visualize that one.

One of my favourite neighbours, I have only met once, just last week, but I've watched him with curiosity for years. He's a big-chested, tall, elderly man, with white hair and a moustache, and every day, like clockwork, he walks the same route with his cross country skiing posts. He kind of shuffles along and has a limp on one side, but I've seen him out in every sort of weather, no matter the temperature. I admire him greatly and I've always felt a tug of affection towards him, I don't know why. And then I finally met him in a fleeting moment and he did not disappoint me in the least. Normally, I pass him in my car, either heading home from the gym or out on errands, depending on the day, but that day, the sky was falling and my routine was all out of wack and I happened to take Charles out at that time instead. As we were approaching him, I made Charles pull off to the side of sidewalk and sit so he didn't knock the gentleman over. As he approached, he had a broad smile on his face. When he was beside us, he paused and said wryly, with his eyes twinkling, "I don't know if you can tell, but I'm jogging at a breakneck speed," and continued on his slow methodic way. It hit me swiftly why I liked him so much. He reminded me of my maternal grandfather who we lost a two years ago. This neighbour of mine made me feel for a moment like my grampa was with me and I'm so grateful for it.

My neighbours also look out for me. Most of the street knows that I'm here on my own for the majority of the time, so they help me out by doing little things. If my garbage bins are still out on the curb by dinner time, someone will frequently move them in for me before I have a chance to get out there. Or if it snows, I'll often wake to find my driveway already shoveled. I know which neighbour does that-- he usually does five or six houses on the street first thing in the morning after a fresh snow fall. He says he loves to shovel. I just really appreciate it. During the winter, when my daughter gets some killer colds, we sometimes don't leave the house for three or four days at a time and during that time, at least one neighbour will check on us, noticing that there are no new tire tracks in the driveway or snow angels in the front lawn. It's really a wonderful feeling to know that someone is looking out for you.

Then they do big things that I am forever grateful for. There's a wonderful family I'm glad we live beside who never hesitate to take my peachy when I need a break. There's also the neighbour who takes Charles for walks when I'm sick or lately, because my pregnancy insomnia affects my life severely (FYI, it's 2:30 am as I'm writing this), he takes Charles to a friend's farm for a few hours once a week to let him burn off some energy.

I try to do things for my neighbours at well. I take in garbage cans when I see them, I pick up random pieces of garbage that may have blown across someone's front lawn, and I always bring treats. Especially at Christmas, which is why I think my neighbours are on my mind so much right now. Every Christmas for the past three years, my daughter and I bake and then do deliveries around our street as a way to say "thank you" for everything all these wonderful strangers do for us. Even if we've only spoken a few kind words back and forth, we are thankful that these people are our neighbours and we want them to know.

So that's what we'll be doing this weekend, my daughter and I, since all our friends are luckily already well into Christmas-mode with family in town or having left town to go visit family. Our holiday celebrations don't start until the 25th (and John's not home until the 27th, missing our daughter's birthday), so I'm a little bah-humbug about Christmas right now. However, giving to our neighbours should help with that, as it always does. And baking time with my daughter is always an adventure.When we bake for others, I like to stick to tried-and-true recipes, so that either means the recipes I grew up with that I have written out on pieces of loose-leaf copied from my moma's recipes that are shoved inside of an old school notebook or from any of the cookbooks I own.

I own just a few.

Here's an unfiltered view into my chaos. I actually find having a stack of book in disarray calms me when I have to keep the rest of the house clean.

There are only two things I collect: novels and cookbooks. Both make me so happy. And both take up too much space according to my husband. Did you know he has three rooms full of just his hobbies? Surely I can have three bookshelves (and one coffee table).

But I love cookbooks. I love to read them like novels, following each author's food preferences and styles. I savour each recipe, reading the ingredients and imagining the flavours. While I love to create my own recipes, during lazy weeks, I rely heavily on cookbooks. Like right now in my life. My appetite just came back for all foods, but I'm absolutely lacking in any creative spark when it comes to getting food on a plate.

