Chamba’s Soup(er) Pot and A Food Gal Giveaway
La Chamba soup pot. (photo courtesy of La Chamba)
Whenever I make a big pot of soup, I do so in a cheery lapis Le Creuset that I practically fill to overflow with stock and plenty of veggies and heirloom beans.
But imagine making soup in the striking pot pictured above. Its shape makes it ideal, doesn’t it?
Indeed, it was created just for that purpose, handmade in Columbia from black clay that contains mica, which allows it to withstand a lot of heat, as well as to retain heat.
La Chamba cookware is revered for its beauty and its performance. The unglazed pot can go on the stovetop, in the oven or even the microwave (well, if you’re using a small piece).
Just don’t put it in the dishwasher, though. And before using it for the first time, it must be seasoned by filling it three-quarters of the way with water and baking in a hot oven for half an hour.
Its bulbous shape makes me think of Chinese winter melon soup, a soothing sip if there ever was one.
At Chinese banquet meals, that soup would arrive inside the cavity of the huge winter melon itself, its thick jade-green rind often carved intricately with Chinese characters and its flesh having been scooped into balls or chunks to simmer in the bubbling broth.
My Mom often made a more simplified version in winter fortified with small slivers of chicken that had been coated in egg white to add tenderness.
With its quenching, almost watermelon-like texture, and its mild, subtle natural sweetness, it makes for a soup that goes down comfortingly and easily, and somehow always makes me think of family.
CONTEST: One lucky Food Gal reader will win a large, 6-quart La Chamba soup pot (a $69.95 value), courtesy of Toque Blanche, a gourmet cookware store in Half Moon Bay, which also has a sister store, Chefworks of Santa Cruz. It is the only direct importer in California that stocks the entire La Chamba line.
Entries, limited to those within the continental United States, will be accepted through midnight PST May 7. Winner will be announced May 9.
How to win?
I’ve already told you one of my favorite soup memories. Now, tell me one of yours. Best answer wins.
I love this pot! My first attempt at cooking for my family was when I was 9 possibly, I made Spice Island’s cumin sour cream potato soup for dinner. It was really good and is still one of my favorite soups.
My eight-year son Joseph loves his Grandma’s matzoh ball soup. Every time he has soup somewhere else I ask the question, “Better than granmda’s?” He does a taste test and so far no one comes close! I hope to be able to make soup as good one day. Maybe this La Chamba pot will help me.
Yesterday, after a beautiful bird walk at Jasper Ridge with the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, my friend Louise and I decided to clean out her fridge and make vegetable soup. Turned out very tasty. I found out she likes chunky soup and I like it put through a blender. I had no idea the Half Moon Bay store and the Santa Cruz store were related. I bought my Vitamix blender in the Santa Cruz store. Even got a senior discount. I always check out the sale items in the back of the store. Nice people. I have wandered in the HMB store as well. If I don’t win this contest, I have an excuse to go by the Santa Cruz store and also get wonderful ice cream at Penny Ice, one street over.
“Only the pure in heart can make a good soup,” Ludwig van Beethoven
I often had the honor of making the soups in the many restaurants in which I worked.
With 30 years of cooking professionally, you can imagine my vast soup recipe repertoire.
A few years ago, I was reading one of my favorite blogs by Barbara Massaad, who is an amazing cookbook author. Her blog is myculinaryjourneythroughlebanon.blogspot.com. One post, she requested soup recipes for a fundraiser cookbook project to help feed the Syrian refugees. I sent in a recipe to help and voila her book was published last fall.
Soup for Syria
Book Description
The world has failed Syria’s refugees and some of the world’s wealthiest countries have turned their backs on this humanitarian disaster. Syria’s neighbors—Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq—have together absorbed more than four million refugees. The need for food relief is great and growing.
Acclaimed chefs and cookbook authors the world over have come together to help food relief efforts to alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees. Each has contributed a recipe to this beautifully illustrated cookbook of delicious soups from around the world. Contributors include: Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Anthony Bourdain, Mark Bittman, Alice Waters, Paula Wolfert, Claudia Roden, Sally Butcher, Ana Sortun, Greg Malouf, Aglaia Kremenzi, Joe Barza, Carolyn Kumpe, Wendy Rahamut, and many others.
