Soup’s On!

By Amy Coward

If you come to my house on any given Saturday in the fall, there will be a pot on the stove filled with simmering broth. The aroma of boiling chicken, fresh veggies and herbs will greet you at the door as comfort food at its finest is in the making – my homemade soup. It makes for such a simple meal, but to me a pot full of goodness is just what I want for lunch or after a long day at work.

While I work away at chopping and dicing, the Food Channel is usually on in the background.  I love to watch all the pros make their classic dishes and I fantasize that I could do just as well. Whether it’s Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, or Trisha Yearwood, the country singer, they all have their own twist to cooking and I’m always sure I could keep up with the best of them. After all, I took Home Ec in high school (remember Home Ec?). And more importantly, I learned everything I know from my mom, a great Southern cook.

So why is it that if I’m such an ace in the kitchen (according to my own distorted view, of course) do I stick to soup as the staple I’ll serve throughout the week?  Good question. I think it’s because despite the number of shows I watch on the Food Channel, I’ve become kind of a lazy cook. I like nothing better than to throw things randomly into a pot and let them simmer into a one-pot meal. No more flattening chicken breasts and stuffing them with prosciutto and gouda cheese, no wandering the aisles of multiple grocery stores for obscure ingredients (some of which you’ve never heard of ), no sacrificing a full bottle of perfectly good red wine to make Beef Bourguignon, no making little chef hats to put on a rack of lamb. Nope. Just boil a chicken, bone it and add veggies or pasta to the broth, throw in a few seasonings and call it a meal.  It’s true comfort food to me.  And I’m completely fine making it up as I go along – no recipe necessary.

My daughter gives me a hard time about my affection for soup. She’s always cooking something elaborate and fabulous and she’ll ask what we’re having for dinner. I’ll answer, “you know…soup.” She’ll respond with “oh” so clearly unimpressed and laughs.

So just ignore all those magazines you see on my end tables when you come to visit — Southern Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Cooking Light. While they’re all filled with wonderful, tried and true recipes, you are not likely having any of those for dinner at my house. You had best accept the fact that those bowls on the table are a sure sign that soup is in your future – company or not. I may get fancy and offer some crusty bread and a glass of wine to wash it down with, but soup will be the star of the show.

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