Recipes and I are not the best of friends.  My wife likes structure, rules, and measurements; she does the baking and she’s good at it.  I like spontaneity, patterns, and innovation; I think of recipes as interesting places to start.  And I like soup.  Last weekend I made a big pot of beef demi-glace so that we’d have some stock on hand to make soup.  I froze half of it in ice cube trays for easy use in sauces and whatnot.  It occurred to me as this behemoth of boiling bones rattled away on the back burner that I’m not a very good stock-maker, and that the stock is very good almost by accident.  I’m not rulesy enough to make that beautifully clear, golden chicken stock that my grandmother slaved over.  My beef demi is tasty, sure, but it’s kind of… well, arbitrary, you know?

But I will tell you this: I really like a good, precisely-made soup and maybe someday I’ll have the patience and the humility to sit down with a recipe and follow it rigorously.  When I do, I’m pretty sure it’s going to come from this book, which is the Culinary Institute of America’s answer to all things soup.  Let me tell you, whether you are a cookbook myrmidon or a reckless fool like me, you will cherish this guide to the path of soup mastery.

 There was a time when I thought quite seriously about going to cooking school and becoming a chef.  I worked a couple volunteer shifts in one of my favorite top-flight restaurants in Los Angeles and realized that I don’t have nearly enough discipline to pull it off.  Also, my knees hurt like hell after only about six hours of kitchen work.  So I left the notion of professional cooking well behind and went back to experimenting with craziness in my kitchen at home.  Typically the results are pretty good.  Tomorrow it’ll be a chilly night and we’ll put our daughter to bed and settle down to a bowl of beef barley with porcini mushrooms and a splash of sherry.  It’s really not from the book.

Have a good soup season.