I’m not accustomed to making excuses, but the dog didn’t exactly eat my homework. I was busy wrestling with jaw pain. I did learn how to work through pain, but it wasn’t fun. My meals were liquid or soft, taken only on the left side of my mouth.

If my husband weren’t such a marvelous chef, we might have opened more cans of Campbell’s Soup. As it was, we only opened one and added fresh mushroom slices to it: cream of mushroom soup.

We had smooth cream of tomato bisque made with ripe, homegrown tomatoes. There was cream of mushroom soup, potato soup, corn chowder broccoli and cheese soup, and Ma...