Soup's on!

One of the loveliest things about truly horrible weather is how good it makes soup taste. On a miserable Saturday afternoon, making a pot of soup is satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying as eating that pot of soup.
I have been collecting and experimenting with every kind of soup I can find from minestrones to chowders. Simple or complicated, all winter long I make a pot of soup every weekend. It is the most elemental meal. The word soup shares its origin with the word supper. Eating and soup are one and the same when you trace their meanings back hundreds of years.
Soup is the sustenance that has been provided as charity for nearly 2000 years. There is a reason we call centers where poor are provided with food Soup Kitchens. When we are sick, we get chicken soup. When we are cold, we get toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. After Thanksgiving, we get turkey soup. The Pease Porridge in the rhyme we learned as children is what we would today call pea soup (which has gotten a bad rap over the years).
Last weekend I made bean soup. This weekend it was mushroom-barley. Next weekend I will make an old standard, smoked turkey chowder for LSH's church soup swap. I may have to make a double batch so we have some for ourselves.