Who doesn’t love romanesco, the beautiful fractaled member of the cruciferous family? It looks like a mishmash of the landscape of another planet and a one of those neon posters from the 60s. It’s challenging to make chartreuse appealing but romanesco does it with ease.
This is a simple, soothing soup that can be made anytime of the year but I particularly like it in the spring. It’s light, nourishing and invigorates rather than weighing you down. Despite being impossible creamy there is no dairy or starchy vegetables in the recipe.
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 Sometimes leeks get overlooked because they are more labor intensive than onions or shallots but I think that the flavor they bring is worth it. They have a more muted "oniony" taste and bring both sweetness and a fresh greeness.
Leek and potato soup is a classic. I’ve had versions that were a bit too plain for my tastes so I have enlivened it by using two tangy ingredients: white wine and crème fraîche. Both of these additions cut through the heaviness of the potato and elevate the natural sweetness of the leeks. By roasting 1 of the leeks we add a deeper and richer element that grounds and rounds out the entire soup. Consider serving with a thick slice of either rye or sourdough bread and a generously sized salad.  Heat waves are not very common in the San Francisco Bay Area but when they strike we don’t tend to handle them very well. I was lucky enough to time one with a farmer’s market purchase of 25 pounds of dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes (a little over 11 kg). I’d never had this variety before coming to California but now it is my go-to tomato. The dry-farming allows the flavors to concentrate more which results in some of the most flavorsome tomatoes I’ve ever had.
Since we are relying on fresh, raw vegetables we must also heavily rely on our palates and judgement to guide us. Think of the recipe below as a template, a guide to the final outcome. This soup will really require you to discern whether or not to add more salt, or bread or vinegar… or not! Perhaps you grabbed a very bitter cucumber? Maybe you couldn’t track down Early Girls and used a different variety that is a bit sour? Was the bell pepper not as sweet as you were hoping? I recommend that you taste all the individual produce components of this soup separately before chucking them into the blender.  I like to make this soup in late summer when pepper season has just begun to crest and you know that autumn is right around the corner. There is a certain smell in the air and the way the sunlight falls causes the middle part of the day to appear fuller and richer. I think that I make this golden broth to imitate the Northern Californian sun dappled afternoons.
This is a simple but decadent soup that allows the key flavors of roasted pepper and saffron to shine. There aren’t many moving pieces to it and I find that it can be easily assembled while you are chatting distractedly or attending to a more complicated dish. Serve with a crust piece of sourdough and a simple green salad to round out your repast.  Who knew that humble beans could taste so good? When I first stumbled across a variation of the recipe below I was intrigued but still skeptical. I love beans but surely you need to add in some vegetables, right? What about a curry paste? As it turns out you don’t need much beyond pantry basics to make beans really sing.
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