As we learned when my dad came to town, the best way we know to honor a guest is to throw a Soup Night for him/her/them.

This time, Ryan’s parents were in town, which automatically signed us up for some of his Ma’s Gazpacho, a longtime favorite in his household.

My brother Rob was in NYC too. He doesn’t have enough kitchen years in him to have a recipe named after him yet — give him time, folks, I’ve no doubt there’ll be one soon — but I couldn’t escape all of those summer memories as a kid of shucking corn with him and my other brothers.

I ended up with a chilled corn recipe, taken from last month’s Gourmet, but doctored heavily. When I did the soup test run the weekend before, the soup was deemed to thin (would slosh easily, wouldn’t feel substantial) for a Soup Night contender. Yet, the more I looked at corn recipes, the less I could shake it’s chilled simplicity.

I decided to experiment. After consulting some food-savvies, I went with a combination of their suggestions: Added a roux, added a potato, added some cream.

Both soups were deemed delicious. Success!

I’ll post the recipes in a minute, but first, here’s a snapshot of the night in numbers:

Soupers: 46

First-time soupers: 26

Pounds of tomatoes gazpachoed: 8

Ears of corn shucked: 25

Featured out-of-town guests: 3

Super secret featured out-of-town guests: 1

Amazing desserts brought: At least six

Soup Nights looked forward to: All to come

Ma’s Gazpacho
Serves 4

1/4 t fresh ground pepper
1/2 small onion, sliced
1 small green pepper, seeded and sliced
3 tomatoes, quartered
1 large cucumber, peeled, sliced and seeded
1 clove garlic
1/2 t dried or fresh basil
1 t salt
2 T olive oil
3 T red wine vinegar
1/2 cup chilled chicken broth*

-Blend until almost smooth. Chill.

*for this Soup Night, we substituted vegetable broth for our lovely vegan friends.

Chilled Corn Soup
Serves 6

3 ears of corn, shucked
1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 T butter
4 1/2 c water
Garnish: sour cream and chives. I also recommend: dill!

- Cut kernels from cobs with a sharp knife, then cut cobs into thirds.

- Cook onion and garlic in butter with 1/4 tsp salt in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until onion is softened, about 5 minutes. Add corn and cobs, water, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes.

- Discard cobs, then puree corn mixture in batches in a blender until very smooth. Force soup through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding solids.

- Chill until cold, at least 1 hour.

I spent 10 days eating there in July and saw soup at nearly every meal. But, surprisingly, with all that soup, not once did I see the classic egg drop or anything featuring won ton. Oh, how the Chinese restaurants of the US have deceived us!

Egg drop and won ton are two classic soups, of course, but we ate such a great variety in a short amount of time that we only saw a couple repeats.

Among the soups I saw and ate, the general rule seemed to be: anything goes. Many of the broths were clear liquid, making it easy to see what was floating around under the surface. I saw quartered tomatoes, lots of noodles, mushrooms, lots of various greens, the occasional scrambled egg. (Scrambled, not dropped.)

Although, even thought the collection of ingredients seemed really random, I would be surprised if it was. The Chinese are well-known for concocting perfectly balanced dishes, and I can only imagine that goes for their soup ingredients, too.

Here’s a few sites that offer a great directory of links and other information about Chinese cuisine:

• About.com’s guide to Chinese Soups
• Soup in Chinese cooking, from chinesefood-recipes.com
• Soup guide at chinavoc.com

Finally, although vastly unrelated to soup, is something else I tasted in China. Snakes! In Wine! I did drink it, really I did!

One was Kenen. Kenan said reading this makes him hungry. What better review could you ask for?

