Wade Farley’s New Potato Soup
I was thinking about my daddy today and missing him and found myself craving his cream of potato soup. When I was a child he made this soup with new red potatoes and green onions from his garden. It was quite a bit of work because he never peeled them, he scraped the skin off, which left the potatoes just a little pink. He'd fry up some bacon, reserve the bits and then quarter the potatoes and brown them a little in the bacon grease. He'd add the finely chopped white of green onions and stir those in too before covering it all with water. Then he'd salt and pepper it before boiling everything. When the potatoes were very tender, in went some milk. He would stir in the reserved bacon bits and the chopped green onion tops. It was never a very thick soup but when I ate it I would mash up the tender potatoes a little and somehow it magically thickened it to the right consistency. I made my daddy's soup today and it was delicious. Food can be a time machine.