Allow me to be the Scrooge of Valentine’s Day. You see, my marriage is over and I’m not going to get a card from my husband this year and I’m not going to give him one and I’m going to be fine. I’m not going to feature a “romantic” treat in the shape of a heart, oozing chocolate and steaming with sentimentality. I’m going to make soup. An easy soup, with real ingredients that you can most likely find in your pantry, on a day when the snow is coming down in flakes the size of toilet paper sheets and your patio furniture just became an undefined lump under it all. I want something to warm me.

I’ve saved Valentine’s cards for many years, as if I needed to hold on to some documentation that I am indeed loved, and do love after all, and the ones from the last couple of years throw an interesting light on the state of my marriage. Our messages to each other contained a lot of references to the “ups and downs,” the “good times and bad,” “weathering the storms” and how it was all worth it because we have such a beautiful family and all this history, and how we were going to grow old together and that was that—as if (sigh) that was what decent people did no matter how nauseous they were from the roller coaster ride. And all that Happy Horses#@t goes out the window when someone in this noble, venerable arrangement runs smack dab into a mid-life crisis complete with all the cliches you could insert into the narrative—as though it was a MadLib for the Baby Boomer crowd. I know someday I’ll think it’s hilarious, but just like a MadLib, it doesn’t seem funny until you are all done with it and you read it back.

So, there are going to be some big changes in my life over the next year and they will likely show up here too: the dissolution of my marriage of 21 years; my daughter going off to college; a name change; the growing pains of a new business I need to take to a whole new level for both financial and emotional reasons; and the cooking up of a new identity for me. Hell, my dog died, as if I needed that on top of all this, but it did give me a good reason to mourn EVERYTHING with one powerful sob-a-thon last week!

I’ve grappled with the idea of “living out loud” in this space. I’ve known about this for months and haven’t said anything. The blog is very public, but if it is going to have any meaning to me, if I’m going to take time out of my life and business to do it, it also has to be my authentic voice. I’m not interested in a blog that is all recipes and no real ingredients from my heart and soul. Things I say here about my personal life involve people I don’t want to hurt or embarrass, so I’m not going get all “Housewives of NJ” on you! But, these pages are my voice and my voice is not always perky.

Now, the soup. I made it yesterday afternoon with a group of kids, ages 11-13, who are taking a series of classes with me that I’ve called “At Home In The Kitchen.” I’m teaching them basic cooking skills, but real ones. I don’t believe in doing gimmicky “fun” food with kids. My mission is to get them hooked on cooking and feeding themselves well and taking responsibility for what goes into their bodies. You don’t do that by decorating cupcakes and making endless versions of pigs-in-blankets with commercial refrigerator dough. One week we did “breakfast” and I taught them, hands-on, how to make eggs five different ways, perfecting scrambled, an omelet that was a sunny yellow (not crusty brown), hard-boiled eggs that were exactly right and peeled with ease, a heavenly custard and a deviled version too.

Yesterday, we did a lesson in “Lunch” and made this version of a classic comforting tomato soup I remember from my childhood that was served by a relative of my mother’s who was simply “Tante” to me, and thank God for that because I later found out her name was Yetcha and that is enough to scare any little girl. Despite her witchy name, she was a gentle, elderly woman who always plopped a spoonful of cold sour cream in the middle of the steaming red soup. It could have been from a can for all I know, but the creamy dollop I swirled to decorate and balance the tangy soup, made it one of the my indelible food memories. The recipe I’m sharing with you adds creamy goodness as part of the finish, along with fresh herbs, and layers of real-food flavor that come from the patient caramelizing of mire poix (onions, carrots and celery) and oven roasting the tomatoes to concentrate their sweetness. Using an immersion blender to puree it, I like leaving it with a little texture, which makes it feel more substantial.

Ok. I know. Soup may not be the sexiest thing. It’s not roses and chocolate and oysters and champagne. But if your life hasn’t delivered a scenario this week that matches up with a jewelry store ad (does it ever?), know that you can show yourself a lot of love on this day and do something that feels good to you. Maybe it’s soup! XOXO

I lost my little Rat Terrier, Ruby Tuesday this week. I stare across my yard, the domain over which Ruby truly ruled, (along with the house, my other old dog, Phoebe and the two nonchalantly terrorized cats) and know that it will eventually come back to life. The two feet of snow that covers everything alive and lively there will melt and all will be renewed in the spring, but Ruby won’t be there and it makes my heart ache.

She was 13, a good, long life for a dog, but still. She had a slow growing brain tumor that made her drink too much water and pee too indiscriminately on rugs, while sporting a sort of senile Tasmanian Devil look across her face.

In the last few weeks her appetite waned and it was hard to get her to eat anything, even homemade chicken dog stew, but until the end she always took the little biscuit I’d give her as a bedtime ritual. Even if she didn’t eat it, she wanted to make sure Phoebe didn’t get it. That was Ruby. She was a fierce protector. A Doberman in an 11-pound Terrier body that made UPS men and dogs five times her weight walk a wide berth around her yapping bravado.

I was given a copy of Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook by my son, Max who works for Keller at The French Laundry. I have another story about the book that I’ll save for another post, but when I saw this recipe for Dog Treats I teared up thinking of Ruby and how she would have gone crazy for these chicken-liver-infused treats. I wish I had made them for her. And isn’t that the hardest part of grief, of losing someone you love, the wishing for more time to do what you didn’t get a chance to, the wanting so badly to take back the moments you weren’t at your best with them? Loss steals away any illusions about the luxury of time we think we have to appreciate and acknowledge all we hold dear to us.

I’m going to make these for Phoebe, and she’s going to love them.