Gentle Lentil Soup

WHEN MY HUSBAND CAME INTO THE KITCHEN and saw my very old and well loved Moosewood Cookbook open on the table, he smiled. He told me that he had stood in the bookstore browsing endless cookbooks with the intention of buying me one for Christmas. He was not inspired by any of them. He thought them too showy, overly stylized, and unoriginal. Pretty, beautiful even, but not anything really useful.

Indeed, I have a few of those glossy cookbooks in my collection and after my initial enjoyment of reading/looking at them, they have sat unused, taking up space on my bookshelves. In fact, I have been thinking for a while of culling many of my books. If you are interested in any of them, let me know.

Meanwhile, I have turned to my favorite cookbooks over and over throughout the years. The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen is an unpretentious, old fashioned, classic and lovely vegetarian cookbook. Every recipe I have ever cooked (many, many) have been perfectly delicious. The book is printed on earthy paper, hand-letter and illustrated by the author--not a photograph in sight.

This lentil soup is not something you will zoom through the kitchen in less than 30 minutes to prepare. But if you really enjoy cooking, all the processes and aromas that go along with it, you will be rewarded with a surprisingly delicious, healthful, simple, and filling soup. Our resident 5-year-old gobbled it up!