•Celebrity chefs and cookbook authors contribute favorite recipes to help feed Syrian refugees
•Fabulous soups from around the world—from hearty winter warmers to chilled summer soups
•Easy-to-follow instructions with stunning color photos throughout
•Recipes made with no-fuss ingredients found in your local supermarket
The profits from the sales of the cookbook will be donated to help fund food relief efforts through the United Nation’s UNHCR. Most Syrians hope that one day they will be able to return to their country and rebuild their lives. For now, though, what we can do is listen to their pleas. Be part of this vital work of saving lives and help us deliver essential food items to the displaced refugees.
About the Author
Barbara Abdeni Massaad is a food writer, TV host, cookbook author, and a regular contributor to international cooking magazines. She is the author of Interlink’s bestselling cookbook Man’oushe: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakery. She won the the Gourmand Cookbook Award and the International Academy of Gastronomy Award for Mouneh: Preserving Foods for the Lebanese Pantry.
If by luck, this post is chosen, I would like to send this beautiful La Chamba soup pot to Barbara for her global, noble deeds. Her heart is pure and she makes really delicious soups to help heal the world.
A good memory of my childhood was eating stew during the winter. I loved the veggies and tomatoey broth with cornbread or crackers.
It always kind of amazes me the kind of care that soup can take – a really good soup can come from just a couple ingredients. Watching my mother make soup at home, she would put in bones from the previous night’s roast and some daikon and just let it simmer. She would put it in the refrigerator overnight, and skim off any of the scum that rose to the top, before cooking again on low heat, so when my sister and I came home it would still be warm. Sometimes it feels that soup gets overlooked as a meal option, but I think it’s got a lot of potential.
My brothers are a lot older then me, and when I was younger and they had moved out of the house already, my mother would make soups every Friday night. It was her way of bringing everyone home, to catch up, to make sure she knew what her boys were up to, and to make sure they had a good meal. the soup wasn’t the whole meal, just a tease before the main courses, but it was always the draw. The soups were usually different, but always a simple Chinese style clear broth type of soup. My favorite was pork bones with lotus root. I loved the holes in the lotus root – made it so fun to eat! My mother is older now, and unable to make these soups, and my brothers are busy with their lives. I need to carry on her tradition, because nothing made her happier then seeing her family together, consuming her soups.
I grew up in a household of 7 (5 kids and 2 full time working parents). Because my mom was super busy juggling work, pick up/drop off of 5 kids, etc., she was big on one pot meals, particularly soup. One of our favorites was oxtail soup. It included ginger, onion, oxtail, and either cauliflower or lotus root. This was served as dinner. We would eat the oxtail and veggie (either lotus root or cauliflower) with white rice and a splash of Maggie sauce. Then we’d end the meal with a bowl of the hot wholesome broth. It was comfort food and it always reminds me of the simple, happy life. My mom passed away three years ago in June. Whenever I make this particular soup for my family, I tell the kids the story of how my mom used to make it and how we would enjoy not only as a healthy soup, but as an efficient, healthy meal.
Growing up in an Asian-American household, our meals would sometimes be a cross between Chinese and American. Sometimes we would have pasta with a side of stir-fry bok choy or steak with steamed fish on the table as well but one thing was always consistent, my dad’s soup. Ever since I was little, every week my dad would make a new pot of soup. Sometimes it was watercress soup or chicken and mushroom soup, whatever it was, we always had soup at our house. Now that I’ve moved out, one thing that I always look forward to when I come home, is my dad’s soup. No matter how busy, my dad always made time to make soup. It’s the one thing I can drink over and over again and I absolutely love soup and can drink it at all times and will always think of my parents.
I’m Cajun. We don’t really make soup. Etouffee? Yes. Gumbo? Absolutely. Courtbouillion, sometimes. But soup, not much.
I moved To Chicago and discovered an entire world of soup. I began making my own stocks and broth. I learned about potato soup, beet soup ….and pickle soup too! It was all new to me but I quickly got the hang of it.
My crowning achievement was when I made bigos, a polish hunter’s stew, with meats and cabbage and mushrooms, using my own beef stock. It passed the test!