This Soup Will Save Your Life

I've been living without air conditioning, either because I'm a masochist or lazy, or some combination thereof. (Though I do have a mighty fine box fan in the window.)

Anyway, as a result, I've been making this cherry soup like crazy. It was the star of the first-ever Brooklyn Kosher-Test Kitchen. It's inspired by Mark Bittman, but I've changed it. It is also as parve as you wanna be.

Ingredients
1-2 pounds sour cherries -- one bag or plastic container should make about 4 servings
1 tsp cornstarch mixed w/ 2 tsp water
pinch salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 tbs canned cream of coconut (to taste)

Directions
Pit the cherries -- a messier ordeal than you might imagine. (At least, for this slob it is.) Put them in a saucepan with water to cover. Add cornstarch, salt, cinnamon. Cook on medium heat, until the cherries are very soft. Depending on how ripe they are, this could take anywhere from 20 - 30 minutes.

Add the lemon zest, then the canned cream of coconut. Puree with an immersion blender. This can also get messy! I wouldn't puree all the way - it's more interesting that way.

Chill.

Serve with ice cubes, sprigs of mint, yogurt (which makes it not parve, fyi). I particularly like it with fage and sprinkled with crushed walnuts.

The soup can be a first course, dessert, breakfast -- depending on how much you sweeten it. In that way, it's like those versatile dresses that get popular every few years, that you can wear in 101 stupid ways.



Difference between soup and dress? Soup you can eat. And it is considerably less complicated than the above.

FYI: Bittman calls for sugar to sweeten, but I think we all eat too much white sugar as it is. And this cream of coconut -- which you can freeze, by the way -- is kosher, and keeps the dish extra fruity.

Who knows from this parve?

Parve. Merriam-Webster defines it as "made without milk, meat, or their derivatives." Meaning, it counts as neither meat -- a.k.a. fleishik -- or milk -- a.k.a. milchik. Parve is my best friend, the ultimate loophole.



So, OK, what's parve? There's the obvious: vegetables, fruit, grains (like pasta), juice, alcohol.

Then there are the foods that will trick you. The ones that, logically speaking, should be meat, but that are, in fact, parve: fish and eggs.


*Note: Mexican walking fish not actually kosher*

And then there ones that masquerade as milk, but that are parve, too: mayonnaise, margarine, all soy "milk" products, like yogurt, milk, and cheese.

The concept of parve is vital because anything that you make with parve ingredients can be served with either a meat OR a milk meal.

For instance:

• Mashed potatoes made with margarine - can be served alongside steak, brisket, roast chicken, etc
• Soy margarine or yogurt that takes the place of butter or buttermilk in baking, so you can serve cornbread (or whatever) with meat chili
• Dark chocolate (check to be sure). Melted, it can be mixed with parve margarine, flour and egg whites to make a delicious fondant - an amazing, loophole-to-end-all-loopholes dessert to follow a meat meal

Parve is generally denoted by a P on food products. If you don't care about the heksher, then check the ingredients yourself. Kind of amazing what you'll find -- like cochineal, a nice way of referring to the red bugs from whence red M&Ms get their color.