Soup, Stews and Copper Thieves

I finally broke my new Dutch oven in the other night with a 30 minute bean soup from Serious Eats. The night I decided to make soup was a gym night, and I was speeding toward the rec center when a friend texted me to say she'd driven down my street and the vacant house next to mine (there are two, but this is the one that is truly vacant and abandoned, not bank-owned and on the market) had cop cars out front and the front door wide open. Oh great, I thought, and I changed course to speed home.

Turns out the house had been hit by copper thieves -- there has been a rash of thefts in the neighborhood over the past few weeks. The thieves typically hit vacant houses or houses on the market so the cop I talked to said they were checking all the for-sale or known vacants on the block just to be sure. Since this one is just abandoned the thieves had to have been watching it since there are no clear signs no one lives there -- it's not boarded up or anything. It went through foreclosure a few years ago but then the bank dropped the process. It's still in the owner's name on the auditor's website, but she skipped out two years ago in the dark of night, leaving a literal pile of rotting garbage in the backyard for someone else to deal with.

 

That is what home ownership has ended up feeling like to me: a pile of garbage left behind for someone else (me!) to deal with.

 

All of this comes on the heels of finding out that the ex I bought the house with just got married to, and is expecting a baby with, the woman he dumped me for. My feelings toward owning a home, and the one I own in particular, swing wide and dip high and low, but I feel just about as angry and frustrated with the whole situation as I ever have. I feel trapped. 

 

Anyway, the soup. Having a recipe to focus on was actually very calming and the soup turned out to be both easy to prepare and delicious to eat. I substituted Swiss chard for the kale in the recipe. I ate the leftovers for lunch for the rest of the week.

 

Tonight I'm making this Rustic Winter Stew. I'm thinking about adding carrots in for round 2 of cooking but haven't decided yet.