Love Soup! Review, Interview, Recipe and Contest!

Recently, I was approached to review Love Soup, by Anna Thomas. I enthusiastically accepted. After all, The Vegetarian Epicure was a terrific resource for me when we first went vegetarian, along with The New Farm Cookbook and Laurel’s Kitchen. Way back when, we loved the Pasta con Funghi, which was a big deal for me to make, considering that it took 1 1/2 pounds of mushrooms! And it was worth every cent. Another dish we enjoyed a lot was the Cauliflower al Grecque. I also cooked a bit from The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two. But as much as I enjoyed both of those books, I think I just might get more use out of Love Soup. If you can stick with this lengthy post, you’ll have a chance to win a copy, too!

Love Soup, published by W. W. Norton and Company, shows a happy evolution from her first two books. In this book, Anna makes you feel as if she’s truly in the kitchen with you, encouraging you to tap into some of your own cooking intuition, thanks to the notes that start each recipe. As she says, soup is very forgiving. The book is organized by season, to help take advantage of local produce when you can. In addition to the 100 soup recipes, there are another 60 recipes that can round out the meal.

While the book isn’t 100% vegan, most of the remaining 1/3 of recipes that aren’t could be easily veganized by most of you reading this blog. We’re used to our substitutions: earth balance for butter, soy milk or cream for the dairy, and so on. So far, I’ve made two of the soups from the book and we’ve enjoyed both. Neither of them happened to be written as vegan. But before I get into the soups themselves, let me share some notes that Anna graciously sent in answer to some questions.

1. What made you become vegetarian?

I am often asked this, and it is an interesting one for me to answer, because I didn’t just wake up one day and say, “I am going to be a vegetarian, for ethical or health or philosophical or political reasons… “ I just noticed that I was eating less and less meat, and then I wasn’t eating any meat. I do think that all the reasons people have for making a clear decision about this are excellent. I agree with them all. But that’s not how it happened in my case. And as I began cooking more and more vegetarian food, I began developing my own style. Ideology is important, but when I sit down to eat, I don’t want to eat ideology, I want to eat delicious food. So that’s the perspective I brought to my cooking: I wanted to have a good time eating! And that has always been the foremost idea in my cooking, my books, and my whole life with food.

2. Considering how long you’ve been vegetarian (since at least 1973 when the Vegetarian Epicure was first published), how do you feel the movement (as well as the vegan movement) has changed?

To set the record straight — I am not a pure vegetarian. I have been a vegetarian at various times in my life, and I am mainly vegetarian all the time, but just as I don’t dictate to anyone else how they should eat, I am not rigid about it myself. I have always believed that no one will do anything very long because they are supposed to. They’ll do it because they want to. And since I love great vegetarian food, I try to provide anyone who is interested with many delicious options, making it easier for them to want that! I think one of the things that made my very first cookbook such a success was that I didn’t try to convince anyone to eat any particular way – but simply offered them new and delicious choices. Having said that, I am aware of such huge changes in our food culture in the time since The Vegetarian Epicure was published! At that time, if you were vegetarian you were considered a crank or eccentric. There was a vegetarian restaurant in London called Crank’s – I used to go there every time I went to London. And the available vegetarian food was, in general, nothing to get too excited about. We used to call it the self-denial school of vegetarian cuisine, or, when we were feeling snarky, the hairshirt school. That’s why I felt I had to write my first book – I wanted the words “delicious” and “vegetarian” to be used in the same sentence without people rolling their eyes. Now there are many vegetarian and vegan restaurants, and so much fantastic vegetarian food. And what I think is most important is that many, many restaurants that aren’t specifically vegetarian now offer vegetarian and vegan items on their menus, and it’s just not such a big deal. So meatless cooking and eating has really become mainstreamed in our food culture – at least in California. It doesn’t feel like a movement, just like an ever-growing part of the food culture. A few years ago, I was invited to do a meatless Thanksgiving menu for Gourmet Magazine – I thought, that’s it, we’ve arrived. Vegetarian cooking is just part of the landscape now. On the other hand, the vegan community does have a strong sense of movement about it, which has its own excitement. The rise of the vegan movement has, I think, coincided with the internet and all this social media, so there is tremendous communication. Ideas are discussed and exchanged along with recipes – like chatting over the backyard fence in a big, big way. This is the new wave, with so much persuasive argument behind it. I’m very interested in vegan cooking now, and I was happily surprised when I went through all the soup recipes in my new book and found that over two-thirds of them were vegan! And that was without any conscious effort to make them vegan – just the natural evolution of my cooking style.

3. When cooking at home, what are your go-to seasonings?

The most important things in my kitchen are sea salt and excellent extra virgin olive oil. I always tell people, you have to start with good ingredients, or you won’t finish with a good result. Some of the best cooking is very simple, but start with the best ingredients. After my olive oil (and I’m embarrassed to admit how much I go through) I rely on fresh garlic, fresh herbs such as thyme, sage, parsley, cilantro, and mint, and of course – fresh lemon juice. I also love the taste of chiles, so I always have a variety of dried chiles on hand, and usually some fresh ones too. What else? Cumin! That’s my secret weapon in so many dishes – lightly toasted and freshly ground, so mysterious and wonderful.

