Memory Lane: Potato Leek Soup

The Potato Leek Soup from Isa Does It is so good and so easy that Alex begged me to make this about 12 times over the course of our first winter in NYC, that even he learned to make it himself. Really I think the secret to a good PLS is just give the leeks and onions a chance to get all caramelized and golden. Then when you pour in your broth, it becomes flavored with all the caramelized bits, and you need to add virtually nothing to make it taste like a bowl full of hopes and dreams. In the beginning of my PLS reign, I was a big salt-adder. I added some while the onions cooked, then again when the broth went in, to the cashew milk, and to the final product. But this is a mistake-- all I needed to do was give it a little TLC. A bowl full of soup that is too salty is just sad. I just need to trust that the caramelized onions and garlic are all I need to win at soup. The rest is all flashy hollow tricks.

I know that the broth has some salt, and so I'm going to get some there, and I know that I'm planning on topping this with Sweet Earth Bacon, and so I obviously will be getting a hit of salty, smoky, mapley zing on the top of the finished product. So yeah, my salt is still sitting unopened pushed back behind my pomegranate vinegar that I have also never used. I just really like the way potatoes taste, even without any salt. Especially with all that good jazz I have going on in this soup. It's POTATO leek soup, not Potato SALT soup. It also really only requires about 4 ingredients, which is why we can make this so often without a trip to Whole Foods-- on the WEEKEND? No one wants to go to Whole Foods on the weekend because it's always as if the world is ending and everyone in the city is in there with you and the line to pay extends all the way through the store and gets in the way of the bulk section. I've been out of lentils for MONTHS, I tell you. But you can just pick up like 5 potatoes and a bunch of leeks at any street market on your way home from Yoga or Improv or streetracing or whatever it is your are on your way home from, and it's like no thing at all. Yeah, soup.