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Yesterday I mentioned that I was not a huge kale fan. That’s not a crime. I am soooo glad to hear there are sooo many wonderful qualities to kale. I am soooo glad to hear sooo many of those uses from sooo many chatty people out there. To set the record straight, I did not say kale was the scourge of the planet. I merely said it had a certain “raw greeny-ness” that makes my teeth squeak when I eat it. No I don’t wear dentures, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.

Please give me some credit for taking a veggie I merely feel lukewarm about and building (what I believe) to be a terrific soup around it. This shows “tolerance” on my part. It requires a certain “pioneer spirit” and proves once and for all that I am “fair and balanced”. Notice I am quoting from several of you jokers out there! Besides. I am a bit proud of what I came up with.

I devised a White Bean and Red Kale Soup with Italian Sausage. Now I admit I used some rather “rudimentary“ soup making techniques. I did not bust down any walls in making this soup. But, it is my own making. Still, that doesn’t mean I did not have certain gastronomic inspirations when I set forth my culinary ambitions on that pretty red kale. 

Nope. I place my inspiration foremost on the lap of Simone Beck, Julia Childs lesser known collaborator in the “Mastering…” series of the 1970’s. She was the primary source. But I have to credit my own mother as the motivating muse in this endeavor.

When my mother passed away, she left behind a pretty extensive collection of cookbooks. As food and cooking were the primary gifts she left to me (besides really good cheek bones and broad shoulders!!) it seemed natural that a few of her prized books made it into my collection.

My brother got the “Mastering…” series and pretty much everything Julia Child first edition. But he is an actual French Culinary trained chef. And well, me…well you know what I do.

But I did get “Simca’s Cuisine” (Simca is Simone Beck) which is a straightforward collection of very French menus with a lot of classic French recipes.

Maybe it was its dog-eared condition, or maybe it was a sort of honor code I was following. Maybe it was plain old sadness. But I took that book into my house more than 10 years ago and never cooked from it. I certainly skimmed it. But it never really seemed like the right time to actually re-create any of the recipes that helped contribute to my mother’s tremendous skills in the kitchen.

But recently, I was called upon to cook something “really French” and “rustic”, with a “snuggly” winter vibe to it. I was joining friends in a cabin at Yosemite . We were each cooking one nights meal. I pulled down my mother’s “Simca’s Cuisine” and it fell open to Canards en Cassoulet. Which is a duck and white bean bit of heaven with hot sausages. And when I looked down on the page, there in the margin in my mother’s 1970’s perfect penmanship I saw written “get the kids to try this”.

Well this kid may be well past a certain age and then some…but I was certainly going to try it.

Funny thing is though. When we were in Yosemite a bout of the flu passed through the group. It felled me on the very night I was to make this cassoulet. I bravely worked my way through its preparation. But I did a REALLY bad job.

Well that damn cassoulet has been stuck in my brain for the past few weeks.

I no longer have the flu. And as I am feeling the creative bug. I am taking some of the inspirations and techniques I (should have) learned making Simca’s cassoulet and I am making a soup.

Kale and sausages are a perfect combination. They both have the balls (sorry…) to hold up to each other. So that was my jumping off point.

It did not take much brainpower on my part to add yummy, pork infused, slowly oven braised white beans either. Like I said I was thinking and rethinking that cassoulet over in my head. With that inspiration and a little vegetable broth I had the beginnings of a hearty a winter soup. Inspired by my mother, cassoulet, and the beautiful curly red kale from the Hollywood Farmers Market. Check it out!

SERIOUS FUN FOOD

Greg Henry

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