HUNGRY GERALD

“A trip to the moon on gossamer wings” (Cole Porter). No, HG’s delight in BSK’s inventive soups is not so aesthetic but robustly earthy. There is no better lunch on a cold day. Turns winter into spring. BSK rummages in the refrigerator and combines aging vegetables and greens with herbs, spices and stock. They go into a pot and after cooking are pureed with BSK’s immersion blender. Sometimes the bowls of soup are topped with Greek yogurt (and a sprinkle of cayenne or Spanish smoked paprika). This week BSK did a variation of Melissa Clark’s (NY Times) recipe for spinach and mushroom soup. Aged mushrooms, baby spinach and leeks plus fresh thyme and basil went into the pot with Swanson’s chicken broth and a host of spices including cumin, cardamon, coriander, etc. The result was an explosion of flavor. BSK calls her creation “green soup” or “garbage soup.” HG calls it “wonder soup.”

As HG luxuriates in front of a crackling fire at his New Mexico home watching news reports of three foot snow drifts battering the East Coast, HG notices a funny sensation. A nostalgic hunger for the soups HG’s Mom fed the family. They warmed HG and family in the winter and cooled them in the summer. Winter-time soups were either kapustah or potato soup. Kapustah, as HG recollects it, was a cabbage, onion, tomato, garlic melange in a beef broth enlivened with chunks of boiled beef. This was topped with a big ladle full of sour cream plus some fiery, freshly grated horseradish. With a few slices of Stuhmer’s (or Pechter’s) pumpernickel (with the savory spread of chicken fat and coarse salt) this was a solid, filling, cold weather dinner. The potato soup was simple. Just boiled potatoes and onions in a rich beef stock. A lunch dish. Warm weather soups were beet borscht and schav, both served cold. Mom’s borscht was incomparable. She used something she called “sour salt” to balance the sugary earthiness of the beets, giving the soup a distinctive sweet-tart taste. It received the usual topping of sour cream plus a healthy shower of chopped scallions and radishes. It was accompanied by a hot, buttered boiled potato. Schav was a sorrel soup, mouth puckeringly sour. Unlike the English Sorrel soup, the sorrel in Schav is not pureed but left in its leafy state. This soup was served icy cold (sometimes ice cubes were added to the bowl). Sour cream, naturally, and the obligatory boiled potato. During those non-air conditioned years of yesteryear, schav was a lifesaver on a blazing New York summer day.

Mock Turtle sang to Alice: “Soo-oop of the e-e-evening, Beautiful, Beautiful Soup.” True in Wonderland. True on Prince Edward Island. This was HG’s thought as he spooned some of Exquisite Maiko’s Hot and Sour Soup into his bowl. Hot and Sour Soup is a staple on the menus of many Chinese restaurants and it is usually an oily mess thickened with corn starch into an almost paste-like consistancy. Not Maiko’s. Her soup, dotted with Napa cabbage, mushrooms and bean sprouts, was light and invigorating; the veggies kept their integrity and the broth was fiery without being numbing. BSK is another master (or should it be mistress?) of soup. When HG has had some minor illness HG has been sustained by BSK’s bowls of chicken broth into which she has beaten an egg and enriched with parmigiano cheese. BSK makes great zucchini, spinach, broccoli and sorrel soups. She never uses cream and enhances her soups with a wise variety of herbs and spices. Great hot or cold and always delicious with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of cayenne. Thrifty BSK makes a green soup which utilizes all the leftover vegetables (cooked and raw) in the refrigerator. All are chopped up and go into a kettle of steaming chicken broth (BSK favors Trader Joe’s Organic Free Range Chicken Broth). After a puree in the food processor it becomes magical stuff with heady overtones of adobo, cayenne and cumin. For a flavorful late night meal all that is required is the addition of a cheese board, good bread and lots of red wine.

SJ here. In the recent post Chicken Soup From a Mexican Mom, HG described a soup that had me twitching with envy. The soup HG ate was called Caldo Tilapena and it was a hearty Mexican dish, brimming with chicken and chipotle peppers and many good things. I had a similar soup once, years ago, when I was visiting a town called San Miguel De Allende a few hours south of Mexico City. This soup was tomato based, cut through with fresh herbs, poached chicken, strips of crunchy corn tortilla and topped with crumbly white queso Fresco and Mexican creme fraiche. I loved this soup. I had it in the late 80s and probably not a week has gone by where I don’t think back to it with a nod of appreciation and mumble under my breath…That was damn good soup.