And this is why collecting cookbooks is a good thing.

Often before grocery shopping, I'll grab one off the shelf and pull at least five or six recipes from it and buy what I need for them to ensure that most dinners are taken care of that week without thought. By leaving a night or two without a plan, sometimes creativity happens or at least it makes room for leftovers. It always works itself out. Whenever I'm looking through cookbooks, my daughter gets herself one and will pick out a few recipes herself, which I love. If she's interested in eating it, dinner becomes less of a struggle. Not that eating is the problem, it's the distractions of life that keep her from eating. If she chooses the meal, and bonus, helps to make it, she's more likely to be engaged with it and there are less "get back to the table, please" demands being made.

The recipe I would love to share with you all is a super easy, but super comforting soup that I make often, especially in the fall when kale is everywhere. It's from the cookbook A Good Food Day by Marco Canora. It's a ribollita soup. What I love about this recipe is that instead of the bread that is apparently in this soup (I don't actually know, as I've never had the traditional version before), he uses just beans and makes it thicker by blending half of them. Remember my creamy soup post? It's this method that I learnt from him that forms the basis of those soups. Cooking is never-ending learning, which is why I think I love it so much. Besides the fact that I get to eat delicious food, of course.

This isn't my best photography, but bear with me, my actual camera isn't syncing properly to my phone so I don't have a lovely picture of us eating it warm and fresh. You get slightly blurry leftovers. That's been my week in a nutshell.

I'll copy the recipe out here and then give some slight alterations that I make to cook it in my instant pot.

Ribollita Serves 8

2 tbsps. extra virgin olive oil
3 cups diced yellow onions
3 cups diced carrots
3 cups celery
Fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 head savoy cabbage, chopped (about 4 cups)
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon tomato paste
4 bunches Tuscan kale, finely chopped or crumbled from frozen
10 cups chicken broth or water*
5 cups cooked cannellini beans or 3.5 cans drained and rinsed
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, for serving
Fresh thyme leaves, for serving

1.) In a very large soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, celery, and a pinch of salt, and stir to coat the vegetables with the oil. Cover and cook the vegetables, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften but have not developed any browning, about 10 minutes.
2.) Stir in the savoy cabbage, cover, and cook until it begins to wilt, about 3 minutes. Add the tomato paste, stirring to combine it with the vegetables. Reduce the heat to low, add in the kale, and stir well. Cover the pot and stew the vegetables until they're tender, about 20 minutes. Add the broth or water, increase the heat, and bring the soup to a boil.
3.) While the soup is coming to a boil, puree 3 cups of the beans in a blender or food processor, adding a little water if necessary. Whisk the pureed beans into the boiling soup. Add the remaining 2 cups of whole beans and bring the soup back to a boil. Reduce the heat and gently simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes to allow the flavours to come together.
4.) Taste and season with salt and lots of pepper. Serve immediately with freshly grated Parmesan and thyme. Cool and refrigerate or freeze any leftovers.

My spin:

1.) In an instant pot, heat the oil over medium sauté and add the carrots, onions, and celery. Cook until soft.
2.) Add in the cabbage for a minute until wilted then add in the tomato, kale, 3 cups pureed beans and 2 cups whole beans, and *veggie stock and cook on high pressure for 20 minutes.
3.) Release the pressure and eat, skipping the thyme because I hate it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as my family does. This cookbook is also a fantastic one, for both vegetarians and meat lovers as he does a pretty good job of balancing the two lifestyles within the book. I highly recommend it.

And in case you're all dying to know how baby is: everything is perfect. At my last doctor's appointment, I was cleared by my doctor to be treated like a normal healthy pregnant woman, only having to see a doctor once a month now, not twice a week. I'm so excited! I still haven't wrapped my head around the fact that I'm actually pregnant with a tiny person growing inside of me, but it's going by quickly.

I'm now 12 weeks and change.

Isn't it amazing?