Soup

January 27, 2000

SOUP

I have had some wonderful soups. One summer after a week of balmy sailing on the Chesapeake, I went north. At Gloucester I found a whale watch boat with a cancellation and went aboard dressed as I had been for sailing in Maryland. Trouble is, it was not a day in the sunny south, but a day of gray, cold, New England rain, marvelous for whales, not so great for people. The excitement of seeing whales sounding all around the boat kept my mind off the weather but when I came ashore I was chilled all through. A restaurant right next to the dock had the thickest, greatest clam chowder in the world, ready the minute I sat down, and the perfect temperature to eat immediately.

We have a mile long lane, half way down a mountain ( called a hill locally) from which the snow blows and drifts. When we were all younger we drove the cars out when a storm started and walked in a mile, and then of course a mile out to go anywhere. There was a day when the first born and I managed to get first one car and then another stuck in drifts. We walked back and forth begging help and moving cars as they got plowed or towed out. At last we staggered in to a friend's house when she ordered us in for soup. It was super delicious chicken noodle. It was so super delicious that I asked for the recipe. She looked puzzled, then amazed,, and said ,"It's Campbell's."

With the old farm hedgerows cleaned out to please golfers looking for balls, most of the lane is fairly open or easy to plow, but the traditional big drift comes with every snow. The curve of the earth and the mountain and the road and the wind work together. After one snow the first born tried to take her horse out the lane. The big drift was up to the horse's shoulders. He came up to it and just stood there until she gave in and turned him home. Today I plodded through knee high snow to get to the car, brushed a foot of snow off the hood, and drove out, hoping, until I came in sight of the big drift, whereupon I left the car, with a key, and walked home half a mile or so. I knew friends would plow out the drift and bring my car in sooner or later and they did. Meanwhile I came in out of 0° to the warm house, and microwaved a bowl of soup a friend gave me the other day. She used to truck produce in to New York green markets so she knows her vegetables. She uses lots of them in her soups, with garbanzos.

It looks as if any soup recipe will be perfect if you add one more instruction. Go out and get really cold before eating. Here's one soup recipe that tastes good any time and is quick to make : Nancy's Tuna Cheese Soup.