A ladle full of love Hearty soup helps bring Pittsfield couple together and keeps romance simmering

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More than a year ago, when Karen Wagner invited Frank McGrady to her family’s camp on Big Indian Lake in St. Albans for their first date, she knew there was one special thing she could do to win his heart: make soup.

The romance of the lake, a beautiful sunset and a sky full of stars later in the evening all did their part to move the blossoming relationship along, but Wagner credits the magic in her soup for clinching the deal. Today, the couple is engaged and raising their four children together, and at the heart of the busy, happy home is the stove – where a visitor often can find a steaming pot of soup simmering, still casting an enchanting spell.

“Anyone who can read can cook,” Wagner said recently, stirring a steaming pot of spinach vichyssoise at her Pittsfield home. “But you must bring a little passion to it.”

Soup making is fireworks for the senses: first the tang of the onions simmering in butter. Suddenly there is nutmeg, then marjoram. Then the hearty aroma of the potatoes being stirred in. The spinach, with its clean, green smell, goes in after the sharp chicken broth, and the windows begin to sweat. The aroma begins sneaking around every corner in the house, drawing the family to peek into the pot.

Beyond its magical romantic properties, soup is good for you – the healing properties of chicken soup, or “Jewish penicillin,” are legendary. The story is told that in the 1979 Cotton Bowl, when Joe Montana quarterbacked for Notre Dame, the team was losing, and Montana was so cold that he was fed hot chicken soup in the locker room to keep from shaking. He went back in the fourth quarter and threw a barrage of touchdown passes to defeat Houston 35-34.

If you use a broth-based concoction rather than a cream sauce, it can be surprisingly low-fat and low-calorie. “Lord of the Rings” film director Peter Jackson recently credited losing 70 pounds to a diet of yogurt, muesli, and soup during the shooting of “King Kong.”

But the best part of soup is how it comforts the soul.

Think back to childhood. Making puzzles at the kitchen table, winter darkness settling around the house, while beef stew bubbled on the stove. Coming in from sledding, cheeks chapped and fingers and toes numb, only to have a hot bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup ready to warm you up.

Remember soup for breakfast? Yup, breakfast. Crooner Pat Boone preferred vegetable soup to cereal in the morning, and pop star Madonna has miso soup for breakfast each day.

American columnist Miss Manners, Judith Martin, said it best: “Do you have a kinder, more adaptable friend in the food world than soup? Who soothes you when you are ill? Who refuses to leave you when you are impoverished and stretches its resources to give you a hearty sustenance and cheer? Who warms you in the winter and cools you in the summer? Yet who also is capable of doing honor to your richest table and impressing your most demanding guests? Soup does its loyal best, no matter what undignified conditions are imposed upon it. You don’t catch steak hanging around when you’re poor and sick, do you?”

What’s your favorite soup?

Everyone has a favorite. Mine is cream of celery with homemade croutons. Wagner’s favorite is corn bisque, and her fiance’s is fish chowder, which is the magic potion he was served on their first date by the lake.

Some may have taken their favorite soup too far, however.

J. Edgar Hoover, the late FBI director, was reputed to have lunched with FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at the same table, served by the same waiter and ordering the same meal – for 20 years: chicken soup.

Consomme was Marie Antoinette’s last meal before she was guillotined in 1793, while a rival mob family attempted to poison Chicago gangster Al Capone with prussic acid in his soup in 1923.

Singer Judy Garland was put on a diet – at age 14 – by MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer and ordered to eat nothing but diet pills, black coffee and chicken soup.

And it has been reported that Milarepa, an 11th century Tibetan yogi, lived exclusively on nettle soup while meditating in a cave for many years, so much so that his body turned green.

Soup varieties and methods

There are as many varieties of soup and recipe variations as there are appetites. Google “soup,” and 41.9 million references come up. Everyone’s mother or grandmother has her own signature recipe, and despite Frank Sinatra’s preference for canned Campbell’s Chicken with Rice Soup (it was in his singing contract that it be in his dressing room before every performance), homemade is still best.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, with temperatures in the teens and a light snow falling, Wagner put together her spinach vichyssoise with five main ingredients: spinach, onion, chicken broth, potatoes and milk, and a handful of spices.

“I make soup at least once a week,” she said. “It is a great way to use up leftover veggies. It is easy, fast, and you can freeze it for another meal.”

The first time she makes a soup, Wagner follows the recipe. “I use the recipes as a way to get started. Then I find ways to make it different or better. I also like to order soup at restaurants and then see if I can duplicate it at home.”

