Beef Broccoli Supper — The Meal That Holds You When Nothing Else Does

Mamma's bread pans are on the shelf where they have always been — the rectangular tin one for limpa, the round enameled one for cardamom, the small loaf pan for the test batches she made on Tuesdays. I use them. The using is the keeping. Every time I knead bread in her bowl with her wooden spoon and slide the loaf into her pan, she is in the kitchen with me. She is not. She is. Both things. Gerald at the Damiano Center asked about Mamma. I said she was gone. He hugged me. The hug was longer than I expected. Gerald is a thoughtful man and not a hugger by inclination, and the hug from him was a weighted thing. He said, "Linda, my mother died when I was nine and I have missed her every day since." He said: "It does not stop. But it changes." I said: "I know." We kept ladling soup. Forty more bowls. The hug was over. The work continued. Sophie is showing now. The baby is due in summer. She is naming her Ingrid. The name was a gift, given to me at the worst time, which is also the right time. Mamma would approve. Mamma did, in fact, know — Sophie told her in October, before Mamma's mind started slipping at the end. Mamma had cried. Mamma had said, "Sophie, that is the right thing." The right thing carries forward. Mamma is in hospice now. The home is good. The staff is kind. I visit daily. I bring food — though she eats less and less, the smell of the food is still received. I bring limpa bread. I bring her own meatballs (the recipe she taught me, returned to her by my hands). She holds my hand. She says the names: Pappa. Lars. Erik. Linda. Karin. Astrid. The names are the prayer. The prayer is what is left when the words go. I cooked Bone broth and rye crackers this week. Two-day broth. Buttered crackers. The November meal. The Damiano Center: the regular Thursday. The soup is the soup. The conversations are the conversations. The week is held by the Thursday. I do not know what I would do without the Thursday. The Thursday is the structural element of the week. The structural element does not collapse if the rest of the week goes sideways. The Thursday holds. The lake was iron gray. The kind of gray Paul loved. He used to say: "That is the gray that means weather is coming." He was always right. I miss being told. I miss being told what the lake means by a man who knew what the lake meant. I have learned to read the lake on my own. I am, at this point, an adequate reader. I am not as good as Paul was. I am better than I would have been if I had not had to learn. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. It is enough.

The bone broth took two days and the rye crackers were buttered simply — that is the November meal, the one that asks nothing of you except that you show up and tend the pot. This week that kind of tending was all I had to give. When the broth was gone and the crackers were gone and the week still needed feeding, I made this: a straightforward beef and broccoli supper, the kind of dish Mamma would have recognized as honest food, the kind Gerald would have ladled without ceremony into a bowl. It does not try to be more than it is. That is enough. That is, right now, exactly enough.

Beef Broccoli Supper

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 3 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup beef broth
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups cooked white or brown rice, for serving

Instructions

1. Brown the beef. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking it apart, until no pink remains, about 7–8 minutes. Drain excess fat and set beef aside.
2. Soften the aromatics. In the same skillet over medium heat, add the diced onion and cook until softened and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook one minute more, stirring so it does not scorch.
3. Steam the broccoli. Add the broccoli florets to the skillet along with 1/4 cup of the beef broth. Cover and let steam for 3–4 minutes, until the broccoli is bright green and just tender.
4. Build the sauce. Whisk the cornstarch into the remaining 3/4 cup beef broth until smooth. Stir in the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Pour the mixture into the skillet and return the cooked beef.
5. Simmer and thicken. Stir everything together and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and coats the beef and broccoli, about 3–4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve. Spoon over cooked rice and serve warm. Leftovers keep well, covered, in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 380 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 620mg