The time cost of any cooking is important -- and so is the pleasure payment! Baking Bread is one classic. A long commitment, but very little actually engaged with the dough. It's mostly knead and rise.....allows other chores or social time to be combined, or making that yogurt or whatever. Then the taste payoff and the grateful friends, the warm house on a chilly day.

Soup has all those elements to me as well. The many steps with plenty of time in between, the sense of abundance and excellence. The pride in the accomplishment and the pure pleasure of enjoying the food alone or with others. I made this? Wow!

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