My Soup Bucket List

I’ve taken my thick-knit, chocolate-brown cardigan out for a (frankly sweaty) spin. I’ve watched “When Harry Met Sally… .” I’ve landed on a Halloween costume. For weeks, I’ve tried and failed to conjure fall’s arrival here in New York, where the high last weekend tipped well into the 80s.

But I think I know what did the trick, what finally summoned the chill in today’s air. It was Dan Pelosi’s creamy tortellini soup. This soup has had an iron grip on my group chat, weather be damned. One friend made it on Saturday, influencing another to make it on Sunday, influencing another to make it on Tuesday. These women willed soup season into existence with the sheer power of a paprika-and-fennel-fragrant tomato broth.

I’m late to the party. But not for long. Dan’s recipe is for carnivores and vegetarians alike. You may see sausage in the ingredients list, but it is entirely optional. (“Does not need sausage at all honestly!” wrote one reader). Feel free to skip it in favor of a can of white beans, a suggestion from my girlfriends and at least one of the recipe’s commenters.

Dan’s soup is high on my soup bucket list, a catalog I’ve been keeping mentally but will now formalize for you with this newsletter. It’s been too long since I last made Alison Roman’s spicy noodle soup with mushrooms and herbs, and I will remedy that expeditiously, with plenty of maitake mushrooms, my favorite. The broth, simple to prepare but complex in flavor thanks to soy sauce, rice vinegar and those deeply browned mushrooms, is the sort of thing I could sip straight from a mug sans soba.

Spicy Noodle Soup With Mushrooms and Herbs

View this recipe.

Then I simply must make borscht, a dish I always eat with family on Christmas Eve but have started making for myself as early as Halloween. That beet-red broth, bobbing with potatoes and carrots and, in David Tanis’s recipe, a good bit of dark kale? Spooooky.

The list doesn’t end there. (Could you imagine?) I won’t entertain warmer days until I’ve had my fill of potato leek soup — Kay Chun’s classic recipe as well as Alexa Weibel’s spin that’s loaded up with celery and parsley for a chartreuse hue I’ll be happy to see in the throes of brown-food season. Ditto Melissa Clark’s seared broccoli and potato soup and Lisa Donovan’s pozole verde, green in name and in its brighter toppings.

And there are some stews on the soup bucket list. When it gets really cold, I’ll whip up Kay’s kimchi soondubu jjigae, a stew with fiery edges softened by jiggly silken tofu. Be sure to use a vegetarian kimchi sans fish sauce or otherwise, should you need. And I’ll keep those ruddy-broth vibes going with Alison’s spicy white bean stew with broccoli rabe, using the many cans of beans I’ve stockpiled in anticipation of cooler months.