The only – and I mean that – the only thing I like about winter is the freedom to and what I firmly believe is my responsibilty to make soup on a regular basis.
(Yes, you can make soup when it’s hot outside. But it doesn’t have the same punch, and in fact even thinking about it during the summer makes me even hotter. When it’s summer. Which it’s not at the moment. Yeah, yeah, gazpacho, etc. Cold soups are not what I’m talkin’ about here. Frankly, I don’t even get the concept of this “cold soup” of which you speak.)
I don’t know why I love soup so much – the same reason I love salad, especially composed salads. The mixture of flavors and textures, the frequency of garlic..who knows. I’ve never been a slab-of-meat – veggie-starch-on-a-plate person, and honestly, as the years go by, the more repulsive the whole “slab of meat” part of that scenario seems to me. I think I simply inherited my mother’s palate, heavily French, in which Salade Nicoise and a cassoulet are things I could live on for weeks.
(But not Vichysoisse, obviously…)
I have a few favorites, although I try not to get stuck on them, as Katie’s words from this fall echo in my mind. I said, “Oh, it’s getting cool, time for soup,” and she muttered something like, “And soup…and soup…and soup.”
The gist being…too much of a good (or, in her mind, probably..”okay”)  thing.
The two soups I could presently live on are both from this cookbook, The Essentials of Italian Cooking by the great Marcella Hazan:  the Minestrone and the Pasta e Fagioli- I made the lentil last week, at it was fabulous, too.
They like Tortilla Soup unless I go a little too hot on it. There’s a really simple “Sopa de Mexicano” at a local restaurant that I want to try to figure out how to make. I’ve made a couple of leek soups the past few months. I’ve been meaning to do something with barley, but haven’t got to it yet. I’ve not made Italian Wedding Soup yet this winter, I just realized…hmmm.
And I don’t like cream soups – at all. Last week I just constructed something – I’m not sure what – out of the last of the Christmas turkey stock, many vegetables (including leeks. This is the Winter of the Leek)  sauteed with much garlic and then with a few handfuls of ditali tossed in at the end ..and it was fabulous. At least I thought so. I’m almost at the point of giving up pleasing anyone else but myself in the kitchen, anyway,  to be honest. As my mother said in one of her most memorable moments. to a whiny young teenager who’d just rejected every one of her suggestions for what to eat, “Fix your own damn dinner, then.”
What she said. I’ll just sit here with my soup. Happily.
Update: Okay, all you people posting about kale soups. Are you going give us recipes?
Another Update:    We have a recipe for Portugese Kale Soup. Can another type of sausage be substitued? Like Chorizo? Or is that blasphemy? The blogger/cook does give a link to ordering the required types, but I was just wondering…