have lunch
This lentil soup is so delicious that a nurse ate it every day at work for 17 years
Lentil soup as a favorite dish (avatar)
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Everyone has a favorite dish: For an American nurse, this is lentil soup. It’s a good thing he’s been making lunch at work every Saturday for the past 17 years.
Most of them need a variety in their diet. Not so Red Branson. A nurse working in Seattle, USA, shot lentil soup at himself on weekdays. For a period of 17 years. The Washington Post tracked him down and asked him about his routine and recipe.
Branson’s day job is unpredictable. He works as a nurse in an HIV clinic in a Seattle hospital. Because of the coronavirus, he has a lot more to do than usual, but there’s one thing he can always count on: Greek lentil soup and spinach. It’s delicious with lentils as a base and potatoes and pumpkin as an accompaniment. The soup is seasoned with all kinds of aromatic spices and fresh lemon juice. He’s been cooking it every Saturday for nearly two decades—and filling it up in four jars. Enough for eight lunches. If anything remains, the 63-year-old is happy to share soup with his wife.
It all started when the recipe for his favorite canned soup was changed. He doesn’t like the new recipe anymore. So he went in search of an alternative. I found a recipe for lentil soup in Crescent Dragonwagon’s Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread cookbook, published in 1992.
This soup always tastes different
Branson hasn’t had enough of soup yet because it always tastes different, he told The Washington Post. “It’s always a bit of a surprise: The onion came out strong this time, or this was a really good squash. If I didn’t bring it in often, I would never have noticed.”
But all good things come to an end – even Branson’s traditional brunch. Will retire soon The nurse still has less than four months to work. Then he might stop cooking his soup. But for a go-out party, he wants to cook it again. Then a lot of it so that all his teammates can try it.
Here’s the soup recipe.