Book Review: The Soup Club Cookbook

Everybody loves a good cookbook don't they? Well they should! This cookbook caught my eye with it's striking cover and interesting premise, and my love with its heart and purpose. The premise of the book is simple, four friends band together to once a week deliver soup to each other's homes for the evening meal. The friends rotate on a schedule so that each person is providing soup once a month and the rotation continues week in and week out through the entire year. Rich and hearty soups are created for the harsh winter months and lighter refreshing ones for the heat of the summer and they along with any needed accompaniments or sides are dutifully doled out to provide each family with one ready to heat-and-eat meal a week.

The book starts you off with a good look at just how to begin a soup club of your own before launching into a thorough primer of broth building and flavor boosters. Everything is laid out clearly and in a well organised manner with good tips and engaging cooks notes stories for nearly every recipe. The majority of the rest of the book covers a myriad of delicious looking soups that I'm eager to run a few batches of myself! I'm a big fan of chili's and the like and can easily see myself whipping up a pot of the Cuban Black Bean Soup, or the Beck Chicken Chili, or the Chicken Tortilla Soup. What surprised me was that I was equally drawn to recipes like the Potato Leek Soup, and the Carrot Coconut Soup- and I may just get the nerve to try them someday! One soup that has me utterly intrigued is the Filipino Healing Soup and it's almost legendary status among the soup club group has me eager to try it out at the first crack of chilly October air this fall! The book concludes with a good stash of recipes for filling out your soup meal. From Cheddar Cornbread, to Kimchi, to Summer Corn Hash they all look like recipes that will fill the stomach with good things!

Each of the soup recipes in the book are geared for producing a high volume of soup so you shouldn't expect to make a pot of soup for two. But that is kinda the point of this cookbook- and the soup club in the first place. This food is meant to be shared and it's always better when more people are involved! Food isn't just about providing nourishment for your body it's about providing nourishment for your soul. Food- good food- is about people and relationships- anyone who has a favorite dish from mom or grandmom knows that. The food we create to share with others is the best food we will create because as cliched as it sounds that food is seasoned with love. The recipes of The Soup Club are recipes that are meant to be shared, whether that is with a group of soup enthusiasts of your own, or as a gift to the elderly shut in across the street or the struggling new mom at church and what you put into that batch of soup can't be matched with what you will get out of it when you share it.

I really enjoyed reading The Soup Club Cookbook because in reading of these four women's culinary history and friendships it reminded me of a lot of good things from my own past. Reading good cookbooks like this makes me want to be a better person. It makes me want to be the person who likes squash, and doesn't blink at garbanzo beans, and the one who shares what she has freely and with warmth. And that sounds like a pretty good cookbook to me!

Final Rating: 5

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review and opinion of the product.