Summer Soup

One of the great things about life in the Bay area is that even the summers are relatively cool. That means we can happily eat hot soup year 'round, with only a few days being too hot for a bowl of broth.

Corn chowder is a favorite of mine, especially when made with the sweet, crisp kernels of fresh summer corn. My recipe comes from Elna, my first husband's mother, who had it from her mother, who had it from her mother, and so on back into time. Elna was a marvelous cook and a generous one - she shared all her recipes with me.

This is actually pretty basic corn chowder, made by sauteing five slices of chopped bacon in a heavy soup pot, then adding the chopped celery and onion until they are soft, followed by milk and red potato dice, raw corn kernels removed from the cobs, salt and pepper, and cooking it all together on simmer for about half an hour. You can enrich it with cream if you like but it's pretty nice just as is.

Over the years, I have tweaked the recipe a little. I now add fresh thyme from my garden, just the leaves of a few nice sprigs to round out the flavors, and I reserve the bacon bits rather than cook them with the soup, sprinkling them on at serving time to add a little bit of crispy crunch to the bowl.

I served it to Jan and Ted, friends visiting this week from St. Louis who came in late and starving from their flight - there is nothing remotely edible on airlines these days - and they loved it! Summer can be such a fine season for soup!