Soup at Sunrise
A Comforting Breakfast Ritual for Your Next Adventure
I first started eating soup for breakfast when I was working as a yacht chef. One spring, I found myself hired by a Turkish-owned boat based out of Bodrum. It was the biggest yacht I’d worked on up to that point — 50 meters, 12 crew, up to 12 guests nearly every day, all summer long. And it was just me in that galley — no sous chef, no backup, just me and my knives.
Sometimes we’d start the morning in Turkey, cross into Greece by lunch, and be well on our way to Italy by dinner — always moving, never staying still for long. I’d spend weeks at sea without setting foot on land. Everything I needed was delivered straight to the boat by provisioning companies. My walk-in fridge spanned two floors — you’d step in from the galley, pass through a small chill room, then walk down a flight of stairs where all my produce and perishables were stored, and finally through another door into the walk-in freezer. I had enough food to feed 24 people for weeks if I needed to.
When you live like that — with the world constantly shifting under your feet — you learn to hold tight to the simplest things. For me, soup was one of them. A pot simmering on the stove was comfort. A bowl tucked away for later was a promise that, even if I was working fifteen hours in a row, I’d have something warm waiting for me.
Now, all these years later, with Cade and I spending more time on the road in our little trailer, I’ve found myself thinking about soup again — and realizing what a perfect match it is for this life, too. RV life can feel like you’re adrift sometimes — new places, new weather, new neighbors every few nights. But a pot of soup? It’s steady. It reminds you that some comforts travel well.
And truthfully, it’s only recently that I’ve found myself wanting to cook again at all. Last week, after a long stretch of hardly cooking, I finally found myself back at the stove with a simple one-pot stew I shared in my story “Could I Love Cooking Again?”. That stew was hearty, healthy, and exactly the kind of meal that makes RV life easier — plus, only one pot to clean.
The beauty of that stew — like most soups — is that you can swap out just about anything. I made mine with onion, carrots, celery, a pinch of thyme, raw Italian chicken sausage, small gourmet potatoes, a carton of store-bought ginger turmeric broth, and chopped kale. But you could switch the sausage for leftover rotisserie chicken, or skip the meat entirely and go full veggie. No potatoes? Use rice, noodles, or beans. No kale? Spinach works. Not into turmeric? Any broth you like will do. Soup doesn’t mind — it’s forgiving like that.
And this isn’t really about soup — it’s about what it represents. Sometimes the smallest things — a warm bowl, a quiet moment in the middle of chaos, something that reminds you you’re cared for — are what tether us to ourselves when life feels unsteady.
When I was out there in the Mediterranean, my leftover soup bowls felt like an anchor. Now, when I’m waking up in our trailer, parked in a quiet field somewhere far from home, that first sip of hot broth feels like the same thing — a reminder that I know how to make this life feel like mine, wherever I am.
So here’s my gentle pitch to you: try soup for breakfast sometime. It might feel unusual, but plenty of cultures have known this secret for ages — in Vietnam, people start the day with steaming bowls of pho. In Japan, miso soup is as common as your morning coffee. Compared to a sugar-loaded pastry or a greasy plate of bacon and eggs, a simple bowl of soup feels like love.
Make a pot. Try it for a week. See how you feel when you start the day with something warm, simple, and forgiving. Maybe you’ll find your own little anchor in that bowl — a small comfort that reminds you you’re home, even when you’re nowhere near it.
– R. Michael
P.S. If you’d like the full story of how we put together that Campfire Chili — every step, exactly how it came together by the lake — I’m sharing it as a little extra for my subscribers. It’s free, and you can tuck it away for your next adventure. Find it here.