Soup Therapy

With Diop Deveroux

The door chimed softly as Sutton Meyers stepped into the converted brownstone that housed Dr. Diop Deveroux’s office. It didn’t look like a therapist’s office. There were no diplomas on the walls. No tissue boxes positioned strategically at elbow height. The space smelled like home. Caramelized onions and fresh basil, the promise of cozy.

Diop emerged from what appeared to be a commercial kitchen through a doorway hung with sage-green curtains. He was a tall man with silver threaded through his dark beard. He wore a chef’s coat over his suit. He held a wooden spoon like other therapists held intake forms.

“Sutton,” he said warmly. He gestured toward a small table nestled in the corner. Not a therapy couch in sight. “Let’s begin with what brought you here today.”

Sutton settled into a wicker chair as Diop moved behind a counter lined with copper pots and glass jars of dried herbs.

The kitchen was his idea he explained in their initial consultation. Talking about problems while in the abstract was cumbersome & took many sessions. Talking while cooking? While watching something transform from raw ingredients into something nourishing? That was where the real work happened.

“I don’t know where to start,” Sutton admitted, watching Diop tie back his locs. “It feels like everything is a catastrophe. Last week, my presentation had one typo. One. I couldn’t stop spiraling. For days. I called my mom seventeen times. She stopped answering.”

Diop nodded, pulling out a stockpot and setting it on the stove. The burner beneath bloomed with blue fire. “Tell me about the typo.”

“It was in a client proposal. I missed a typo in the title. Just one article, and I spent the entire weekend convinced I was incompetent, that I’d lose my job, that…” Sutton’s hands balled into fists. “That I’m fundamentally broken.”

The sound of the knife against the cutting board began. A rhythmic thock-thock-thock. Diop moved with a dancer’s grace. His hands steady and sure as he chopped tomatoes. Each piece falling away cleanly from the blade.

“Three tomatoes,” Diop said, not looking up. “How many pieces do you think that makes?”

“I... I don’t know. Fifty?”

“One hundred and forty-seven,” Diop said, scraping them into the hot oil. They sizzled. “But what matters isn’t the number. What matters is this…each piece came from the same tomato. Each piece is still a tomato. The loss of one piece, or even several pieces, doesn’t make the tomato cease to be a tomato.”

The kitchen filled with fragrance. Garlic joined the tomatoes, then fresh basil, the leaves tearing slightly in Diop’s strong fingers before they met the heat.

“A creamy tomato basil,” Diop explained, reaching for a bottle of heavy cream. “Your soup for today. We’re going to talk about avoidance while we build this.”

Sutton leaned forward. “What do you mean, avoidance?”

“You’ve made an error. One error. And rather than sitting with it, rather than letting yourself simply be a person who made a mistake, you’ve constructed an entire narrative about your worth, your competence, your future.” Diop poured cream into the pot. The tomato-red deepened to a warm coral. “You’ve turned a molehil into a mountain. Then you’ve climbed that mountain, planted a flag, and decided to live there.”

It should have sounded harsh. Instead, there was such kindness in his voice that Sutton felt tears prickling.

“This is what avoidance looks like,” Diop continued, blending the soup until it reached a silken consistency. “You’re avoiding the simple truth. ‘I made a mistake’ by manufacturing a catastrophe complex enough to keep you busy. Busy is numb. Numb is safe.”

He ladled the soup into two bowls, the steam rising in delicate spirals. The cream swirled through the red like watercolor on wet canvas. He placed one before Sutton, kept one for himself, and sat.

“Taste it.”

Sutton lifted the spoon. The soup was warm, smooth, with brightness from the basil cutting through the richness of the cream. It tasted like summer in a bowl. It tasted like, forgiveness.

“Tomatoes came from California,” Diop said, savoring his own spoonful. “Basil from my window garden. Cream from a dairy upstate. Sixteen ingredients in total. Each with their own journey. One of them is slightly less perfect than the others. The garlic was a day past its prime. But you don’t taste the imperfection, do you?”

Sutton shook her head, captivated by the blend.

“The soup doesn’t demand perfection. It demands presence. It demands that you show up with what you have and let the alchemy happen.” Diop set down his spoon. “I want you to try something this week. Every time you find yourself climbing the mountain of catastrophe, I want you to ask yourself, ‘Am I sitting with the thing, or am I avoiding it with a story?’ Can you do that?”

Photo by Maryellen Brady

Soup also by Maryellen Brady

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THE RECIPE

4 medium ripe tomatoes - Roma or plum tomato variety are the best for this soup

4 cups tomato juice *yes, I prefer using fresh when they are available. This is just in case you are in a none freshest tomato season.

Handfuls of fresh basil, 14 or so leaves, I don't measure when I cook.

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Garlic

Olive oil 1/4cup

Salt

Ground black pepper

dash of cinnamon & cardamom to taste

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Simmer tomatoes & juice over medium heat, with cinnamon & cardamom.

Mince garlic & caramelize in olive oil

When tomatoes have softened, tear & add the basil leaves. Add caramelized garlic.

Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth texture.

Drizzle in cream. You may reserve a bit as garnish as well. It creates a lovely visual when served.