Look! I'm practically invisible!

I just found some photos I'd completely forgotten. This was right after we moved into our house - early October 2005. In this first one, I love how my all-black outfit against the refrigerator makes me look practically invisible (except for my head and hands, of course). I forgot all about that cute little dumpling-shaped pumpkin.

And here I am making soup for the masses. I tend to do that. Can you see how it's really really close to the top of the pot? I just kept chopping and slicing and dicing and adding broth and then I realized I needed to find 47 people to eat all the soup I just made.

I like soup. Especially this time of year. Soup and I go way back. I love how it fills in all the nooks and crannies and warms you up from head to toe. Soup and bread make the perfect meal. I carry around in my purse a little thing Lizz wrote about me and soup.

I think the soup in the photo above is a multi-bean concoction. Last night, at Soup Group (the Tuesday night prayer gathering I host at my house) we had a simplified version of avgolemeno -Greek lemon chicken soup. Squash soup is one of my very favorites. I'm quite fond of tomato basil and enjoy preparing the real deal with fresh tomatoes and basil - but in a pinch, I've discovered popping a couple of frozen cubes of pesto in some canned soup will do the trick! Trader Joe's has wonderful little packages of pesto and cilantro in the freezer section. Our closest Trader Joe's is in Ann Arbor.

I'm the holder of the traveling Silver Ladle award for our church's annual Soup Cook-Off fundraiser. My winning soup this year was white chicken chili. I couldn't believe this open-jar-and-dump-in-a-slow-cooker recipe won against some of the other, much more creative and inspired entries. Of course, every soup eater is eligible to vote with their dollars and I did bring several soup eaters with me. And, I'm reminded that one of the top virtues of soup is its simplicity.

What's your favorite soup? Should I post some recipes?