Ah, Moosewood!
I owe them big time. I honed so many of my cooking skills on their cookbooks, beginning with Mollie Katzen’s delightful handwritten and self-illustrated Moosewood Cookbook back in the 1970s.. Katzen introduced me to everything from hummus to banana raita. The book is a treasure.
Over the years, I’ve continued to collect Moosewood cookbooks. There are now fourteen cookbooks in their series. The cookbooks occupy a special place on my bookshelves and are dog-eared from use. Leafing through them now, they conjure up memories of my early days as a home cook when everything was new to me and the possibilities were seemingly endless.
Moosewood Restaurant, if you haven’t heard of it, is located in Ithaca, New York, and is a renowned natural foods restaurant. Established by a group of friends in 1973 in a renovated brick school building, the Moosewood collective is widely-recognized as a pioneer in the natural foods and organic foods movement– recognized by Bon Appetit Magazine as one of the thirteen most influential restaurants in the 20th Century and winner of numerous James Beard awards. Katzen’s original Moosewood Cookbook, considered by some to be the bible of the natural foods movement, was named to the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame. Millions of copies of her book have been sold over the years and a 40th Anniversary edition of the book is available through your local bookstore or through Amazon.
Here is a soup recipe, Ybor City Potato and Garbanzo Soup, from the Collective’s 1999 cookbook Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special. (Ybor City is a Cuban neighborhood in Tampa Florida. The city was once the cigar-making capital of the United States.) This spicy soup is chock full of potatoes and garbanzos and served in a saffron broth. Whatever you do, don’t skip the saffron; its flavor makes a world of difference in this soup.
Here’s the recipe. It is from the Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook.
Ybor City Potato and Garbanzo Soup
Ingredients
- 2 T. olive or canola oil
- 2 C. finely-chopped onions
- 2 celery stalks (finely chopped)
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 t. ground cumin
- 1 t. ground fennel seeds
- Pinch of thyme
- 1/2 t. paprika
- 1 t. salt
- 1/2 t. ground black pepper
- Dash of cayenne pepper
- 1 red bell pepper (seeded and chopped into 1-inch pieces)
- 4 C. water
- 4 C. cubed potatoes (1 inch cubes)
- 1 Fifteen ounce can garbanzo beans
- Generous pinch of saffron threads
- 2 T. very hot water
- 1 T. white vinegar or fresh lemon juice (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 Heat oil in a soup pot and sauté onions and celery over medium heat. Stir and sauté until the onions soften and begin to brown. This step will take about 15 minutes.
- Step 2 Add garlic, cumin fennel, thyme, paprika, salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper to the onions. Sauté briefly until the spices are fragrant. Add the bell peppers and continue to cook for about two more minutes.
- Step 3 Add the water and potatoes to the pot, cover and bring to a boil. Once the soup is boiling, lower the temperature to a simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Once the potatoes are tender, add the garbanzo beans.
- Step 4 While the soup is simmering, put the saffron threads into a small bowl. Crush the threads with the back of a spoon. Pour the hot water over the saffron and let the mixture steep. Add the saffron water to the soup. Stir in vinegar or fresh lemon juice (if using). Serve.
