Aunty Duckie's Black Bean Rice Soup

She has spent her career studying the smallest living things in the ocean — the invisible, essential organisms that hold entire ecosystems together. But when Aunty Duckie, celebrated biologist and plankton researcher, is far from her family in the Southwest, she makes this soup.

Because some things are bigger than science. Like home.

Aunty Duckies Black Bean Rice Soup is a bowl built for distance and longing — the kind you make when you need the warmth of the people you love to travel to you, since you can't travel to them. Black beans bring resilience and security, the quiet backbone of the bowl. Rice calls in prosperity, fertility, and wealth. Corn nourishes the spirit. Peppers fire up energy and keep the circulation moving. Onions and garlic do their cleansing work. Tomato powder stokes the life force. And cumin and paprika wrap it all in the kind of warmth that feels like a Southwest afternoon — golden, dry, and full.

This is Aunty Duckie's soup. A scientist's comfort food. A family's Southwest, in a bowl.

Serves 4–6.