Late summer has arrived, Labor Day has come and gone, days are becoming shorter, the air is dryer and cotton puff clouds decorate deep blue skies. It's September and I feel that blue sky coloring my heart with the ominous sense that colder, darker days are ahead...and winter...ugh!

So today I offer a warming bowl of wholesome goodness that can wash away the "Debbie Downer" of darker days. A soup that will help you retain the healthy glow of summer, full of body

If you adore asparagus, this one is for you! From every local farm stand, asparagus shouts the long awaited news that winter has ended, the ground has warmed, and the earth is ready to give up her glory again! So very fresh with earth's early awakening, spires as snappy as their vivid grassy color are now the verdant stars of every spring menu...it's an exciting time to be in the kitchen!

You would be hard pressed to find a more versatile vegetable. For it's minimal preparation, quick cook time and delicate earthy flavor, asparagus adapts beautifully to almost any cooking application without masking other flavors. Asparagus is a gracious culinary 

I have fallen in love with the flavors of Indian cuisine. The intensely fragrant spices of curry, cardamom, cloves, cumin, cinnamon, coriander and so many more create complex characteristics so uniquely intriguing and perhaps intimidating to some. So foreign are the flavors and yet they are beautifully heady with sweet rich perfumes of spices many  have never explored. I am not an expert, but I am hooked!