I never had another soup like it until 1996 when I was living in Chicago and got hit with a tremendous cold — maybe it was a flu, even — whatever the case, I was miserable. My nose was raw, my ears hurt, a steady cough made my stomach muscles hurt, and a fluctuation in my body temp had me going from shakes to sweat in five minute intervals. Plus, I was hungry. So, I took my sad, sick body to Artuto’s — a fine 24 hour Mexican spot around the corner from my house that specialized in food from the Jalisco region. I ate there a lot so everyone knew me and were concerned by the sad state of my health. A suggestion was made and I was brought their Caldo Pollo: a HUGE, piping hot bowl filled with chicken, potatoes, carrots, yucca all in a very rich and very greasy chicken broth that REALLY tasted of chicken (you could just imagine that stock pot in Arturo’s kitchen slowly simmering for weeks on end being fed chicken scraps and bones all through the day). Served alongside was chopped onion, cilantro, limes and a stack of warm tortillas. Boy. I tell you, if you are sick and alone and meet a soup like that, it is akin to stepping off the orphan train into the arms of a true Mom goddess who will rest your head in her breast and let you sleep for a million years. The Arturo’s soup touched my soul, nestled it, loved it, warmed it and brought it back to health. A soup for the ages. A soup that I have pined for since I left Chicago.

Well, reading HG’s soup posting made me think back to those two soups, and not just think…but obsess. Here in NYC, I couldn’t just take off to New Mexico, or Chicago or Mexico for that matter, so I had to satisfy this craving on my own — and as it was a craving for all three soups, I decided I would take the best elements of each and create a monster of my own. So I read a bunch of recipes for Tortilla Soup both on-line and in Mark Bittman’s excellent cookbook: The Best Recipes In The World and then I thought to myself about what I liked about the two soups I remembered and the HG soup that I imagined and using those as a guideline I then created a really great soup that satisfied my craving absolutely. And I — kind and gentle and giving SJ that I am — will now share it with all of you:

SJ’s BIG BOWL OF HG INSPIRED CHICKEN-TORTILLA SOUP

First! Gather these ingredients:

1 onion (roughly minced)

6 cloves garlic (minced)

1 lb of chicken thighs

4 cups chicken stock (store bought is fine, but honestly make your own stock! It is easy, it makes you feel good about yourself and it is 100 times better than what you can buy)

10 soft corn tortillas cut into 1/4″ strips

1 can whole plum tomatoes

6 limes

2 Zucchinni

12 or so dried Red Chili Pods (mild) and 1 dried chipotle pepper (with stems cut off and stripped off seeds)

Start by simmering your dried chili & chipotle pods for about 20 minutes in 3 to 4 cups of water until they are pulpy and tender

While you are doing that begin frying up those strips of tortilla. If you have never made fresh tortilla chips before, well, time to learn because NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING will make friends, spouses and lovers think you are an amazing cook and super person and a sexy motherfucker like making fresh, hot tortilla chips and NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING is as easy as making fresh, hot tortilla chips. Biggest bang for your buck in the 21st Century. Here’s what your do: heat up about 4 to 5 tablespoons of canola oil in a wok, on high, for about five minutes. Cut round corn tortillas into quarters. Test the oil heat, by slipping a chip into the pan. If the oil furiously bubbles around the chip. Then you are good to go! Don’t overcrowd and cook to golden and drain on paper towels. So, using this method fry those tortilla strips in batches until they are golden. Instead of a wok use a big soup pot. When you are finished, pour out half the oil, return to heat and then add your onion and garlic. Cook until the onion and garlic are soft and just beginning to caramelize into golden yellow. Remove your peppers from the water and add to onions. Also add the can of tomatoes, the broth and 3/4 of the tortilla strips you prepared. Bring the whole thing to a gentle boil. When you have a moment before the boiling begins, put your chicken into the water that you cooked your peppers in, bring to simmer and cover. The chicken should take about 20 minutes to be ready.

