I had the pleasure of meeting Amy Caplan, entrepreneur and founder of The Gourmet Soup Kitchen, at a bustling weekly farmers market in Pacific Palisades last week. She was a veritable sprite with so much enthusiasm and energy that her booth seemed to attract a large following of eager soup tasters and regular clients who were filling there environmentally friendly sacs with Amy’s latest soups. Amy sets up her booth at both The Pacific Palisades Farmers Market and the Brentwood Farmers Market every Sunday.
The Gourmet Soup Kitchen is unique in the soup market, as the soups are all vegan, with a few exceptions that contain a VERY small amount of low fat milk. All soups are low fat and low sodium. The Soups are frozen and “ready to go” in 16 oz. servings for a mere $6. They also deliver in the Westside!
The Soup Menu features over 30 handmade soups with such tantalizing title’s; Sweet Pea and Basil/Mint, Roasted Tomato and Basil, Portuguese Spinach and White Bean, Thai Curried Pumpkin and Provencal Minestrone.
Amy picked out an African Peanut Soup for me to sample for this post, and I could not wait to feast on this bowl. It was yet another unseasonably cool day in the hills of LA and I could not think of a better lunch option for this October day.
As I heated up this delicate mix of Organic Lite Peanut butter, Onions, carrots, yams, celery, Napa cabbage, golden lentils, green beans I instantly inhaled the subtle but decadent smell of lite coconut milk and some spices I could not quite put my finger on.
The bowl exploded with flavor with each ingredient partnering with the other. There was no overwhelming flavor but a perfect balance lingering in my mouth with each bite. This was easily a full meal, loaded with fresh, organic veggies, not a puree but a bowl filled with chunks of colorful vegetables. Often Peanut soups are overly salted or spiced; Amy’s addition of sea salt was just perfect.
Simply put, The Gourmet Soup Kitchen crafts vegetarian soups that give instant nourishment to both the heart and the soul. I instantly felt full and relaxed, a perfect way to wet my appetite for a massage I was getting a few hours later with a friend at the new Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes.
A top-notch soup day in Los Angeles!
