We’ll always have soup

Soups are like scarves: Even though you crave them when the weather is at its chilliest, you can pretty much always find one comforting — or comfortable. I say this as someone who loves both and lives in a place where the temperature, especially during the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, can take 40- or 50-degree swings in the span of a week.

I’m thinking about scarves because I’m finishing a double-sided linen one I’m sewing for a friend, and it occurred to me last night, as I looked at the weather forecast for the next 10 days and saw the figure “80,” that by the time I get it to him we’ll be out of peak scarf season. Still, I’m confident he’ll find plenty of uses for it in the weeks to come. Crucial for any D.C. clothing, it’s breathable, so on those days that implausibly seem to be chilly and muggy at the same time, he can still reach for it.

And I’m thinking about soups because I just finished up a six-week run writing The Boston Globe’s Winter Soup Club newsletter, as I mentioned when it began. One of the cool features about the newsletter — second to the fact that you don’t need a subscription to get it — is that it will keep on rolling out to everyone who signs up. That means that you didn’t have to catch it during its original send; you can start now and get week one this next Thursday, and so on for six weeks.

I’m proud of the recipes I came up with for the series, so rather than offering you a different recipe here, I wanted to dedicate this week’s Eat at Joe’s to a recap of the soup club offerings and a reminder that if you didn’t already sign up, you still can. You’ll also get my take on reader questions about how to make a decent vegetable broth; how to use less salt; how to adjust the spiciness; and more.

Week 1: Mushroom Noodle Hot Pot, inspired by a mushroom-packed soup I had in Seoul.

Week 2: Black Bean and Orange Soup, in which I layer in the flavor of orange juice, zest — and even pieces.

Week 3: Roasted Romesco and Cauliflower Soup, which uses a sheet pan to roast a stripped-down take on the classic Spanish sauce, thinned out into a soup with the brassica on top.

Week 4: Lentil “Meatball,” Pasta and Spinach Soup, my plant-based take on Italian wedding soup, with delicate “meatballs” that punctuate a hearty, broth soup.

Week 5: Nearly-Any-Vegetable Coconut Soup, my proof that with a vegetable; your choice of aromatics, spices and acid; a can of coconut milk; and a little water, you’ve got soup.

Week 6: Longevity Stew, a combination of ingredients — sweet potatoes, collard greens and kidney beans — that may just help you live longer and prosper.

You may wonder: If I sign up now, will I still want soup in six weeks? Yes. Yes, you will.

I break for animals:
Lola