Lemony Dill Lentil Soup

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. I did not sleep well last night after a very unpleasant dental surgery and woke up starving but unable to eat solid foods. I wanted a lemony dill soup but didn’t want to leave my house and scare the children with my toothless grin. I had no lemons in the house, just a dusty old jar of preserved lemons.

My days as a recipe deveopler are long behind me but I think I’ve still got it. I had a vision and I went to work with what I had. I did have some fresh dill and thought that the stems cut up into tiny pieces would make a really flavorful base.

Serves 4 · About 55 minutes

A Word on Preserved Lemons

If you've never cooked with them, preserved lemons are whole lemons packed in salt and submerged in their own juice, then left to sit for a month or so until the rind goes soft and edible and the whole thing turns savory. They taste almost nothing like fresh lemon.

Where to get them: Mina makes a good Moroccan version in a jar that's easy to find in regular grocery stores. Or buy them loose at a Middle Eastern grocery, which is what I do. Mine come from Sahadi's.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 small white onion, chopped

• 1 celery stalk, chopped

• 2 tablespoons dill stems, chopped very fine

• 1/2 preserved lemon, finely chopped (about 2 tablespoons)

• 2 tablespoons juice from the preserved lemon jar

• 1 cup lentils (green French)

• 3 cups water, plus more as needed

• 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

• 2 tablespoons fresh dill, for garnish

Method

1. Heat a soup pot on medium-high and add the olive oil. Sauté the onion, celery, and dill stems for about 5 minutes, until the onion starts getting translucent.

2. Add the finely chopped preserved lemon and let it cook into the vegetables for a minute. Stir in the jar juice now if you want it mellowed, or hold it back and add it at the end for a sharper finish.

3. Add the lentils, water, and salt. Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to low. Green French lentils take about 40 minutes.

4. Taste as you go and add water and salt as needed. Garnish with the fresh dill.

Notes

Three cups of water gives you a thick, stewy result. If you want more of a soup with real broth, start with 5 cups instead. Red lentils break down as they cook and thicken things on their own, so go higher on the water with those.

It's really about eyeing it and tasting it as you go.

And now for your stock options tip…

This one comes directly from the manuscript of my forthcoming book, Creative Money: New Financial Rules for Artists, Innovators, and Misfits, out November 10th from Penguin Random House.

This is from Chapter 6: Understanding Your Equity

“Should I Exercise Now or Later?

There is no universal answer to this question. It depends on your cash reserves, your tax bracket, your view of the company's future, and the actual future that none of us can predict. But there are a few hard rules you cannot ignore. First, if you leave a company, you usually have ninety days to exercise vested options. Miss that window and you forfeit them forever. Second, most options have a ten-year expiration date.¹ So from the moment you are granted equity at a private company, you are racing against a ten-year clock for your company to either sell to another company, go public, or let you sell shares to new investors.

Let's review: "exercise" means writing a check. You pay cash at the strike price for each share. If you exercise 2,500 options at $1, that is $2,500 out of pocket today. And a potential tax bill. Exercising private company options is risky because there may be no market to sell into. You could buy shares that you cannot sell for years, or ever. Sometimes it is better to wait for a liquidity event and pay more tax later because at least you are paying from a real sale.”