Friends, hello!
I firmly believe these early fall weeks is Soup and Sammy Season. More specifically: creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, my favorite / the most codependent lunch in the game.
Is grilled cheese simply an edible spoon for tomato soup? Or is tomato soup just an excuse to make a grilled cheese sandwich? I have considered this at length and have no useful conclusion. The two are intrinsically linked in my food brain and I see no reason to separate them, especially in the month of October.
My favorite is this Creamy Tomato Soup, which hits exactly right thanks to a spoonful of tomato paste for depth, and a splash of vinegar to sharpen the whole pot. The recipe gives you the choice of whole milk or heavy cream and, technically, both work. Between us - heavy cream is the correct answer. It makes the soup just… plush.
You could, of course, serve this tomato soup with a spoon. But why would you do that when a grilled cheese sandwich exists?
Since we are people of discernment, when it comes to how we grill our bread and cheese, we have options:
• All the caramelized onion energy of French Onion Soup between two toasty pieces of buttered bread. So savory, lightly sweet, melty and otherwise perfect: French Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwich (pictured above)
• I always tuck away a few spoonfuls of homemade pesto to stir into unsalted butter. Pesto butter on toast with a fried egg is elite so of course the combination is worthy of a grilled cheese sammy: Pesto Butter Grilled Cheese Sandwich
• Ricotta cheese and roasted tomatoes turns a standard grilled cheese into this Lasagna Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
• I’m currently sitting in front of a bowl of persimmons (my favorite fruit of the season along with pears) and was just reminded of this Persimmon Prosciutto and Brie Grilled Cheese from deep in the jtb archives. When you see me at Trader Joe’s tomorrow with prosciutto and brie in my cart, you’ll know what’s going down.
• Though not technically a grilled cheese: The Collard Green Melt - I mention this because I think these collard greens are worth making in big batches and adding to every sandwich from here until March. Collard greens are a condiment this time of year, you know?
The Sunday Five
I’ve started a new Sunday series on the blog called The Sunday Five — a short list of five things I’ve been cooking, reading, listening to, thinking about, or generally refusing to keep to myself. I’ve missed our Sundays together and the five is a manageable way for me to get back to our weekend ritual: Here’s last Sunday’s Five!
The Monster Cookie
New on the blog this month: The Monster Cookie, which feels exactly right for October // chaotic and candy-studded.
It’s gluten-free, made with oats, peanut butter, and eggs, and I think of it as the slightly more maximalist cousin to the classic four-ingredient peanut butter cookie.
A Soup Season Cookbook (and giveaway, of course!)
Let me introduce you to a cookbook that feels perfectly timed.
Soup Magic is the new book from French food writer Sophie Dudemaine, a prolific cookbook author (this is casually her 35th book!) whose work has sold millions of copies in France. Her whole approach here is wonderfully unfussy with soups laid out visually, with the ingredients, quantities, and basic cooking cues right there on the page. I think it’s a very fun book and would make a fantastic winter/holiday gift with a fun ingredient or a vintage pot or a cute soup ladle.
And lucky for us, we’re giving away a copy of Soup Magic to one Baked In reader below, but first - an interview with Sophie translated from French to English.
What was the “aha moment” recipe while writing this book - the one that made you think, oh, this is the heart of it?
My ‘Eureka’ moment wasn’t finding a rare ingredient or a complex technique. It was this click, this obvious: “What if I stopped giving recipes?” With my 35 books under my belt, I’ve taught people how to make their cakes perfectly, but here, for this project, I understood that what they need is not yet another list of ingredients, it’s a method to free themselves from fear. My “Eureka” is to have created these “100 recipes without recipes”. It’s not a cookbook, it’s a permission to cook freely. That’s where I found the essence of what I wanted to convey: Trust, quite simply.
If your cookbook had a playlist, what three songs would be on it?
If my book had a playlist, it would be like my cooking: lively, joyful and unpretentious.
1. “La Vie en Rose”: For the touch of romance and beauty.
2. “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen: For the pure energy when you come home tired.
3. “Happy” by Pharrell Williams: For pure contagious happiness.
If you put these three, you have the perfect recipe: elegance, energy and a lot of joy.
What’s one ingredient you’re evangelical about?
If I show up at a party with this, there’s a good chance I’ll be isolated in a corner, but I’m willing to take the risk: the fresh herbs and the Parmesan crust. Herbs are the difference between a soup that “nourishes” and a soup that “sings”. What about the parmesan crust? It’s my secret weapon: I slip it into the broth, it melts and releases all its umami. Don’t get me started, or you’ll go home with a cheese crust in your purse and the intention of changing the way you cook!
