Po-TAY-to Soup

My dad always hated potato soup. So when my mom found a potato soup recipe she wanted to try one winter, she tried it out on my brother and me while Dad was at work.

Thick and creamy, it had cubes of potato and carrot, chopped celery, and chunks of onion. It was savory, salty, and, most importantly for our drafty farmhouse, it was warm. It heated you through to your toes. Mom homeschooled us for 4 years, and she would make that soup for lunch in the mornings while we studied, so I never saw her prepare it. I knew how to make nearly all of our family favorites because I loved joining her in the kitchen in the evenings, but I didn't know how to make that soup.

Then, my mom's health took a turn for the worse, and she could no longer lead the charge on our education. A year after my brother and I rejoined public school, my mom died. Recreating her recipes as a teenager let me focus my memories of her on a task and sort of experience cooking with her again. There was something comforting for all of us about sharing a Shepherd's Pie or Chicken Salad made the way she made it. There was something comforting about the aroma of a familiar recipe filling the house. But I just didn't know enough about cooking to know how she made that soup. I could replicate what she did in the kitchen, but I didn't know why she did it.

My dad and brother never critiqued my cooking attempts, and they quietly ate tough meat and under or overly-seasoned vegetables as I learned to cook by myself. And I learned a lot. I discovered the hard way that some produce cooked faster than others, so you had to cook strategically. I learned that pink chicken is tough and unsafe to eat, but pink beef is juicy, tender, and fully cooked. I learned to eat with fresh produce first, before it spoils. Ultimately, I learned that meal planning isn't for weenies.

My high school teachers somehow knew that I was grappling with all of this while we grieved my mother, and some of them found ways to off-handedly give me simple recipe ideas. My English teacher suggested a white sauce over noodles with peas and chicken as a simple evening meal, so one day, I dug out my mom's pile of recipe books to see if I could find something called a "white sauce." It was 2003, and we didn't have internet out on the farm--not even dial-up. I didn't have a smartphone until 2012, so the recipe books were the only things that could give me an idea of what she was talking about.

But none of the books had such a recipe. If I knew more about cooking, I might have been able to recognize a white sauce recipe somewhere inside another recipe, but I was a beginner. I needed beginner instructions. It wasn't until I was shoving all the books back in the cabinet that the well-worn Betty Crocker cookbook from the 70s caught my eye. A bulky three-ring binder, it had a series of basics and tips printed directly on the inside cover of the binder. And I was staring right at a simple recipe for "white sauce."

It would be years before I realized that I was about to learn how to make the French Béchamel base sauce. It was super simple: 1 to 1 to 1 of butter, flour, milk or cream. That first time, I melted 1 tablespoon of butter, whisked in 1 tablespoon of flour, and then 1 cup of milk. I discovered it needed a little salt and then made for a lovely creamy noodle sauce with peas.

But the cooking experiment got me thinking--that creaminess poured over the noodles reminded me of Mom's potato soup. It didn't taste quite like it, but it was close. So, I kept experimenting. That simple white sauce over noodles became something I made every week because it was so easy. As I gained confidence, I got brave enough to try things, and one day, I decided I would cook some diced onion in the butter before I added the flour to give the whole thing a little more flavor. Then I finished the sauce and added a dash of dried parsley, tasted it...

A funny thing about grief that no one can really properly warn you about: the memories creep up on you sometimes. I wasn't expecting to taste my mother's soup recipe, which I had been chasing, in that white sauce, but there it was. I mixed it in with the noodles, same as always, and then went into the living room to cry.

The next day, I got to work.

INGREDIENTS

4 potatoes, peeled and cubed

3 carrots, peeled and cubed (similar in size to potatoes)

3 stalks of celery, cleaned and cubed (similar in size to potatoes)

1 onion, cubed (similar in size to potatoes)

2 TBS olive oil

2 TBS butter

2 TBS flour

2 cups milk

Salt to taste

1 Tsp parsley

INSTRUCTIONS

1.) Boil potatoes until just softened through. Drain and set aside.

2.) Meanwhile, saute carrots and celery in the olive oil on medium heat for about 8-10 minutes or until just fork tender. Add onions in the last 3 minutes or so as they will cook faster. Saute until all three ingredients are tender but not mushy; stir occasionally to keep from burning. Add to potatoes that are set aside.

3.) Melt the butter in the same pan you sauteed the vegetables in. When melted, whisk in flour. When fully incorporated, add milk to create your Béchamel sauce and add parsley. When finished, pour over your potatoes and vegetables. Mix and salt to taste. NOTE: You can make more or less sauce for a more or less creamy soup.

When I finally tasted the potato soup, it was everything I had hoped it would be. It was comforting and warm and a kind of triumph. It was the exact recipe I had been chasing. But there was one person who I really wanted to taste it: my dad, the guy who didn't like potato soup. He didn't object when I told him what I was serving, but I knew he wasn't looking forward to it. But when he took the lid off the pan to serve himself, his first remark was, "This isn't potato soup!" Then he tried it--and he loved it.

Turns out, his mom had poured lots of boiling water over dehydrated potato flakes after a busy day and called it potato soup. So when he met my mom and potato soup came up, he told her he hated the only stuff he'd ever had. So he had never tried the glorious dish that was such a part of my childhood--until I figured out how to make it.

I hope you like it, too.