Soup Night (26 page)

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Soup is a very democratic food: It equally warms the hearts and stomachs of cooks and eaters, and since it is so forgiving, even very inexperienced cooks can make it successfully. And then there are folks like Paul and Lori and their friends, who happily describe themselves as “foodies.” Even these serious cooks enjoy making and sharing soup.

I know it’s simple, but I can’t help thinking: maybe all the world
really
needs is another Soup Night.

In 2008, Paul and Lori said to each other, “What if we took a Sunday evening, invited family and friends, people we don’t see on a regular basis?” They settled on Sundays, 4:30 to 7:30, because “Sunday is a quiet evening, and we set the time early for people with little kids.” Invitations went to about 30 different families: “We’ll make soup, you just show up, no need to RSVP.”

Now they have settled into a pattern: once a month for three months — January, February, and March — on Sunday evenings. They make three soups, one of which is vegetarian, and set them out in slow cookers. Various toppings are in separate bowls, so any allergies can be managed. Someone always brings bread, someone always brings dessert. No one goes home hungry.

“At World Market,” Lori explains, “we found sets of oversized mugs, so we bought two sets, each with 24 mugs in a rack. Newbies always make the mistake of filling up the mug with their first soup, then they’re too full to try the others. They learn fast — just take a sample of each one. Soup Night is a way to experience new recipes; everybody wants to try everything.”

One year, when Paul’s job was eliminated, they put Soup Night on hiatus. Everybody understood the reasons, but they sorely missed coming. Paul says, “I came to realize that when times are tight, that’s the very point you need your friends around you, and soup seems just right. In retrospect, I would never stop in hard times.”

The original goal, inspired by a magazine article, was to encourage a feeling of community in the neighborhood. That didn’t work as well as they had hoped. So the following year they expanded the invite pool to people interested in food. That upped the invitation list to 60 people. “I was a little worried we might run out of soup,” Lori says. “Didn’t happen.” They continue to invite the neighbors and sometimes a few new people do come, but mostly their focus has shifted to something bigger than the neighborhood, to people who are seriously interested in food.

“The community aspect really clicked in the second year,” Lori says. “We invited people who didn’t know each other except in virtual connections, then they discovered they were friends and neighbors but didn’t know it. So the virtual connections turned into real-time connections.

“What happens now is that people who come run into people they already know but didn’t realize they were neighbors. When we started inviting food bloggers, we had people come who had met online but didn’t know each other in real life. They love getting to meet in person. We just stand back and watch it happen. People look forward to this in a way that I never would have imagined.”

Several of those who attend Paul and Lori’s Soup Night echo that sentiment.

Rebecca Gagnon
writes a food blog about cooking from scratch with whole foods. She “met” Paul and Lori by reading their blog, which includes an open invitation to Soup Night.

“The first time I went,” Rebecca remembers, “I was nervous. Didn’t know anybody, totally out of my comfort zone. Paul and Lori are very good at social networking, using Facebook and Twitter, but we’d never actually met, so I was walking into a house full of strangers. I was thinking, ’Oh my, should I go in?’ But at that very first visit I was warmly welcomed and quickly felt at ease. They have gathered together lots of people with common interests.”

Bryan and Jen Peters
moved to Milwaukee in 2007, and found the Soup Night a wonderful way to meet people. They are part of the “local food movement.” Bryan, a computer network specialist by day, works a booth at a farmers’ market on the weekends, and that’s how he met Paul.

Bryan continues: “Food is a central theme in our home — local, organic, sustainable. Paul and I have gone foraging for morels, also found fiddleheads and wild onions. So I would say Soup Night has led to a great friendship with Paul and Lori, and also with other people. Our son Oliver was two when we first went, so he has grown up with Soup Night; he thinks it’s normal. If our children don’t come with us, everybody asks, Where are the kids?”

Jen speaks for both of them: “We
really
enjoy Soup Night. At first we didn’t know anybody except the hosts; now it has created lasting friendships that might not have happened otherwise.”

Nicole Adrian and Nathan Huitt
, fellow food bloggers, started attending Soup Night as a way to meet other people interested in the same things: good food and good beer (Nathan brews his own). “The food is always delicious,” Nicole says. “And it’s a great way to get feedback on a new recipe. We invite others to taste the home-brewed beer. But the main thing is, we’ve become good friends with others who share our interests.”

Paul and Lori host a food blog called Burp: Where Food Happens (
www.eatatburp.com
), and often write about Soup Night. The titles of the blog articles are quite revealing:

• The Power of Soup
  
• Soup Night: Why Size Really Doesn’t Matter
  
• Seventy-Five Degrees with a Chance of Soup (April 2010)
  
• Blue Flower Soup and Lessons on Friendship
  

In one post, Lori talked about the beginnings: “Paul thought I was completely nuts, but I insisted that I really wanted to open up my home to others, to build community and really give myself a chance to get to know people who might otherwise remain strangers. . . . And now [that vision] is really coming to fruition. Everyone takes part in this amazing community of nourishment, both physical and spiritual. There’s adventure. And sharing. And somehow, regardless of how many people show up, there’s always enough. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Paul talks about the hiatus year. “After a year’s break, we both wondered if we’d have the nerve to start up again. [But we did], and gosh, it was like coming home. Soup Night is really more about the company than the soup. It’s about that feeling you get when you’re surrounded by the people who really count. I know it’s simple, but I can’t help thinking: maybe all the world
really
needs is another Soup Night.”