The second is this soup I ate over the Fourth of July weekend. This soup was so good, that it stood out amongst all of the rest of the amazing food that I also ate that weekend. Lest you think that’s no big deal, allow me list what passed over my lucky palate that weekend this year:

- a watermelon salad with feta, pickled red onions, toasted pumpkin seeds, and olives (at Sweetwater)
- anise hyssop ice cream (at Marlow & Sons)
- buttery morels on toast (Marlow & Sons)
- awesome guacamole (4th of July party)
- Shackburger (at the Shake Shack)
- cheese fries (Shake Shack)
- chocolate milk shake (Shake Shack)
- key lime pie (Sweetwater)
- an insane chocolate dessert (Sweetwater)
- another insane chocolate dessert (Marlow & Sons)
- red-wine poached cherries over ricotta (cooked at home)
- pesto-flavored pasta with mushroom and garlic scape sauce with garlic scape flowers (cooked at home)
- cheesecake ice cream (cooked at home)
- and this, the second reason for returning to the soup blog:

When the Marlow & Sons waiter described it as a “summer squash soup” I might have stifled a yawn and considered the market salad. How silly of me! I cannot accurately describe just how amazing this soup was, except to say that it was creamy and velvety with hints of squash, perfectly melted Parmesan, and some breadcrumbs and basil floating on top.

It was absolutely perfect.

Want to make it? Try one of these recipes:

• - Cream of Squash Soup (from About.com: Southern Recipes)
• - Yellow Summer Squash and Corn Soup (from Gourmet via epicurious)
• - Summer Squash Soup with Parsley Mint Pistou (from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen)

When Wiley lent me his Moosewood Simple Suppers cookbook, this recipe was dog-eared. “It’s so easy,” he said. “And so, so good.”

There were two things about this that appealed to me: One, that it featured asparagus, and two, that it was based on the classic Greek lemon/rice soup called avgolemono.

Turns out, Wiley was right on both accounts. This soup consisted of just a handful of ingredients: vegetable broth, orzo, asparagus, dill, egg, lemon juice, and three steps.

When my dinner companion found out I was making an avgolemono, he literally cheered, as it was one of his favorite foods as a child. We made a funny pair of judges: He, the avgolemono lover, and I, the avgolemono novice.

And the verdict?

“Could use more lemon,” he said. “But yum.”

“Yum, indeed,” I said. “But where’s the salt and pepper?”

Want to make it? Here’s one that’s similar, albeit a bit more complicated: Asparagus and Dill Avgolemono (from Gourmet via epicurious.com)

Yesterday, I finally crossed paths with asparagus at the farmers market.

Tonight, I cook.

Tomorrow, I post.

Stay tuned…

I went to Wiley’s for dinner and he made an amazing Arugula, Potato, and Bread Soup. The culinary nerd in me was excited for two main reasons: I’d never had bread soup before, and when Wiley’s cooking, you know you are going to leave happy.

Admittedly, I was too busy probing the other dinner guest for travel hints of spending a weekend in Montauk to watch this soup come to life. But as evidenced by how much time Wiley spent chatting with up (a lot) and how much time he spent in front of the stove (not a lot), I’d venture to say this soup was a pretty easy one to make.

The recipe was from a Lidia Bastianich cookbook (I’m pretty sure it was this one), which is appropriate because bread soup is a classic Italian family supper meal. Perfect for a laid-back Sunday evening, don’t you think?

“Hmm…”

“I’m actually not even all that hungry, so whatever you want is fine.”

“Well, I’ve been eating a lot of fried food. That’s all they eat down there.”

“That was exactly me a week ago. Eating when you’re traveling is…well, not good.”

“Yeah. So…vitamins. Vegetables. Healthy.”

“I have frozen mushroom broth.”

“Maybe greens? Let’s add greens.”

“Rice too.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll be over soon.”

And just like that, the “I’ve been eating crap for a week, I need to get something good in me NOW but I don’t want to go grocery shopping” soup was born.

• 1/4 c. butter
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• Handful of mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces (we used baby bellas)
• Thyme
• 1 qt. mushroom broth
• 2 handfuls of spinach, chopped
• 1/2 c. cream
• 1 c. cooked brown rice
• Parmesan cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and onions, cook until fragrant and translucent. Add mushrooms, cook until tender.

