Curried Sweet Potato Soup

3 lbs dark orange sweet potatoes, peeled and diced.

3 tbsp. unsalted butter

2 leeks, white and tender green parts only, chopped

1 tbsp. grated peeled fresh ginger

2 (2-inch) pieces lemongrass

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp lemon curry powder blend

1 quart vegetable broth

1 (14.5 oz) can coconut milk

Fresh pork rinds for garnish

In a large pot, cook the sweet potatoes in the butter for 5 minutes over medium heat.  Add the leaks, ginger, and lemongrass.  Cook for 3 minutes over low heat or until the leeks are tender. Add the garlic and curry, and cook for 1 minute.  Stir in the broth and simmer until sweet potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes.

With an immersion blender, or carefully with a blender, puree the soup. Stir in the coconut milk and warm through over low heat.

Ladle into bowls and top with a pork rind.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Some people might say Martha Hall Foose got what she deserved when she ended up back where she started in the Mississippi Delta. After working in the café at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, she realized she had read a few hundred cookbooks. In fact, at eighteen years of age, Martha seemed to be most adept at reading cookbooks and experimenting with recipes, so stedhe set out to become a cook. Her newfound career path led through a Chinese restaurant in Aspen and a couple of whole-grain bakeries in Vermont. Always hungry for adventure and knowledge, Martha headed to the West Coast.



Martha learned the artisan trade of baking from Nancy Silverton and Sumi Chang while at La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles. After a few years as the overnight baker for Campanile, Martha felt the need for a greater challenge and set out to get some formal training. Foose followed Silverton¹s footsteps to Ecole Lenotre for the Pains de Tradition et Qualite´ course.



Upon returning from France, Foose opened a Southern institution, Bottletree Bakery, in Oxford, Mississippi. Three years later, she sold the much-lauded bakery and married the head baker, Donald Bender. They moved to New Orleans where Martha was Pastry Chef for Bayona and an instructor at Spice, Inc., and Donald was baker for The Windsor Court Hotel and Spice, Inc.



Next, Martha and Donald followed the Mississippi River up to Minnesota where she worked as Food Editor for Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks and as a consultant for Food Professionals Network and Tad Ware Photography. Donald worked as Baker at the award-winning Turtle Bread Company and Whole Foods Bakehouse.



Family and the wish for warmer weather finally brought them back to Mississippi. For five years Martha Hall Foose served as Executive Chef of the Viking Cooking School and opened Mockingbird Bakery in Greenwood, Mississippi, with Donald. They now live dividing their time between Pluto Plantation in rural Holmes County and Greenwood with their dear son, Joe.
She might say she got just what she always wanted.



BRING SOME HOMESPUN FLAVOR
TO YOUR COOKOUT THIS SUMMER

Screen Doors and Sweet Tea
Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook

Sure, you can take the recipes out of the South and serve them in restaurants across the country, but they're best when shared by a native daughter and spiced with a good dose of local color. In SCREEN DOORS AND SWEET TEA, chef Martha Hall Foose enriches the Southern canon with her personal touch and accompanies each delicious dish with stories that bring this region and its food to life.
SCREEN DOORS AND SWEET TEA mixes haute flavor with homespun ingredients in the kinds of recipes that the thousands of home cooks Martha teaches each year clamor for; sweet potato soup is enlivened with coconut milk and curry powder; blackberry limeade ("Amethyst Elixir") gets a lift from a secret ingredient--cardamom; crawfish pies are made with egg roll wrappers; and her much ballyhooed Sweet Tea Pie combines two great Southern staples--sweet tea and pie--to make one phenomenal signature dessert.