My friend Gary Short was here this weekend. He’s touring around the west for his wonderful new book of poems: Ten Moons and Thirteen Horses. We had a great weekend, but come Monday morning, I find myself with that sloggy feeling one gets after a weekend of dinner parties. It was great fun, but there was a lot of food, and a lot of wine, and much good talk … but even after coming back from the gym I had that ooh-I-overdid-it feeling.

So what’s the cure? Weed soup, of course. I was outside this morning checking the garden beds — we’ve had two days of perfect soft spring rain, and the garden is just springing up with all kinds of things, especially dandelions. I found several lovely, tender dandelion plants that hadn’t yet gone all hard and woody, so I pulled them up and took them into the kitchen. I chopped up one of my spring onions and pulled a couple of the miracle-spinach plants that somehow overwintered out there. I sauteed the onion and some garlic in a little olive oil, stripped the meat off a couple of pieces of leftover chicken, and thawed out some chicken broth that was in the freezer. Chicken, chicken broth, onion, garlic, and then in went my dandelions, the spinach, and the remains of a box of organic spring lettuce mix. I also threw in what was left of a bag of dried shitake mushrooms and let the whole thing simmer for about five minutes. Perfect — chicken broth and bitter greens, a little of Jimmy’s delicious barbecued chicken from Soprano’s night last night. Clean, lovely, cleansing and delicious weed soup.