Add thyme, mushroom broth, simmer for a bit before adding spinach. When spinach cooks down, add cream and cooked rice.

Serve with Parmesan and salt and pepper to taste.

Dad swooped into NYC for one night this week, so I got the neighborhood crew (+ a few Manhattanite stow-aways) together and welcomed him in the best way we know how: throwing a Soup Night in his honor.

This meal started with dinner the night before, when I ordered some mushroom soup at Dumont. I had been pondering ideas ranging from some kind of chili to lentil…but once I had a bite of this amazing mushroom, the search was over.

A favorite culinary sidekick of mine helped me scan some recipes and gather ideas (1 – add scallions, 2 – simmer for a long time, 3 – truffle oil makes it heavenly, etc), which is generally what I do when shooting from the soup hip.

The next day, Dad arrived, and we headed straight to the farmers market. I was a bit disappointed when the guy at the mushroom stand responded to our question of which mushrooms would be good for soup with: “oh, I don’t know. I don’t eat mushrooms. I just sell them.” Well! Thanks!

Next stop was Whole Foods, for the rest of the ingredients, other party goodies, some things to stock the pantry, and lunch, and then we went home and got to work.

The next thing I knew, my house was full of good smells and laughter.

Letting Dad in on that kind of gathering was exactly the intention, as I think it best represents the kind of living we like to do here in Brooklyn. Or at least, in La Soupe’s Brooklyn.

One of my favorite bits of the night was when I looked up and saw Dad sitting with five ladies, telling the story of how he met my mom. Then, clearly inspired, everyone around the table started telling stories of how their parents met.

Thank you, soupers, for such a lovely evening!

Extra special thanks to Liz, for the tasting and salting help, Dad for the mushroom-buying and cooking help, Erik for the recipe-hunting and cheese-buying help, Alexis for the scallion-buying help, Erik and Kelly for the extra bowls, and…the mushroom farmers market guy for no kind of help whatsoever.

The Soup

Seeing as I was winging it, I wouldn’t call this a “recipe” as much as I’ll call it “how I made it.” Keep in mind, the golden rule of soup: It’s really very hard to royally screw it up. Almost anything can be fixed with cream, salt, or more time to simmer.

You can use any mix of mushrooms as you’d like, but I would stay aware of the size and density of them, as I doubt all mushrooms cook down and puree to equal density. (Feel free to correct me on this, someone.) This can probably be amended by how much broth you add back in at the end, but might be tricky for planning how much soup you’re going to make.

2 shallots
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1/3 c. butter plus 2 T
1 pound baby bellas (buttons would work too)
1/2 pound shittake
1/2 pound portobellos
1/2 pound of oyster, blue foot, and green beech
1 bunch of scallions
Water/vegetable/chicken broth
1 pt of cream
1 t. white truffle oil
Salt

Chop shallots, garlic, and onions and cook in butter (you could hold back on the butter here, or use olive oil…but I didn’t…) until soft and translucent.

Chop most of the mushrooms, reserving enough for garnish or to add to the soup at the end. Put them in a large pot, with enough broth to cover. It’s better to be liberal with the broth, because you will add it back in slowly at the end, and can freeze whatever you don’t use. Chop the bunch of scallions and add them in with the mushrooms, as well as the onion/garlic/shallot mixture. You’re going to let this simmer for a while, so now is the time to add any other herbs or spices, as you wish. Let simmer for 45 minutes.

Strain the mushrooms out into a blender and puree in batches, adding a little broth to each one and transferring to a new soup pot when done. When all the mushrooms are done, add cream and truffle oil and stir well. Add broth in small amounts until desired thinness is reached (keeping in mind that the soup will thicken ever so slightly when simmering). Simmer for another 45 minutes, adding salt and other herbs or spices to taste.

While simmering, chop reserved mushrooms and cook in 2 T butter.

Garnish with reserved mushrooms or freshly grated pecorino romano.

Yields 16 smallish servings, with a few people getting seconds.

Freeze any extra mushroom broth for future use.