Everything is better together

I just read one of my all-time favorite psychology papers, Everything Is Better Together,* by Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn, who are both at the University of British Columbia. The study method was ingenious. The authors mined the data from four years of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which measures how people divide their time among life’s various activities, such as paid work, childcare, volunteering, and socializing. The ATUS method is to select households to try to reflect America’s diverse range of demographic characteristics. One person aged 15 or older in each household is then asked to describe their previous day in episodic fashion, similar to Daniel Kahneman’s Day Reconstruction Method.

 

In the years studied by Folk and Dunn (2010, 2012, 2013, and 2021), the ATUS included questions about (1) how happy the interviewee felt during three of the episodes they described, and (2) whether they were interacting with anyone while engaged in those episodes. ATUS coders then placed each episode into one of over 400 pre-specified activity categories, such as eating and drinking, doing laundry, playing games, walking, attending movies, etc. Folk and Dunn then mined that data to “examine[] the relationship between socializing and happiness across more than 80 daily activities by analyzing 105,766 activity episodes from 41,094 participants” in the ATUS. Incredibly, Folk and Dunn found that “participants consistently rated every common daily activity as more enjoyable when interacting with someone else.” Folk and Dunn concluded that “whether we are eating, reading, or even cleaning up around the house, happiness thrives in the company of others.” And, while literally “everything is better together,” we here at UaKS are especially happy to note that the largest effect, by far, was for eating and drinking together.

 

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* Folk, D., & Dunn, E. (2025). Everything Is Better Together: Analyzing the Relationship Between Socializing and Happiness in the American Time Use Survey. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506251364333

 

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Now you need a dish that will feed enough people so that you can eat, drink, and be merry together. Here is such a dish. I actually threw this together on a whim one night when I was feeling chef-y. I had a pre-cut package of butternut squash and a red bell pepper I didn't want to go bad. I added some other veggies that chop easily (onion and celery), and then just started throwing in herbs and spices till it tasted delicious to me. It ended up being so good that I panicked a little and wondered if I could recreate it. But I made it again for Mom and Brad and Grandma and Pop-pop and everyone loved it, and it seemed pretty close to what I did the first time, so I decided to write it up for everyone. See what you think.  

 

Paul’s Warming Fall Soup with

Butternut Squash and Chickpeas

Time: ~45 minutes

Depending on your knife skills, you can either do all the mise en place first, as usual, or if you’re pretty proficient at the chopping, you can follow these directions to speed the process along. The idea here was to do something more creative, so you should, as usual, feel free to make whatever changes with veggies, herbs, and spices fit your tastes. 

28 grams (2 tablespoons) extra-virgin olive oil or butter or a mixture
1 red bell pepper
2 celery stalks
1 medium onion
1 medium butternut squash (to yield ~20 ounces / 570 grams of usable flesh after peeling and seeding)
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 teaspoon curry powder
½ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon Aleppo-style chile flakes (such as Silk Chili from Burlap & Barrel)

¼ teaspoon dried mushroom powder (optional)
4 cups (950 grams) vegetable stock (I use 25 grams of Better Than Bouillon Seasoned Vegetable Base mixed with 4 cups of boiling water)

1 teaspoon fine sea salt, plus a pinch
1 (15.5-ounce) can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Final adjustments (mostly optional) 

A squeeze of honey
A squeeze of lemon
⅛ teaspoon sumac
Cayenne pepper

    1. Place the oil and/or butter in a stockpot or very large (at least 4 quarts) saucepan and place over a medium heat.
    2. Stem the bell pepper, then remove the ribs and seeds. Chop into ½-inch pieces. Add to the pot and stir to coat with the fat.
    3. Trim the ends of the celery stalks, then chop into ¼-inch pieces. Add to the pot and stir.
    4. Peel the onion and chop into ½-inch pieces. Add to the pot and stir.
    5. Peel and deseed the butternut squash. Chop into ½-inch pieces. Add to the pot and stir. Season everything with a pinch of salt. Cook until the onion is soft and translucent.
    6. Add the garlic, curry powder, thyme, chile flakes, and mushroom powder, if using. Stir until fragrant and the spices have bloomed, about a minute.
    7. Stir in the veggie stock and 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat to maintain a steady but not violent simmer.
    8. Once simmering, stir in the chickpeas. Cook until you can smoosh a piece of squash against the side of the pot pretty easily with a wooden spoon.
    9. Using an immersion blender, purée about half the soup. (You can skip this or purée it all, but I like to keep a good amount of chunks.) Stir in a squeeze of honey, then adjust the taste to your liking with lemon, sumac, and/or cayenne; you’ll probably need at least one of the lemon or sumac for acidity/brightness. Serve promptly. Serves 6.