from the kitchen of Carolina Gelen
November 5, 2026
editors note: this was originally published for First Thursdays
We’re all in dire need of a good pot of soup.
Uncomplicated. Able to comfort many.
At its core they’re simple to build. Fat. Vegetable. Bean. Grain. Meat. Spice. Salt. Water. The list is in no particular order, with everything capable of being omitted or swapped except for the obvious fat, salt, and water. Broth on its own can heal. Be a balm in times of recovery, illness, and stress
There is a lot to love. You can expand a few ingredients through the mother of all solutions, water. From the complex aromas riding on its stream to the satisfaction knowing there’s a hot bowl of something delicious in your future, soup is simple as it is satisfying. Be it vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore soups telegraph a healing, hearty, and often easy to digest* form of comestible care.
The complexity as to why the bowl of soup has receded into culinary invisibility is more than this letter can address. However there are a couple worth noting; a couple I have circulating theories around. The first being the demise of the large Sunday supper from which any scraps remaining from the aforementioned meal gets scraped, cleaned, and heaved into a large pot along with a gallon or two of water to be simmered down into the precursor of any veritable soup or stew. Resourceful planning is the second. Soup needn’t be or is rarely complicated. But it does take a certain amount of chopping, mincing, rinsing. The prep is rewarded with a pot that can simmer away mostly ignored.
At its core soup is basic—a sautee followed by the subsequent adding of different ingredients based on cooking time and then the liquid. Simmering stock is on general rotation. It’s part of my resources plan. It amounts to throwing the bones from last night's chicken thighs or a few carrot tops, parsley, kale, winter squash skins, or onion scraps that would otherwise make it into the compost into a small pot for a quart to be readily available. When it’s not, I just use water.
That’s the beauty of it. The magic and alchemy of it. The generosity of it. With water, a little becomes a lot.
Like Elaine Benes, I want good soup. But I live in Albuquerque and if out and about it’s hard to find a restaurant, aside from the Whole Foods hot bar that has more than one soup (if at all) to choose from. Unfortunately the selection at WF is far from satisfying, extremely over-salted, and in general mediocre. If I’m hankering for soup, the solution is always to make a big pot and ensure there’s plenty of bread and butter.
My enthusiasm borders advocacy not only because of the heavy, wet, warm, and spreading qualities which support hydration, bowel movement ease, and a weighted sense of calm but the fact that they’re easy to digest and in the big picture they’re pretty straightforward to make. Perhaps it’s also worth mentioning that I’ve had multiple Ayurvedic Doctors as well as my Doctor of Oriental Medicine tell me I should not be eating salad or raw foods of any kind. SEINFELD’s memorable, “no SOUP for you!!” is more like “no SALAD for you!!”
Soup has made a big difference in my life. It’s not like I’m bringing it back because it never went anywhere. I’m just reminding you and myself to include it in the weekly rotation.
When in Lisboa, Portugal having a vegetable soup puree daily at family dinner was typical. It was so analogous with eating that it was everywhere. In Amsterdam we visited, more than once, a soup bar quite similar to the one in Seinfeld, luckily sans the gruff proprietor. With a half a dozen stools for guests, the three of us cradling our delicious bowls happily slurping away.
I found this recipe (image card below) last year and over the several times I’ve made it I’ve tweaked it to make it my own or adjusted it based on what I had in the pantry. It’s DELICIOUS! ENJOY!
Make it your own—recipes, in my opinion, should morph and evolve to express the unique hands and heart of the maker.
Yours, Erin
* When life feels hectic or chaotic or stress is high, having something simple and easy for your stomach to digest helps. You’re lightening the load of any excess burden.
recipe © caronlina gelen linked above in text