In her introduction to Love Soup, Anna Thomas — she of the groundbreaking and much-loved Vegetarian Epicure — sums up nicely what it is we love so much about those warm and warmly-remembered home-cooked meals:

There is a reason that we think of home cooking with nostalgia, that we speak of it in hopeful tones and are thankful when we encounter it. It makes life better. And soup is the food that can get us all cooking again, easily, happily. Anyone can make a good soup, and therefore a home-cooked meal, and therefore a better day.

There is an old Spanish saying, much repeated, “Of love and soup, the second is better.” But I say, why choose? Be in love. Eat soup. Love soup!

A manifesto I can get behind, if ever there was one.

Especially now that the temperature here in the Berkshires has dipped into the icy single digits, and the wind is howling threateningly outside, whipping our neighbor’s flag, atop a tall metal pole, into little chilled patriotic spasms.

This soup, from Love Soup, is kissed with Moroccan harissa and fresh mint, two flavors that do not feature regularly in my very white, very suburban memories of home cooking. No matter. The nostalgic flavors of home aren’t necessary to evoke that feeling of warmth and belonging, and we can make our own impressions of home cooking with wild, fresh, and unexpected new flavors every time we cook.

Home cooking, like soup, is the stuff of life, the real deal, the memory-making marrow we carry around in our bones. It is good stuff.

We served this soup with an array of delicious, briny olives, slabs of grilled halloumi, a little bit of Turkish eggplant, some Persian sour pickled vegetables, and extra harissa and olive oil for adulterating the soup with more perfumey goodness. Salty feta would make a perfect companion, too, and if you don’t have harissa on hand, another hot sauce will work fine — though it won’t be quite the same. It’s worth making harissa at least once or twice; you might soon find that you can’t live without it.

French Lentil Soup with Roasted Carrots and Mint

Adapted from Anna Thomas’ Love Soup

• 1 1/2 pounds carrots
• 1 1/2 pounds yellow onions
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, plus more to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup French green lentils
• 4 cups basic light vegetable broth, or 3 cups canned vegetable broth diluted with 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint, or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried mint
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons harissa (recipe follows)
• Feta cheese, for garnish
• Fruity green olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 375°.
2. Cut the carrots and onions into fairly large pieces, about 1 inch long for the carrots and 1/2-inch wedges for the onions. Toss the carrots in a bowl with a tablespoon of oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and spread them on a baking sheet. Do the same with the onions. Roast the vegetables for about an hour, or until they are soft and browned, stirring and turning them a few times during the roasting. The onions will need more stirring and will be done sooner than the carrots. When the vegetables are ready, let them cool a little, then turn them out on a board and chop them very coarsely.
3. Meanwhile, combine the washed green lentils in a large soup pot with 4 cups (1 liter) water and a teaspoon of salt. Bring the water to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes, or until the lentils are tender but still firm. Add the chopped roasted vegetables, vegetable broth, mint, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and harissa to taste.
4. Simmer the soup for about 10 minutes to marry the flavors, then taste, and correct the seasoning with more salt and pepper or a little more lemon juice as needed. Add a bit more broth, as needed. Remove the soup from the heat, stir in 2 tablespoons of fruity green olive oil, and serve. Garnish each bowl with a few more drops of olive oil and feta cheese.

The harissa recipe now has its own entry elsewhere on the site.