The Joy of Lentils

By Hilary Sterne

There's only one time of the year that I ever think about lentil soup, and it's right around Blue Monday, the tiny gray sliver of a day the third week in January that somehow always ends up being the dreariest. Italian-Americans, like my friend Michaelangelo, think of lentils a bit earlier, on New Year's Day, when the confetti-like legumes are stewed with boiled sausage called cotechino and served with a drizzle of good olive oil and a hunk of chewy bread. Michael gave me a jar one year based on his secret recipe, but this one from Domenica Cooks is quite good, too.  

Another dear friend, Liz, is also a lentil fan from her first days working in publishing in New York City, where she learned from her friend, who is now a scrivener to the stars, that a can of Progresso lentil soup dumped over a box of cooked spaghetti is one of the cheapest, easiest and most filling meals there is. (Liz, who is as creative a cook as Michael, has since refined her recipe to include chicken stock, fresh grated Parmesan and a dollop of that amazing condiment known as crushed Calabrian chili peppers and she insists on using conchigliette and not spaghetti; the friend is now snagging seven-figure celebrity bio deals.)

Lentils: More Than Soup 

But the lentils I'm currently obsessed with are the ones my husband brought me on the very worst day of my life, which happened to be a week ago today. I'm not going to get into the details of what made that day so soul-suckingly awful, but his gift of a big white cardboard drum of lentil soup made me feel just a tiny bit less suicidal. I'm not even sure where he got it. I was too frying-pan-to-the-head to ask. Gourmet Garage? And I can't really tell you what was so magical about it. More lentil than soup, it had an unexpected sweetness I attribute to the generous chunks of onion and a velvety texture that made it seem as if I was eating match girl caviar. (He bought another huge drum of minestrone, and it was just OK.)

The next week was filled with dread and anguish but also lentils and love. The first two from my husband and more of the latter from my darling boy, who is away at college but who called to be with me when I needed him most and now I'm crying. He is more a Top Ramen guy than a lentil soup guy, but he understands like I do how slurping spoonfuls of hot, brothy goo can make Blue Mondays a lot less blue.