While the chicken cooks add whatever seasonings (oregano, salt, white pepper, thyme) to your broth and then get your damn immersion blender out and go at it! Blend that soup until SMOOTH!!! When you are satisfied and the chicken is done, then you have to shred the hot chicken which is not fun at all, but do it under cold, running water and you should be protected. Add the shredded chicken to the broth alongside your zucchini which you have cut into quarters. Add the water that your chicken cooked in, the juice of all those limes and bring the whole thing to a lazy boil. If the soup seems too thick, then add water. Cook until the zucchini are ready. Taste, adjust for seasonings, and then serve the soup in a BIG bowl with chopped, fresh onion, cilantro, more limes for squeezing, the rest of the tortilla strips, Queso Fresco and avocado. If you like, you could add rice, chick peas or hominy to the soup to make it even MORE filling.

There it is. A great, delicious, healthy soup that will nurse you through any cold and keep you full and smiling no matter the season. Thanks HG for the inspiration.

A bowl of ice cold, flavorful soup on a hot summer day. Nothing can be better. HG has enjoyed gazpacho, cucumber soup, carrot soup — all frigid treats. HG remembers with fondness his mother’s sweet, sour and bright red beet borscht. Served cold, it softened to pink when tablespoons of thick sour cream were stirred into it. HG’s mom also made mouth puckering Schav, a sorrel soup which was always accompanied by a hot boiled potato. HG was never fond of French Vichyssoise. Too much sweet cream. Stultifying rather than refreshing.

This week HG has been experiencing (as New Mexico battles horrible forest fires) the ultimate cold soup — nourishing and soulful. The soup was prepared by HG’s Santa Fe friend, Vicki Buckingham, a vegetarian who does exquisite things with the products of the earth. Vicki claims her soup has a Polish origin and HG can discern some East European elements in it. Here’s the recipe for what HG call’s “Vicki’s Miracle Heat Beater”: Using a blender or food processor, blend five small tomatoes with a tablespoon of vinegar (cider or rice) plus salt and pepper. When smooth add the pureed tomatoes to a quart of buttermilk and chill in the refrigerator. Serve with bowls of four cooked medium beets (cut into slivers); six finely chopped scallions; a cubed and seeded cucumber; chopped hard boiled eggs; lots of chopped dill. Diners add these ingredients to suit their taste. (HG likes to top it off with a dash of cayenne pepper).

When not making soup, Vicki is a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. The Method increases a person’s range of movement and flexibility (among other positive results). Vicki worked her Feldenkrais magic on BSK and BSK swears by it. You can learn more about Vicki and Feldenkrais (and soup): victoriabuckingham@gmail.com.

Says HG: If you want great at-home dining lease an apartment in a less than posh neighborhood. Expensive clothing stores (Prada, Gucci, etc., etc. ) have pushed out the mom-and-pop bakers, butchers, cheese, etc. shops. In Paris’ 9th and 18th the little guys reign supreme and a baguette, fromage, a roast chicken with roast potatoes are always footsteps away.

London’s takeaway soup and sandwich shops are super good, super cheap. HG likes EAT in particular. Very good pho and hoisin duck soups. When counterman adds some extra chili, London damp disappears from the bones. Tea with scones, clotted cream and marmalade is a London blessing. In American terms, good French wine is very cheap. Britain’s Oddbins wine chain is what US needs.

Parisians have become obsessed with the American hamburger but, alas, they never seem to get it right. Besides scarf tying, Parisians (male and female) are expert in walking very fast while eating a baguette sandwich and talking on cell phone between bites. An American would choke.

Yes, HG is shrinking (vertically) but the French and English are surely getting taller. Very fat people are exported to the USA. One can still eat well in a modest Parisian bistro for a small price. A comparable London meal will cause the credit card to sizzle.

Canned baked beans (and tinned mushrooms!) are part of a proper English breakfast. Everyone must have a minor perversion.

Tourist or native, one is always met with courtesy in London and Paris.

An HG opinion: Paris movie audiences are hip, quiet and polite. Makes movie going a delight.