Space for Catharsis

and for dumpling soup

Last week, I skipped sending out a newsletter, because I was mired in the swamps of seasonal sadness (the end of daylight savings and the abruptness with which the curtain of total darkness fell has been taking a larger toll than expected), community sadness (Doug Jones, a beloved member of the film festival family, passed away unexpectedly and tragically a couple of weeks ago, and while I wasn’t close to him, Colin and many other folks in my circles were), personal sadness (the third anniversary of my mom’s death is next week), and world sadness (living and parenting in these brutal times truly is too much).

Last Friday, Sara Saljoughi of Not Yet wrote a post that could have come out of my own brain, if my brain was a bit more thoughtful and eloquent. “It has been a hard time to write,” she wrote. “The cognitive dissonance of going about my daily life while millions of people live under siege is unbearable and yet it’s the least I can do. Bear it and bear witness. Endure the fear and worry.”

Yes, and yes. It feels absurd to post on social media or Substack without acknowledging the dissonance. Every post requires a footnote. *Yes, I am complaining about my child’s bedtime, but I am also grateful beyond measure that he is safe and alive.

A few days ago, I went with my family to see Space for Grief, a public art exhibit currently on at Evergreen Brickworks (if you’re in Toronto and can drop everything to see it before it closes on the 17th, I highly recommend you do so).

The installation is set up to facilitate reflection and contemplation. Prompts throughout the space invite visitors to dig into their own experiences, memories, difficult feelings. It was remarkably moving and profound. As I sat in the dim lighting of the exhibit’s central room, surrounded by video projections and a haunting soundscape, I wept as intensely as I have in a couple of years. A woman stationed in the room brought me a box of tissues and rubbed my back for a few moments. I had seen her doing the same for someone seated on the bench across from me, a few minutes earlier.

As I cried, my kid came bounding up. He had been romping around, delighting in the exhibit without any heavy emotions. When he saw that I was crying, he jumped into my lap and hugged me. He stayed next to me, comforting me with gentle touches and kind words, until I stopped crying several long moments later. His empathy was so pure. As was my catharsis.

I left the exhibit feeling eager to get back to writing. I keep waking up each day and living my life (and trying to enjoy it, and sometimes succeeding!), and I want to write about it, because these days, it’s how I connect with my world, and with my people (I claim you all as my people, just fyi).

I desperately need that connection.

I have little else to offer you this week, except for some soup that’s been on repeat in my kitchen: my mother’s semolina dumpling soup. It won’t cure your ills, because it’s just soup. But it is the soup that contains all the love that has ever dwelt in my heart.

Start with homemade stock. Don’t skimp on this. Throw a couple of carrots, onions, cloves of garlic and celery stalks into a pot with lots of water and maybe some chicken (if you’re into that sort of thing) and simmer it for 90 minutes. If you don’t have leftover chicken handy, you can buy a carcass for this purpose from most butcher shops for like $2. Or just use vegetables! Scraps! Whatever you have on hand! Don’t be intimidated by stock. It is incredibly easy, and cheaper than buying a carton of bone broth.

There are probably as many ways to make a pot of stock as there are people in this world, and trust me, every single one of them will taste better than store bought, at least for this recipe. The flavour of this soup comes entirely from the stock.

I’ll be honest, I had to Google-translate the name of the key ingredient of the dumplings in order to find out that in English, it is called “semolina.” I know it only by its Serbian name, griz. What I know about griz is that it’s the main ingredient in these dumplings, and is also what Serbs commonly make baby porridge out of. I never ate griz as a baby, because my mother thought that porridge, as a category of edibles, was disgusting.

So, the dumplings.

Ingredients:
- 1 egg (separated)
- 10 - 12 teaspoons of semolina
- pinch of salt

Separate the egg, and whisk the white until it forms firm-ish peaks (it doesn’t have to be at meringue-level stiffness, but it should be pretty firm). I have one of those old-fashioned hand-crank egg beaters which does the job in approximately 90 seconds.

To your whipped egg white, add eight teaspoons of semolina, incorporating each before adding the next. Mix slowly so that you don’t deflate the egg white.

Next, mix in the yolk, and then add another two teaspoons of semolina, and a generous pinch of salt.

Cover and refrigerate for ten minutes, or while you bring the stock to a boil. Once boiling, dip a small spoon into the hot broth, then use that to scoop a small quantity of the dumpling mixture and add it to the pot - about the size of a large bean.

Your dumpling will expand significantly when it hits the boiling liquid, but should maintain its shape. If it seems to be disintegrating, add another teaspoon of semolina to the remaining mixture before dropping your next dumpling into the soup. The final texture of these dumplings is quite soft, but they should hold together. If they break apart when you touch one with a spoon, you need more semolina. If the finished product is hard or chewy … well, you needed less. My mother was allergic to precise measurements in recipes. Besides, it depends (in part) on the size of your egg.

Once all your dumplings have been added to the pot, they only take about ten minutes to cook. The stock doesn’t need to be at a rolling boil, but make sure it’s at a strong simmer.

Dumplings from the weekend.

And, voila. Serve as a starter before your next cozy, relaxed-pace dinner.

As ever,
k