Today’s find: Simmering

A new holiday tradition may be taking shape at our house, fashioned from the remains of the feast.

There was a time when I simply discarded our turkey carcass – the leftover bits of meat-on-bone seemingly more trouble than they were worth, particularly given the frenzied post-Thanksgiving hubbub around the house.

A beautiful bird, which on the day after the feast, still has more delicious gifts to bestow.

But in recent years, I’ve discovered the soul-satisfying flavor of turkey carcass soup…and am now increasingly inclined to block out the time necessary to put a steaming stock-pot of it on our table as we begin the holiday season.

Here’s the thing about turkey carcass soup: It’s not all that hard a recipe to master – but it does take time. And I’ve decided this is an essential part of its charm, something that makes it truly tradition-worthy.

Can’t rush the process, you see. Simmering is essential – hours and hours of it. And it occurs to me that simmering can also be pretty important to the season we’ve just entered – Advent.

While it’s conventional to consider Advent a time of waiting, “simmering” might work just a bit better as a spiritual paradigm.

After all, simmering is not dead time, like “waiting” can all too often be. Rather, simmering contributes something vital to the soup: Gentle heat works with the passage of time to add complexity, building a depth of flavor that would otherwise be lost.

The same can be true of these four weeks of Advent, it seems to me. I was reminded of that fact when I heard the Prayer After Communion at Mass on Sunday. It reads, in part:

…for even now, as we walk amid passing things, You teach us by them to love the things of heaven.

I realized that even a simple pleasure like turkey carcass soup can wind up being just such a “passing thing.” If we take time to savor such gifts – let them simmer – then we will surely develop a deeper appreciation for the glorious Taste of Heaven when He finally arrives at Christmas.

It’s not soup yet…not until the time of simmering is complete.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS