That was Big Mike’s call for dinner when he made his favorite Lentil Soup. Lentil Soup in those days, many years ago, meant opening a can of Lentil Soup, pouring the contents into a pot, taking several hot dogs, slicing them, adding them to the soup, heating the soup until the hot dog pieces puffed out, and then calling out to the family…’SOUP’S ON!’ I thought it was delicious, which was probably due to the fact that it must have contained three days’ worth of sodium.

Lentil Soup has nothing to do with the period of 40 days preceding Easter.  From what I have read, lentils have been around for about 10 millenia and their name is derived from the plant Lens culinaris, of which lentils are the edible seeds.

With the first days of winter only weeks away, soup is on the mind. So off we went to the supermarket to pick up the ingredients for Lentil Soup. This Lentil Soup takes a little more time than opening a can and heating its contents, but actually not much more time. The recipe came from Uncle Fred, who always had a few containers of it stored away in his freezer and which he generously shared with us upon our arrival at The Cape for the summer. Now I find myself assuming the role of Uncle Fred as I await the arrival of my children this Thanksgiving.