I’ve always liked mornings.
In recent years, I may not have been around to greet them as much–college will do that to you–but I’ve always liked them. I remember walking to school at 7 am when we lived on the West Side and crossing paths with what seemed to me to be a completely different brand of person: up at dawn, running decked out in head to toe spandex or walking their dogs. I wanted to be a part of it.
I never have been, though: instead, I found my own kind of morning, the kind that reminds me of Holly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, when she says something akin to, “I’ve never gone out this early before, unless it was because I hadn’t been home yet.”
It started at boarding school, nights of staying up studying but mostly not studying, cuddled up in duvets and blankets with greasy paper bags of fourth-meal popcorn, and suddenly seeing the snow outside change color and realizing that the sun was coming up. I still remember wandering through the days that followed in a daze, feeling as though everything was upside down and backwards because I missed that break between today and yesterday.
It continued in college, but in a different way: we worked on a noctournal clock, staying up all night playing Mario Kart and making 4 am runs to 24-hour Tim Hortons, where we would play cards and drink coffee in our pajamas with the rest of the misfits–a bearded man in a yellow poncho comes to mind, a man who had the largest collection of plastic bags I’ve ever seen, one stuffed into another stuffed into another, like so many Russian dolls.
When the sun started to come up, we were always shocked: shocked to realize we had really stayed out so late, shocked by the biting cold of an early Toronto morning. Sometimes, we would just head home and collapse into bed, but more often than not, we would finish off a long night with a lazy breakfast: a few places opened early, and at least one was opened 24 hours. I would order a pot of coffee and something distinctly un-breakfast like. It’s hard to get in the mood for breakfast when you haven’t even been to bed yet.
I had a flashback to mornings like that today, when I wandered home at 9 am after a night of talking and cat naps and watching the sunrise over La Concha bay. I saw my streets–I remember just a few weeks ago, when I had that now-familiar thought that strikes me every time I move somewhere new, “Soon, all of this will be normal for me.” And it is, usually, which is why in the early morning, with a slightly less biting but no less present cold, struck me off guard, my world turned upside down.
Like back in college, I needed something hot and filling, something distinctly un-breakfast like. Something easy.
This soup was thrown together from things that were already in my kitchen… At nine o’clock in the morning, the rest of the world is still asleep you can’t just wander into the grocery store. It’s warm and comforting and slightly surprising from the kick of the spices. I love the way that the carrot juice makes the potatoes sweet.
Carrot and Potato Soup
3 carrots
2 small potatoes or large new potatoes
1 cup carrot juice
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. curry powder
1-2 dried cayenne peppers or 1/2 tsp. cayenne chili flakes
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg
Slice the carrots into half moons and cut the potatoes into bite-sized chunks. Add all of the ingredients to a saucepan and heat over medium heat, covered, for 30 minutes. Stir every so often, and add water if the broth becomes too concentrated (this is a matter of taste). When the potatoes are cooked through, carry your bowl to the window and watch the sunrise as you eat.