A Green Formica Table and Memories of Mushroom Soup

“Women are like tea bags. You never know how strong they are until they are in hot water.”

                               –Eleanor Roosevelt

When I was growing up, I often spent weekends with my grandmother. As it has turned out, she was the most positive influence in my life.

Food was one of our connections. Nana was an excellent cook, but one of my fondest memories is sitting at her green formica kitchen table, having a long loving talk, and enjoying a bowl of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup with saltine crackers and real butter. It was a ritual for us– a treat she kept especially for me whenever I visited.

There has been a lot of “thinking time” during this stinking pandemic and I’ve been thinking about Nana a lot recently. (I’ve written about her before. Here is a link: Nana and Chocolate Cake.)

Nana was born at the turn of the 20th Century. The young widow of an oil-worker and then the wife of another oil worker, money was always scarce in her life and she had few opportunities. She lived through the 1918 flu pandemic, two world wars,  and a crippling depression. Since my father was born in 1917, she must have been a young mother when that plague ravaged our country. At some point, her family migrated from the depressed Pennsylvania oil fields to Weedpatch, California, a migrant community so poor it was memorialized in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

America has been made infinitely stronger by women like my Nana who “persisted” in the face of what must have been soul-crushing adversity. She died days before my high school graduation.

So, when my good friend Carole recently mentioned having made a bowl of mushroom soup, it rang all the right bells for me.

Here is a homemade mushroom soup recipe. Whatever you do, don’t forget the saltines and butter. If you can gather your Nana at the table, all the better.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

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Ingredients

• 4 T. butter
• 1 T. oil
• 2 onions (diced)
• 3-4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 1/2 pounds fresh brown mushrooms (sliced and/or chopped)
• 4 t. fresh thyme (chopped)
• 1/2 C. Marsala wine
• 6 T. all-purpose flour
• 4 to 5 C. vegetable broth
• Salt to taste
• 1 t. freshly-ground black pepper
• 1-2 C. heavy cream (or half and half)
• Chopped fresh parsley and thyme to serve
• Cayenne pepper (optional)

Instructions

1. Put butter and oil in a soup pot and heat until butter melts. Sauté the onion for several minutes until it has softened. Add the minced garlic to the onion and sauté until the garlic is fragrant. This will take about 1 minute.
2. Add the sliced and/or chopped mushrooms (I used cremini mushrooms) and 2 t. of chopped fresh thyme to the soup pot and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the Marsala wine and continue to cook until the wine is cooked down. This will take about 3 minutes.
3. Sprinkle flour over the mushrooms you have sautéed in the soup pot, stir well and cook for about 3 more minutes. Add the vegetable broth to the mushroom mixture and bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium. Season your soup with salt and pepper. Cover the soup pot and simmer the soup for 10 to 15 minutes until it begins to thicken. Stir the soup occassionally as it thickens.
4. Reduce heat to low and add the cream. (I was feeling extravagant and nostalgic and added 2 cups of cream.) Allow soup to simmer for a few minutes but don't let it boil. Season with salt and pepper as necessary.
5. Garnish soup with chopped fresh parsley and thyme to your taste. Garnish with a bit of cayenne pepper if you wish. Serve warm.

Nutrition

Calories

4539 cal

Fat

101 g

Carbs

784 g

Protein

131 g

Click Here For Full Nutrition, Exchanges, and My Plate Info

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