Now I feel bad, having had such terrible things to say about reverse culture shock and my home country. Time for an entry of a different kind: a short note on something I truly miss in Manhattan supermarkets. Every Italian market offers pre-cut vegetables for soup, and as a result, one finds oneself eating healthy minestrone all the time.
I searched the web for recipes that resemble my own minestrone, but I didn’t really find anything. The only photo where the soup looks somewhat like my soup is from a Californian-French-Italian food blog, Citron & Vanille. But it’s so easy to get it right that detailed recipes seem somehow misguided. You just throw the vegetables in a pot and combine them with whatever you feel like, pasta, potato, dumplings, tortellini, and so on. Here’s a tip for vegetarians, or people like me who love vegetarian soups and accordingly use no meat, bacon, or anything of that kind for flavor. Heat some olive oil in the pot before you start, and slowly roast some raw slices of potato in it until they are slightly brown; then add boiling water and the vegetables. Add another shot of olive oil when the soup is done. Perfect!