Canadian Cheese Soup

Week 200. I didn't notice the number until I wrote it. Two hundred weeks of cooking and writing and raising kids and cleaning teeth and being Sarah Mitchell in a kitchen in Nashville. Two hundred weeks since a dark morning in Antioch when the light came through a window I didn't know was there. The numbers are getting big. The story is getting long. But the cornbread is the same and the children are growing and the kitchen is still the center of everything, so the story keeps going because the kitchen keeps going because I keep going. Week 200. Onward.

Twenty weeks pregnant. Halfway. The anatomy scan is next week — the big one, the ultrasound where they measure everything and make sure everything is where it should be and you get to see your baby on a screen looking like a tiny astronaut in a private ocean. Terrence is coming for it. He's driving up Friday night so he can be at the appointment Saturday morning. He doesn't want to see it on FaceTime. He wants to be in the room. He wants to see the baby in real time, in person, in the moment it becomes more than a kick and a flutter and becomes a face. A nose. Fingers. The answer to the question everyone keeps asking: boy or girl?

I don't want to know. Terrence wants to know. We negotiated: the tech will write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. Terrence can open the envelope if he wants. I won't. The surprise is mine. The last surprise of a pregnancy that was itself the biggest surprise of the year. Let me keep this one. Let me hold the not-knowing like a gift I haven't opened. The not-knowing is the last thing I get to keep before the baby becomes specific — named, gendered, expected in particular ways. Right now the baby is universal. The baby is everything. I want a few more weeks of everything before the baby becomes someone.

The virus has a name now: coronavirus. It's spreading. People are worried. It's still far away but the worried is getting closer, the way storms work — you see them on the horizon long before you feel the rain. I'm pregnant and worried about viruses is my baseline state. I wash my hands sixty times a day at work. I'm a dental hygienist. Hygiene is in the job title. I'll be fine. We'll be fine. That's what you say when you don't know if you'll be fine but saying it is better than not saying it.

I made mac and cheese — the real kind, the baked kind, with three cheeses and a breadcrumb top and a roux that I've been making since I was sixteen and Mama taught me that a roux is just butter and flour and patience. Three-cheese baked mac and cheese for week 200. Because some milestones deserve the comfort of melted cheese and a hot oven and a kitchen that smells like everything is going to be okay, even when you don't know if everything is going to be okay. The mac and cheese doesn't lie. The mac and cheese says: eat this and be warm and whatever happens next, you ate this, and it was good.

The mac and cheese fed us that night — all three of us, or I suppose all four of us now — but I’ve been craving that same deep, melted-cheese comfort all week, the kind that coats a spoon and warms you from the inside out. This Canadian Cheese Soup is what I make when I need that same feeling in a bowl: simple, rich, honest, and built around the kind of cheese that doesn’t ask anything of you except that you eat it while it’s hot. Week 200 deserves a pot on the stove and a kitchen that smells like everything is going to be fine.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 stalks celery, finely diced
1 medium carrot, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, freshly shredded
1/2 cup Gruyère cheese, shredded
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and white pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Sauté the vegetables. In a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, celery, and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6–8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Build the roux. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir to coat evenly. Cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes until the raw flour smell cooks off and the mixture turns a pale golden color.
Add the liquids. Slowly pour in the broth, whisking as you go to prevent lumps. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes until slightly thickened. Stir in the milk and heavy cream and return to a low simmer — do not boil.
Melt in the cheese. Reduce heat to low. Add the cheddar and Gruyère a handful at a time, stirring after each addition until fully melted and smooth. Stir in the dry mustard and smoked paprika.
Season and serve. Taste and adjust salt and white pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh chives. Serve immediately with crusty bread or oyster crackers.

Nutrition (per serving)

Canadian Cheese Soup — The Warmth You Make When the World Goes Quiet