There’s been an awful lot of soup in my life for the past few weeks. Every time I put another pot on the stove, the little voice in my head replays a line from the movie “Juno”.
“She smells like soup. Have you ever smelled her? I mean, her whole house smells like soup!”
Um, hopefully I’m just being paranoid, but I think I could have been the inspiration behind that whole scene. The weather has been cold as all get out though and I do what I’ve got to do to stay warm and semi-sane through the winter. I make soup. A lot. And I probably smell like soup. And my whole house, too. Oh well, c’est la vie.
My latest batch of soup is a simple cannellini bean soup with 2 whole heads of roasted garlic pureed into it, garnished with Parmesan frico crisps. It’s hearty and satisfying and pretty healthy at the same time. The garlic isn’t the least bit abrasive, instead it provides a round, almost sweet undertone to the white beans. The crisp rounds of Parmesan add nutty, cheesy crunch. All in all, it provides further evidence that it’s okay to smell like soup, as long as eating it makes you feel good. At least that’s what I’m going with.
Every time I make fish this way, I find myself asking why I don’t make dishes like this more often. It’s incredibly simple, quite healthy, and way quick. And, don’t worry, it’s also totally delicious–I still have my priorities straight.
In December, cooking demands a lot of you. You’ve got to plan ahead, come up with elegant menus for holiday entertaining. You’re making a million trips to a thousand different grocery stores for just the right ingredients and forcing yourself to bake cookies uniform and cute enough to be giftable. 
Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach about New Year’s resolutions. I’m not on a crash diet and I will never, ever give up butter or sugar. No, this salad’s more about the fact that I simply cannot bear the thought of any heavy foods for a while. It seems like all I’ve done for weeks is eat. If anyone offers me another cookie or piece of cheese, I may very well drop into a food coma that lasts until next winter. 
Shaved fennel with orange slices and black olives is far and away my favorite winter salad. It’s a very non-recipe recipe that I’m about to share, but it’s a combination that I adore, so I must sing its praises to you. The flavors play so well off one another: the crunch of raw fennel is highlighted with sweet juicy citrus and cut with briny black olives. It’s a salad that makes such a refreshing counter to heavy winter braises and roasts that I find myself making/craving this salad all the time.