A recipe of unfamiliar soup

For whatever reason, it took me awhile to "get" soup. The reason isn't really whatever, actually; it's that we didn't eat a lot of it in my house. The reason for THAT you can direct elsewhere, though I'm not convinced that the parties involved would have an answer for you. To what can we really attribute our personal preferences? Anyway, there are 11 soup recipes in the Fave Recipes doc, and I decided to try one I have no memory of ever eating before.

The context around this particular soup, however, is wracked with memories. Rice and Potato Soup with Parmigiano-Reggiano Rind notably came out of Lidia Bastianich's Lidia's Italian Table. I am intimately familiar with Lidia, whose show was one of several we watched every Sunday evening as my father cooked dinner. Her soothing voice, short hair, rimless glasses and musings about a chill childhood growing up in Italy had me enraptured. She could make me want to eat anything, not that wanting to eat Italian is particularly impressive. She is proudly quoted on the front of Fave Recipes (with her first name misspelled; forgive us Lidia).

So it seemed fitting to start with Lidia, given that I had started with her years ago. There were a few other factors that called to me in this recipe as well. I thought I might have to get some dental work this week and cooking something soft seemed safest (false alarm; my teeth have stuck it to the man once again!). I also excitedly realized I had some bits of parmesan rind I had been saving for a stock or something, and this would be a great reason to use them. (''We're into recycling so much,'' Lidia said of Italian cooks to the Times when Amanda Hesser wrote about this recipe in 2002. ''Nothing goes to waste.'' This is my philosophy too, sometimes taken too far.) Someone -- truly not me -- had left carrots at my house. And I also had lots of parsley, which meant that making this recipe would help solve one of life's greatest plights: having fresh herbs go bad before you have a chance to use the whole bunch.

Rice and Potato Soup with Parmigiano-Reggiano Rind doesn't involve a ton more than is in its title: broth, rice, potatoes, parmesan rinds, tomato paste, carrots, celery, salt/pepper, bay leaves, parsley. The celery was an issue though. I detest celery -- celery seed is alright; the human tongue is certainly full of mysteries -- and though this required only two stalks, I couldn't convince myself it would be worth it to purchase a hunk of celery, see if I liked it in this particular case, and, regardless of whether I did or not, have the rest go bad in my small vegetable drawer. So celery was cut, much to the potential dismay of Lidia, and I proceeded on. I already had about half of the 10 (yes, 10) cups of chicken broth already in my fridge, and homemade at that. So in that went.

Here are the potatoes, sticking to the pan.

Reading a recipe you've never made before is a bit funny. I inevitably find myself doubting whether it will work as it says until either my doubts become true or what the recipe says does, and I feel foolish in each case. This was a perfect example of such a dilemma; the potatoes did stick to the bottom of the pan as I was told they would, but, like magic, the bits melted away off the bottom once all the broth was added. As I the scent wafted, I was having second thoughts about whether I did now want that acidity of the celery, but is there a way to get that acidity without the actual taste of celery? Maybe with whole stalks you take out later before serving? Email me if there is a way to have a celery quality without the actual thing.

The broth also magically cooks the rice in record time, only 12 minutes and so tender. Much of it boils off as well, so you're left with less of a brothy soup and more of a risotto, particularly when the meal becomes leftovers and the rice soaks even more of the liquid up. I forgot to add the (sometimes controversial) bay leaves until a bit later in the process then intended, and I think I'd have preferred it all to taste more like parm than it did, but the end result was certainly good: hearty, soothing, and can really feed a crowd.

Unfortunately for me and Lidia, this soup is not one that I LOVE, though I did eat plenty the night I made it and have also had it every day since for lunch, but that's the distinction between "very edible" and "will not have any leftovers, or if you do, will look forward to them with a glee that overwhelms oneself." That is to say, it wouldn't go in my recipe book, but I'd understand if it was in yours. It did remind me of a moment from Meg Wolitzer's new book The Female Persuasion. In it, after a family tragedy, 20-something Cory discovers his mother's recipe box after a family tragedy:

He cooked dinner for his mother every night too. Not only had he never cleaned up after himself before; he had also never cooked a real, full dinner in his life either, unless it was a box of Ronzoni spaghetti and a jar of Ragú. Every day he began to look through his mother's Portuguese-language recipe cards, which at first were as incomprehensible as Alby's "scientific" notes. Soon he'd cracked this code as well. "OL" was óleo, "oil"; "UP" was um pouco, "a little"; and on and on. Cory was pleased with his code-breaking abilities, and the food came out surprisingly tasty.

I think that's so true--that cracking the code can be part of the pleasure of eating, if not most of it. Maybe this one wasn't as pleasurable for me because some parts of this dish weren't quite cracked.

KATE

P.S. If you are reading this and are thinking to yourself, what did I get myself into, you can catch up here.