This is my favorite soup from one of my favorite cookbooks, ‘Twelve Months of Monastery Soups’ by Br Victoire-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette. This Louisiana girl can't just leave a good recipe alone, so I usually add a few dashes of cayenne and a quick pour of heavy cream and sometimes some shrimp, too. Probably also a little more salt and lemon juice than it calls for. I couldn't tell you exact amounts because Louisiana girls who can't leave good recipes alone bother with neither measurements nor notes. Louisiana cooking often unfolds by intuition, by carefully analyzing the smells, by taking a tiny thoughtful taste to see what's missing, what the recipe wants.
This cookbook was first shared with me by my college spiritual advisor, a French nun who wore a sky blue smock and a giant wooden cross. When we would meet for spiritual direction, she would often listen to my ramblings and then either shake her head "Non!" or break into a smile and say, "This smells like God!" I don't know if this little motto was a French idiom that didn't translate well into English, or if she was just as quirky and intuitive as carrot soup with cayenne.
But I still often employ her simple tool to discern a particular decision or movement: Does this smell like God?
It's a lot like cooking, isn't it?
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