Warm vegetable soup for cold days

Warm vegetable soup for cold days

There are days when the cold seems to follow you indoors. You hang up your coat, take off your shoes, and turn the heating up a little, but your hands stay cold. On afternoons like that, I usually already know what’s going on the table: a big pot of vegetable soup.

I picked up that habit from my mother. As soon as the days grew shorter, there was often a pot simmering on our stove. I remember the fogged-up kitchen windows and the sound of her knife on the cutting board. While I did my homework at the table, carrots, leek, and celery went into the pot. Every now and then I was allowed to taste it, though I invariably burned my tongue.

Now I make soup myself, and I understand why she liked making it so much. It often starts with a look in the fridge. A few carrots, half a courgette, that last bit of leek: together, they turn out to be enough for a delicious meal. As the onion gently sizzles and I chop the rest of the vegetables, I slowly unwind. My phone stays on the table; it can wait for a while.

The lovely thing about vegetable soup is that no two pots taste exactly the same. Sometimes I add potato to make it more filling, sometimes a handful of vermicelli. And if there’s a little piece of cheese rind in the fridge, I let it simmer in the broth for a while. That little trick adds a surprising amount of flavor to the soup.

I like my soup best in a deep bowl, with a thick slice of bread on the side. Outside, the rain can beat against the windows. Inside, I pull my chair closer to the table and tear off a piece of bread to dip into the broth. I usually have a second bowl, too. And the leftovers? I’m already looking forward to them the next afternoon.