• Blue Flower Soup
  
• Tuna Chowder
  
• Slow-Cooker Chili
  
• Skillet Flatbread
  

Recipe from
Lori and Paul Fredrich
, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Serves 6

Lori and Paul say: A creamy cauliflower soup with cracked anise and blue cheese.

• 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 3 celery stalks, diced
  
• 1 large onion, diced
  
• 3–4 garlic cloves, minced
  
• 4
  ¹
  ⁄
  ₂
  cups chicken broth
  
• 1 large head cauliflower, cored and chopped
  
• ¹
  ⁄
  ₂
  cup dry white wine
  
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
  
• 2 teaspoons cracked anise seed
  
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
  
• 2 teaspoons hot sauce
  
• 1 cup blue cheese, crumbled
  
• 2 cups heavy cream
  
• Bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled, as optional garnish
  

1. 1.
   Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the celery and onion and sauté until slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute longer. Stir in the broth, cauliflower, wine, lemon juice, Worcestershire, anise seed, thyme, and hot sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the cauliflower is tender, about 15 minutes.
   
2. 2.
   Transfer about half of the soup to a blender (careful, it’s hot) and purée until smooth, and return it to the pot. Or use an immersion blender and purée the soup right in the pot. Stir in the blue cheese and cream. Stir until the cheese is melted and the soup is slightly thickened.
   
3. 3.
   Serve hot with a sprinkling of crisp bacon, if you like.
   

Make ahead?
Yes, if you need to, but this comes together quite quickly.

For large crowds:
You could easily double this recipe, but you might wish to increase the blue cheese only 1
¹
⁄
₂
times. Some people find blue cheese too strong (foolish, I think, but there you go).

Recipe from
Nicole Adrian and Nathan Huitt
, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Serves 12–14

Nicole says: Nathan and I like our chili spicy, so we often add more “fire” at several stages. When browning the meat, we might add a few extra shakes of chili powder, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper. And where many folks would discard the jalapeño seeds, we leave them in. Of course, you could use ground turkey or chicken in place of the ground beef, but I have to admit that it tastes best with beef.

• 1 pound ground beef or turkey
  
• 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
  
• 1 (10-ounce) can chopped tomatoes with green chiles
  
• 2 tablespoons chili powder, or more to taste
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
  
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
  
• 1 medium onion, chopped
  
• 1 jalapeño chile, chopped (we leave the seeds in) (see
  page 186
  )
  
• 1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained; or 2 cups cooked black beans (see
  page 27
  )
  
• 1 (15-ounce) can kidney beans, drained; or 2 cups cooked kidney beans (see
  page 27
  )
  
• 1 (16-ounce) can refried beans (I use the vegetarian kind)
  
• 1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
  
• Frank’s Red Hot sauce
  
• 1 (12-ounce) bottle of beer, preferably some type of brown ale (we’ve used Newcastle in the past — delicious!)
  

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  

1. 1.
   Brown the beef in a skillet. For more heat, add additional chili powder, garlic powder, and pepper flakes to the meat while it is cooking. Using a slotted spoon, remove the beef to a slow cooker.
   
2. 2.
   Add to the cooker the tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, garlic, onion, jalapeño, beans, tomato paste, hot sauce to taste, and beer. It will be very, very full! Cook on low at least 8 hours, or all day.
   

Variation:
Use ground turkey or ground chicken in place of the ground beef.

Make ahead?
Yes, let the slow cooker do the work.

For large crowds:
You’ll be limited by the size of your slow cooker.

Recipe from
Lori Fredrich
, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Serves 6

Lori says: My mother was a miracle worker with a can of tuna. She made the best tuna salad sandwiches. The best casseroles. And, apparently, the very best soup.

There are some dishes that, once eaten, leave an indelible impression. For me, “tuna soup” was one of those dishes. Mom made it regularly. And she frequently brought it to potlucks and soup dinners. The flavors of the soup were so indelibly ingrained in my head by the time I went to college that I took after my mother, cooking up pot after pot of this fantastic soup. Of course, I had to give it my own special twist. So, I started calling it tuna “chowder” — after all, a chowder is much more sophisticated sounding than a soup. Right?

Like tuna casserole, this deliciously creamy soup pulls together the comforting flavors of tuna, dill, cream, and peas. But, rather than noodles, you’ll find spoonful after spoonful of perfectly cooked potatoes that have been rendered deliciously tender by a gentle 20-minute milk bath.

• 2 tablespoons butter
  
• 1 medium onion, diced
  
• 2 celery stalks, diced
  
• 2 tablespoons dried dill weed
  
• 4 medium potatoes, diced
  
• 6 cups whole milk
  
• 2 teaspoons bouillon paste or powder
  
• 3 cans water-packed tuna, including juice
  
• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen peas
  
• 1 cup cream
  
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  
• Shredded mozzarella cheese, for garnish
  

1. 1.
   Melt the butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. When the foam has subsided, add the onion and celery and sauté until the onion is translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Stir in the dill and potatoes. Pour in the milk and bouillon paste or powder. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
   
2. 2.
   Using a fork to separate large chunks, add the tuna and its juice to the soup. Stir in the peas and cook just until warmed. Add the cream. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.
   
3. 3.
   Serve hot with a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese and plenty of crusty bread.