4. Is there anything you’d like to share about the book?

I was in a tiny, temporary kitchen, which turned out to be far less temporary than planned, and I wanted to keep cooking and enjoying wonderful home-made food with my friends, but I didn’t have the space to do such elaborate meals as I used to. Soup became my go-to food, the thing that saved me over and over. I had such fun with it, and my whole entertaining style changed to something much more casual and intimate. At the same time, I got healthier. There was always something good to eat that was ready: soup in the fridge! Sometimes two or three kinds. I was making pureed green soups, and rich golden squash soups, bean soups and mintestrones, soups of roasted vegetables, beet soup, persimmon soup, soups based on grains, cold soups in the summer… there was no end to it. That’s when I realized I had to write a soup book. But here is the thing I want to say most of all: if you have not ventured much into cooking, give soup a try. It’s so easy, so flexible and practical, and so delicious and comforting. This is the entry to home cooking, the way in. Anybody can do it – and you can do it in any size kitchen, believe me! I wrote this whole book in the 81-inch kitchen.

The answers to these questions are expressed in the same open, kind way as Anna’s books are written, making them a pleasure to read. With very personal introductions to the recipes and helpful tips from how to shop for vegetables to planning a menu around a soup for casual and economical entertaining, this book is sure to get a lot of use.

So, back to the soups that I made. The Sopa de Poblanos was spicy and complex. For the goat cheese, I splurged and added a little Dr. Cow’s Tree Nut Cheese. It would make a delicious start for any Mexican meal. I’d suggest taste testing your poblanos for heat so you can sub a regular green pepper to mellow it out, if need be. We liked the heat, but it might be a bit much for everyone, depending on your poblanos. The second soup was the Corn and Cheese Chowder, which is sweet with just a touch of spice and has a knock-out texture. Since this is still corn season in many parts of the country, it’s a great time to try this recipe! As I mentioned, it’s not written vegan, but the usual subs work wonderfully. My changes are noted below.

With thanks to Anna Thomas, author of Love Soup and her publisher, W. W. Norton, enjoy the recipe!

Corn and Cheese Chowder

In my very first cookbook, The Vegetarian Epicure, I had a recipe for a corn and cheese chowder. I looked it up recently and saw that it called for…1 1/4 cups of heavy cream! Whoa! Then I laughed and thought, Those were the days. I was a young university student and thin as a rail. But corn and cheese chowder was one of my favorites, so I made it again and let it evolve with my current style of cooking: less cream, more corn, no flour, plenty of fresh herbs. It’s a delicious corn chowder for modern times. (If you’re still in school, go ahead and pour in another cup of cream – I don’t mind.)

1# Yukon Gold potatoes (450 g)
1 bay leaf
5 – 6 sage leaves, finely chopped or 2 teaspoons dried, crumbled sage
1 1/2 – 2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more if needed
1 large yellow onion (350 g)
1 Tbs. (15 ml) olive oil
1 Tbs. unsalted butter (note: I used earth balance)
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk (note: I used light soy milk)
1 cup (240 ml) basic light vegetable broth or canned vegetable broth
1/3 cup heavy cream or half-and-half (note: I used silk creamer)
4 cups (600 g) corn kernels, scraped from 6 – 7 ears corn
2 – 3 green onions, white and green parts, sliced (50 g)
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 cup (30 g) chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
hot paprika
freshly ground black pepper
4 – 5 Tbs. (75 ml) dry white wine (optional)
4 oz. (120 g) sharp cheddar cheese (note: I used vegan cheddar cheese)

Scrub the potatoes, cut them in 1/2-inch dice, and put them in a large soup pot with 3 cups (750 ml) water, the bay leaf, the sage, and a teaspoon of sea salt. Bring the water to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 to 6 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the onion coarsely and saute it in the oil and butter with a pinch of salt over medium heat, stirring often, until it is translucent and browning in spots, about 15 minutes. Add the onion to the soup, along with the milk, broth, cream, corn and sliced green onions. Bring the soup back to a simmer and let it bubble for another 6 to 7 minutes.

Toast the cumin seeds for a few minutes in a dry skillet, and then grind them in a mortar or a spice grinder. Add the cumin, parsley, a pinch of hot paprika, and some black pepper to the soup. Taste the soup, and add more salt if needed. Stir in the white wine if you wish.

Keeping the soup at just below the simmer point, slowly stir in the grated cheese, allowing it to melt smoothly into the soup. From this point onward, you cannot let the soup simmer or boili, as that would curdle the cheese. If you need to reheat it, do it carefully, watching and stirring.

I like to serve the soup with thin rye or pumpernickel toasts, or with homemade Oatmeal Molasses Bread (p. 394).

Now for the contest! Here’s your chance to win a copy of Love Soup! All you have to do is reply to this post by telling me the last way you enjoyed either corn or poblanos. I’ve got a new twist, too. For a second entry in the contest, please spread the word about this contest on your blog and let me know. Please include your blog address (if it’s not clickable) and be sure to check back to see if you won. This contest will end on Sept. 30th, VeganMoFo Eve.

Good luck, everyone!