On Monday, I began a fun read, Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. As soon as I saw the preview of the film that will be out later this summer, I knew I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. In it, Julie Powell decides to cook her way through each of the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume 1, in 365 days.
One of the first recipes she tries is a soup, Potage Parmentier (potato soup). There is nothing in the soup but leeks, potatoes, butter, water, pepper, and salt. It is a "simple soup," but it is not "easy" to make. I won't detail all of the peeling, ricing, simmering steps here, but let it suffice to say it is a process. The process got Julie thinking about the difference between "easy" and "simple," and as a result it has me thinking about it, too.
She wrote about it this way, "This life we had going for us felt like the opposite of Potage Parmentier. It was easy enough to keep on with the soul-sucking jobs; at least it saved having to make a choice. But how much longer could I take such an easy life? Quicksand was easy. Hell, death was easy....maybe I need to make like a potato, winnow myself down, be a part of something that was not easy, just simple."
It reminds me of the wonderful Quaker hymn, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to come down where you ought to be ..."
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I loved that book!!! will have to watch for the movie too. Never forget when Reid was about 6. We were at Cedar Point's kiddie land karaoke stage show. He bounded up for a turn and requested "Tis a Gift to be Simple." Needless to say, they did not have it in their repertoire, nor his second choice.
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