If I could pick one food to live off of, it would be soup. Probably the most versitile of all culinary dishes, soups have always been a sustaining food. During the time I was growing up, the American public had already been introduced to canned soups. But my Dad was also a soup person and often made hearty soups, especially in the winter. I managed to talk him into teaching me his soups, so these recipes are pretty much by memory. I must have gotten them right because every time I make and eat them, I am taken back to the simpler days of my childhood.