Holiday Fruit Soup

Gayle came for Sunday dinner, which she does most weeks unless her knees are acting up. She is seventy-three and still driving, which terrifies me, but telling a Novak woman to stop doing something is like telling the wind to stop blowing.

I made pot roast because it is her favorite and because pot roast is the most forgiving meal in the world. You put a chuck roast in a Dutch oven with carrots, potatoes, onions, and a cup of beef broth at eight in the morning, and by five in the afternoon it is falling apart and your house smells like a grandmother lives there. Which, on Sundays, a grandmother does.

Gayle sat in the kitchen and supervised, which means she told me I was cutting the carrots too thick and the potatoes too thin and the onions wrong, though she could not explain what wrong meant. This is our dance. She critiques. I ignore. The pot roast turns out fine anyway. Her carrot critique is as reliable as the sunrise and roughly as useful.

Dave took the boys to the truck stop to show them something mechanical. I did not ask what because the answer would involve words like carburetor and torque. Josie stayed home and colored at the kitchen table while Gayle and I cooked, and she asked why Grandma smells like old flowers, which is a six-year-old description of Jean Nate perfume, and Gayle laughed so hard she had to sit down.

After dinner, Gayle and I washed dishes while Dave watched baseball with the kids. We did not talk about anything important. We talked about the weather, about her neighbor who got a new dog, about whether the Hy-Vee carries the brand of canned tomatoes she prefers. These conversations mean nothing and everything. They are the sound of two women who have survived the same losses standing in the same kitchen, proving they are still here.

I packed up the leftover pot roast and sent it home with Gayle. She said she did not need it. I put it in her car anyway. She drove away eating a piece of carrot from the container, which means the carrots were not too thick after all.

There is something about a recipe that asks you to slow down and wait—to stir the pot, set it in the fridge, and trust that the hours will do their work—that reminds me of those afternoons with Gayle. This fruit soup is like that. You make the base, you chill it, and then right before serving you fold in all that bright fruit, and the whole bowl looks like something worth gathering around. It’s the kind of dish I’d set on the table without saying a word, and someone would wander over just because of the color.

Prep Time: 255 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 267 min | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 cup peach juice or nectar (like Kern’s brand)
3 1/2 tablespoons minute or quick-cooking tapioca (not large or small pearl)
1 1/2 cups orange juice
2 cans (11-ounces each) mandarin oranges, undrained
1 quart bottled or canned sliced peaches, drained (cut the peaches into smaller chunks, if needed)
2 cups sliced strawberries
1 cup fresh raspberries
1 cup blueberries

Instructions

Cook the tapioca base. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, water, peach juice/nectar, and tapioca. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 12 minutes, stirring often. Remove from the heat and pour into a bowl or other container. Stir in the orange juice and cover the dish. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours until completely chilled or up to several days.
Add the fruit. Stir in the mandarin oranges, sliced peaches, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Chill until ready to serve (no longer than an hour or so once the fresh fruit has been added).

Nutrition (per serving)

Holiday Fruit Soup — The Kind of Thing You Make When Standing Still Feels Like Enough