Don’t get caught up in the details, she warned. Only the taste of soup is about perfection. “A lot of soups benefit from simmering for three to four hours,” she said, “but you can also have soup in a half-hour.”

She said one of her family’s most fun soups is Thanksgiving Soup, made with holiday leftovers. “You put in the turkey, gravy, vegetables, even the stuffing and mashed potatoes for thickening. It’s great,” she said.

There aren’t many mistakes to be made in soup making, said Wagner, “but anytime you overseason, it is a disaster. You can add a potato to help soak up the spices, but really the only way to salvage overseasoned soup is to increase it by adding more milk or broth.”

Some soups, she said, are all about a perfectly smooth consistency. “That is the elegance of it. For me, however, I’m feeding a family, not the prime minister.”

While Wagner talked, she ladled out a hearty portion into a pottery bowl, and McGrady leaned against the counter by the sink. The scraping sounds of his spoon testified to another successful recipe.

And every good soup deserves a good bread, Wagner maintained. It could be a warm, tantalizing, crusty loaf, or a tray of fresh-out-of-the-oven croutons. To augment her soup prowess, Wagner also has become a first-rate bread baker – but that’s another recipe and a different story.

Here are a few personal recipes offered by Karen Wagner that she has developed over the years. She urges readers to use them as a starting point and then try them with their own ingredients and spices.

Sharon Kiley Mack can be reached at 487-3187 and bangordaily@downeast.net.

Butternut Bisque

2 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cubed

2 tablespoons butter

2 carrots, sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

2 potatoes, peeled and cubed

5-6 cups chicken stock (boxed or canned is fine)

1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder

a pinch each of nutmeg and ginger

sour cream for garnish

Melt the butter in a large soup pot and add the carrots, onion and celery; saute until soft. Stir the squash and potatoes into the vegetables. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and summer, partially covered, for 40 minutes. Add spices. Puree the soup either in a blender or with a hand-held immersion blender. Return to pot and add more stock if necessary to thin. Salt and pepper to taste.

Fish Chowder

1 stick butter

3 large potatoes, diced

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups chicken broth

2 pounds haddock

1 pound scallops

2 cups milk

1/2 cup Half and Half

In large soup pot, melt butter and stir in potatoes and onion. Saute until onion begins to soften then add broth and enough water to cover potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes. Lay haddock over the top of the potatoes, cover, reduce heat to low and cook until fish is flaky. Stir in milk and Half and Half. At this point, the soup is improved by letting it cool and refrigerating it overnight. Add scallops and reheat soup gently. If you don’t want to wait, add scallops with the milk and simmer gently for 1 to 2 hours.

Corn Bisque

4 tablespoons butter

2 cups chopped onions

1/2 cup chopped carrot

1/2 cup chopped celery

7 cups frozen corn kernels (about 42 ounces)

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

6 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 cup milk

1/4 cup Half and Half

1 red bell pepper, chopped

In large soup pot, saute onions, carrots and celery in 3 tablespoons butter for about 3 minutes. Add 5 cups of corn, herbs and spices and saute another 3 minutes. Add stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer about 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Using an immersion blender, puree soup and then stir in the remaining corn, milk and half-and-half. Melt remaining 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and saute the red pepper until almost tender, about 5 minutes. Stir into the soup. Simmer and serve.

Black Bean Soup

1 cup each of chopped onion, green pepper and red bell pepper

4 chopped jalapeno peppers

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 cup fresh cilantro (or 1 tablespoon dried)

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 cans black beans, drained

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

In large soup pot, saute onions and pepper in olive oil until tender. Stir in remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour. Using an immersion blender, thicken soup by pureeing about half of the amount, leaving chucks of vegetables and beans. Add more cayenne or lime juice to taste.

Pesto Chicken Stew

2 large onions, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

2 28-ounce cans plum tomatoes

1 tablespoon each dried oregano, thyme, rosemary and basil

4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed

2 pounds small new potatoes in skins

4 cups chicken broth

2 cups dry white wine

4 cups chopped cooked chicken or turkey

10 tablespoons pesto (about 1 10-oz. jar or 1 cup homemade)

In large soup pot, saute onion in olive oil until transparent. Add tomatoes and their juice, herbs, garlic, broth, wine and half the pesto. Bring to a boil and add potatoes. Simmer for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Stir in chicken and heat through. Top each bowl with remaining pesto.