MAKING
Soup is already a pretty easy dish to put together. Sure, there are some fussy soups that take a little more effort (I’m looking at you: French Onion) but a basic vegetable soup is pretty simple and lends itself to a formula rather than a recipe.
We’ve been eating the same handful of meals for the past few months— like the Steve Jobs turtleneck of menu planning. It’s easy and I’m lazy efficient. One of the dishes I’ve been making on repeat is Kitchen Sink Soup. It’s made with ingredients from the freezer, pantry and whatever might be in the refrigerator.
HERE’S THE BLUEPRINT:
Start with sautéing alliums and aromatics: onion, shallot, green onions, leek, garlic, carrots, celery… Use olive or vegetable oil, ghee, butter, bacon fat… Season with salt and pepper while you’re cooking.
Add a tomato component: a can of crushed, diced, or whole (and crushed with you hands) tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce or soup… and liquid: broth, stock, bean cooking liquid, or plain water will do… Season again with salt and pepper, but make sure to taste as you go.
Then add your vegetables: my hack for super easy, always available, no need to chop veg is bags of mixed frozen vegetables (usually corn, peas, carrots, and green beans)… sometimes I add frozen edamame for extra protein… You could add a starchy vegetable like diced potato or sweet potato… and add a can of drained and rinsed beans, any kind goes.
If you want to be fancy, you could add a bay leaf or a parmesan rind… but you could stop here: Alliums + Tomatoes + Liquid + Veg (and Beans) makes for a good, solid soup… Check the seasoning and add more salt, pepper or hot sauce, if you like.
Or you could add any number of things that might be in your pantry, freezer or fridge: small pasta like orzo, macaroni or ditalini, any greens close to the end of their life that are hanging out in the crisper drawer (kale, chard or herbs), the dregs of a jar of pesto or harissa, I’ve never tried this but I suppose you could add some jarred salsa… when it comes to Kitchen Sink Soup the possibilities are endless.
THINKING
Hello. My name is Jen and I used AI.
Yes, I used AI to generate this image of a kitchen sink filled with soup. This particular image does not exist in stock or online. And I am not going to make six pots of soup to fill my sink for a photo. This is what AI is perfect for. It’s not a great photo, but it’s funny and gets the point across quickly—exactly what I was going for.
Is AI perfect? No. Do I feel conflicted about using it? Yes. I feel conflicted even talking about it. AI is a loaded topic for artists and creatives. When an artist shares how they are using AI or why they are using AI, I am in awe. “How brave”, I think to myself. You’re saying the the thing out loud that so many of us are afraid of.
This is the thing: a lot of us are using it. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Not necessarily for the creation part—or maybe a small part for a specific use case. We might use it for things that AI is good at and we’re not—to take them off our plate and save time. Or we use it as a digital intern, virtual assistant, and brainstorming partner.
Most of what I create can’t be made by AI (yet)—I make printed, tactile, tangible work. Some of the administrative stuff I spend my time on—that I’m not even remotely good at—could be done by AI. Should I? Is that okay—ethically, environmentally? Is it cheating?* Do I have to disclose it? If I don’t use these tools will I fall behind, left in the AI adopters’ dust?
It’s exhausting, honestly. There’s so much shame and stigma around AI and artists. I joked with my friend Mansi that we should start an AI-Anonymous group. Except I wasn’t really joking; I’m kind of serious.
There are some on the hell-no-never side of the spectrum and others who are vocal (and visual) hard-core advocates. But I think most of us fall somewhere in the middle of this gray scale. We need to be able to talk to each other about this and not feel judged or afraid or guilty. It’s new and uncharted territory for all of us and we’re just trying to figure it out. Can we please do it together?
*
’s post inspired this conversation and is an example of the bravery I admire.
LOVING
I went to an AIGA paper show this week with my friend Christine from Paper Source Wholesale. I handed out quite a few hot pink business card zines. Turns out paper people are highly receptive to the one-page zine format. Paper people are my people.
I met so many other print and paper enthusiasts and left with a lot of great samples and swatch books. This is only a portion of my heavy haul. My favorite swag by far is the CMYK hat. 🩵🩷💛🖤
THIS WEEK ON ZINESTACK
Thanks for the shout out again, Jen. You pill me with acknowledgment. I’m glad to hear that I’ve unpowered you and others to come out of the closet with their AI experiences.
Thank you for this idea. I’m big on lazy efficiency! And I think everyone should be doing this. I was talking about the soup. AI is a whole other story 😍 I think everyone has an opinion—some without ever having used it—and I’ve struggled with it. I’m one of those early adopters when it comes to apps and yet it took me a while to take Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT for a whirl. The fact is that everything online is using AI in some way or the other. There’s no escaping it…my take is, use it however makes your life easy. If it starts feeling like it’s testing your ethical boundaries and your integrity then the problem is not AI, it’s something deeper.