Ingredients: for a large pot of soup, you can cut in half for a smaller soup, but it freezes well and most folks want seconds and thirds. This recipe was adapted from Sephardic Cooking: 600 Recipes Created in Exotic Sephardic Kitchens from Morocco to India by Copeland Marks (in my top ten cookbooks list).

1. 4-6 carrots (large)
2. 6-8 stalks celery
3. 6-12 Yukon gold or other yummy potato (peeled and sliced or cut into chunks so that they will cook fairly quickly and mash down)
4. olive oil
5. 8 or more cloves of garlic (prepared properly with the centers removed)
6. juice of 2-3 lemons
7. 1/2-1 tsp turmeric
8. salt to taste (use good salt)
9. Several quarts of water or if you have time make Roasted Root Veggie Stock (see recipe for this nested in my post for Brazilian Sweet Potato, Tomato and Carmelized Onion soup).

Fill your soup pot 3/4 of the way full with water, or stock. Place on stove and start the heat. In a food processor grind up the carrots and celery. Add them to the water and let the whole shebang boil vigorously. Skim the scum off the top and discard.

In a small saucepan heat the oil on low and add the garlic, cook until foamy. Don’t let the garlic get brown. Add this to the scum-free soup, turn the heat to medium, let cook for 5–10 minutes. Add potatoes and cook on low to medium for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Soup is ready for the other ingredients when you can mush up the potatoes in the soup with a masher. Mash up the potatoes in the soup, then add the turmeric, lemon juice and a salt. This soup is better with mashing then with food processing. You want to have small bits of potato and carrot and celery, occasionally engaging with your spoon. My daughter doesn’t food process the celery and carrots, she just cuts them really tiny. I do prefer my version, but go ahead and try hers if you want. Let the flavors blend together and cook at least another ten minutes after you’ve mashed the potatoes in the soup, serve with other yummy foods, Esti’s Parsley, Garlic, Lemon, Jalapeno Supremely Special Sauce or by itself with bread.