One of the great wonders of the modern world is the little-known fact of Midwestern hardiness. I have come to believe it is my duty to let those persons, who in the dead of January, might be wearing shorts and a tank top, or driving to the grocery store with the windows down...There are people freezing in the Midwest.

Last week for instance; minus twenty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. This was not windchill, no siree-bob, this was actual Illinois temperature according to everyone's thermometer. Our schools closed for days. I'll be honest. I wanted to close my cafe but I have these die-hard employees who keep me straight and opened the cafe even though I called in sick and tired of minus twenty seven.

I am sure they were thinking of the huge, enormous bucket of soup the night before that would go to waste if we didn't open. I mean huge. Even I could not believe how much soup I'd made. When I am left alone in the kitchen too long without supervision, I play fast and loose with food. I kept thinking up things I wanted in my soup. I peeled, diced and plunked until the soup grew beyond our required 13 cups to 13 gallons of soup. OK maybe only 3 gallons, but let me say this; three gallons is a boat-load of soup for a tiny cafe.

These kinds of unrestrained kitchen forays do not usually work our for me but on this day, the minus-twenty-seven day, alchemy occurred. I received so many compliments on my blowsy soup that I actually went to my notepad and wrote it down.

This is a good soup that will feed 3000 if you are called to do such a thing. I cut this recipe down to serve 6-8 peeps because I had to toss out many gallons on the minus-twenty-seven day. Even to Eskimo-ish midwesterners, minus-twenty-seven gave pause and 2,990 of them stayed home by the fire drinking hot chocolate so I had some left-overs.

Fraiche Cafe Bread Soup

1 turnip diced

1 celery root diced

1 small onion diced

1 cup mushrooms

1 carrot

1 parsnip peeled, diced

5 thick slices of good bread cut into cubes

E. V. Olive Oil

1 cup grated Parmesan

8 cups chicken broth

(I hope you have home-made broth in your freezer to use)

1lb ground beef

1 egg

1cup cooked rice, brown rice is nice

1/4 cup taco sauce

(I hate to admit this is the secret ingredient)

Lots of ingredients but easy to assemble.

Mix ground beef with beaten egg.

Make tiny meat balls.

Put all ingredients into saute pan with olive oil to brown

Pour hot broth over all ingredients.

Serve over toasted bread cubes and top with Parmesan.

better..tomorrow!