Winning Cream of Vegetable Soup

School starts Wednesday. Forty-one years. I stood in my classroom on Tuesday afternoon — the before moment, the empty room, the desks in rows, the chalkboard clean — and I said a small, private prayer, which is not a religious prayer but a teacher's prayer: let me be good enough. Let me reach at least one. Let me not lose my patience with the kid who hasn't read the book and claims the book was "boring," because "boring" is not a criticism of the book, it is a confession of the reader's limitations, and my job is to expand those limitations, not judge them. Forty-one years. I am still nervous on the first day. I consider this a good sign.

Rosh Hashanah is next month and the preparations are beginning — the mental preparations, the list-making, the recipes reviewed and ingredients sourced. This year will be different because Marvin is different, and the holiday table with a diminished Marvin is a different table than the one I've set for thirty-seven years. But the food will be the same. The brisket, the challah (round, for the new year), the honey cake, the tzimmes. The food does not change because the people at the table change. The food is the constant. The food is the argument against despair.

I made a late-summer corn chowder — a thick, creamy soup made with the last of the really good corn, because corn season is ending and I want to honor it. Corn, potatoes, a little bacon (don't tell the rabbi), cream, fresh thyme. It's a soup that belongs to the transition between summer and fall, when the light starts changing and the tomatoes slow down and the air has that first edge of something cooler coming. I ate it at the kitchen table and looked out the window at my garden, which is winding down, and felt the season turning, as seasons do, reliably, regardless of what else is happening. The seasons don't care about my grief. They come anyway. There is a strange comfort in that.

That evening at the kitchen table, watching the garden wind down through the window, I wanted something that felt like an answer — not to grief exactly, but to the turning of things. This cream of vegetable soup is what I reached for: thick, satisfying, built from whatever the garden and the market still have to offer before the season closes its fist. It’s the kind of soup that asks you to slow down and eat it properly, which is the only instruction I had left in me that night.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (about 3 ears)
2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cubed (about 2 cups)
4 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped, for garnish

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Melt butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Build the base. Add carrots, potatoes, corn, thyme, salt, and pepper. Stir to coat everything in the butter. Pour in the vegetable broth and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, until potatoes and carrots are tender.
Thicken the soup. In a small bowl, whisk together the heavy cream and flour until smooth. Pour the cream mixture slowly into the simmering soup, stirring constantly. Continue to cook over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, stirring often, until the soup thickens to a chowder-like consistency.
Blend partially (optional). For a thicker, creamier texture, use an immersion blender to briefly pulse the soup — just a few seconds — leaving plenty of whole vegetables intact. Alternatively, ladle out 1 cup of soup, blend it separately, and stir it back in.
Taste and finish. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into bowls and garnish with fresh parsley. Serve hot with crusty bread or oyster crackers.

Nutrition (per serving)

Winning Cream of Vegetable Soup — The Last of the Good Corn