If someone cooks just one recipe from your book to understand you as a person, which should it be?
If you want to understand who I am, try my Cheeseburger soup. I know, French purists frown, but stay with me! It’s my nod to American culture: I take an icon of comfort food and transform it without ever denying its soul. That’s my philosophy: I’m French, I like good products, but I have no complexes about appropriating your classics to make them even more gourmet. If you’re looking for someone who takes cooking very seriously, but refuses to take themselves seriously, you’ve found the right person.
What’s a mistake you hope readers make at least once?
The mistake I hope they make is being afraid to think outside the box. Many arrive with the habit of following strict rules. They treat cooking as a mathematical equation when it’s a conversation. I hope they will hesitate in front of their fridge asking themselves: “Does Sophie allow me to improvise?” And I hope that they will dare to do it, that they will taste, and that they will realize that the soup has not exploded, but that it has become theirs.
My goal is for them to become free cooks.
What kitchen tool deserves more respect, and which one do you think is wildly overrated?
The most overrated? My husband in the kitchen! I love him passionately, but he is much more gifted at tasting dishes than at preparing vegetables. For real utensils, I respect the tomato peeler a lot (my secret weapon for everything with a thin skin: peach, peppers, tomatoes, kiwi, eggplant...) and the Alligator (which cuts everything into regular cubes).
In the kitchen, regularity is the chef’s secret: if everything is the same size, everything cooks at the same speed. This is the basis of a successful soup.
People think I’m... But in reality, I am...
People think I’m a classic French chef, but in reality, I’m the pioneer of easy cooking, obsessed with you getting it right every time to wow your guests. In fact, I’m so committed to your success that, after 35 cookbooks, I’m the only author to leave my personal contact information in my books to help you if you get stuck on a recipe.
If you could hand-deliver this cookbook to one person (living or not), who would it be and what would you want them to cook first?
I would give it to my daughter. It is the company that is at the origin of this concept of “book without recipes”. She works a lot and, like many others, she came home in the evening exhausted, without energy to cook. She told me: “Mom, I need to cook, but it has to be simple and unmissable.” So, I would like her to use this book to prepare my grandson’s first velouté, the one with peas for example! It’s the ultimate proof that cooking, even when you’re overwhelmed, remains the most beautiful language of love.
What’s your most controversial food opinion
20 years ago, when I released my first book, I was the ‘rebel’ of French cuisine. I dared to say that frozen vegetables were sometimes better than fresh ones (because they were picked when ripe) and that butter and cream were allies. Today, everyone uses frozen foods and the return of “real butter” is a trend even though I often use olive oil. If I had to do it again, I would do it again. Cooking is not religion, it’s pleasure. And if butter is the price to pay for happiness, then I plead guilty!
When you’re not eating your own recipes, what are you absolutely guilty-pleasure ordering for takeout?
My guilty pleasure is Pad Thai. I love Asian cuisine for its balance of sweet, salty, and tangy.
It’s quite funny, because although I’ve written 35 cookbooks, when I decide to put down my hat and order takeaway, I want to change horizons. Pad Thai is my dose of escape. It’s generous, it’s comforting, and above all, it’s the ultimate luxury of not having to do the dishes!
What do you hope someone feels (like, truly feels) when they cook from your book for the first time?
What I hope they feel is this jubilant feeling of pride: the famous ‘I did it!’ After 35 books, I understood that my role is not to prove that I am a great leader, but to prove that you are capable of it. When a reader succeeds in his first recipe, he not only feels pride in the dish, he feels a new confidence. It’s that feeling of power and freedom that I want them to take with them.
Get your copy of Soup Magic here on Amazon or here on Bookshop.org.
The Giveaway!
I’m so happy to be giving away a copy of Sophie Dudemaine’s beautiful new cookbook to one lucky reader.
To enter, leave a comment below and tell me:
What soup could you eat once a week all winter and never get tired of?
The giveaway is open to U.S. residents only and will remain open until October 26th. One winner will be selected and notified via Substack message.
Good luck, friends - may your bread be crusty and your husband stay out of the kitchen. :)
See you in the comments. Have a wonderful week!
xo Joy
White Chicken Chili topped with chopped cilantro and crushed tortilla chips 😋
Beef barley soup. It’s a good soup base to play with…veggies, spicy, whatever I’m feeling like❤️