Note: This originally appeared on my Facebook page as a note, sometime over the winter. /note

An easy to follow process (pronounced PRO-cess) for making quite a lot of lentil soup:

First, decide you are going to make some lentil soup to take in to your co-workers as part of a communal lunchtime ritual that includes healthy side items and helps you feel good about your on-going 6:00AM regime with Mr. Luke the Personal Training Task-Master two or three days a week.

Second, find an easy-to-follow recipe on foodnetwork.com from someone like Alton Brown or Ina Garten, but not Paula Deen because she uses too much butter and she’s not ashamed of it.

Third, wonder what the hell Grains of Paradise are, then Wikipedia it to find out it is a combination of some kind of peppercorn and cardamom. Decide that you have both of those things in your spice cupboard and cross it off the list.

Fourth, acquire the ingredients listed a few days in advance from your local purveyor of such ingredients. Have every intention of going to the local market with local vendors and stalls, but settle on the Fresh Fare Kroger with the delightful Murray’s Cheese Shop in it that your husband will spend 20 minutes in, sampling Fromage de Meaux for the fifth time (still too ammonia-y) and talking to the cheesemaster about the fabulous Spanish fig & almond cake he ate at work the other day during a holiday party and how delightful it was with a camembert or soft muenster or some such thing, but how it really would have been wonderful with a young manchego.

Fifth, have a completely shitty Monday at work, during which time your to-do list goes from long to unlikely-to-be-accomplished-in-this-lifetime. Having decided to be smart and economic in the morning, you realize by day’s end that you now face the prospect of riding the bus home and you still have to get gas in 18-degree weather after you pick up the car from the park-and-ride. Text your husband to tell him how shitty your day was.

Sixth, receive a call from your husband, during which time he tells you a glass of wine and a cheese-plate from aforementioned Murray’s is waiting for you. Wail in relief and delight at the reality of said wine and cheese as you walk in the door.

Seventh, get on Facebook while consuming Hunt Country Vineyard’s ‘Alchemy’, Cambozola, a rather firm camembert, and crackers. Get fairly drunk in the process.

Eighth, prepare lentil soup according to Alton Brown’s recipe. Sit on the floor while waiting for it to come to a boil because you are fairly drunk and the floor was much nearer than the kitchen chair. Inform the room that the stress at work has you “wound up tighter than a virgin igloo.”

Eight-and-a-halfth, after reaching a boil, turn heat to low and make your way to the living room. While soup is simmering on the stove, start to doze off on the sofa. Sing a few bars of “Papa Can You Hear Me?” and make a Yentl/Lentil joke.

Ninth, following a simmering period of 35 minutes, you discover you do not have an immersion blender as the smarmy Brown has instructed you to have. Decide instead to use the electric hand-mixer you received as a wedding gift. It’ll work only so-so, but you’re tired and still a little drunk and don’t really care. Sample only a small cup of the soup, as you’re full from the cheese and crackers, then return to the sofa.

Finally, fall asleep completely on the sofa. Your husband will portion it out for you in tupperware and put it in the fridge, where you’ll find it in the morning when you are preparing your lunchtime ritual for your friends & co-workers.

Bon appetit!