Cold & Creamy Cantaloupe Soup

A simple concoction of puréed melon and milk, brightened with a little lemon zest. So simple and yet ... somehow so unusual, so comforting, so not-your-every-day cantaloupe.

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Once upon a time a Sunday, a girl sat on a stool in what by the standards of the day was a big kitchen. She marveled at the commercial cooktop's high-BTU burners and the double ovens.

This was no showcase gourmet kitchen. It was a cook's kitchen with good knives within easy reach, a granite workspace for rolling crusts and croissants, a pantry lined with not-then-common small appliances, a food processor, a bread maker, an ice cream maker, a wine cooler. Years of Gourmet magazines were in easily searchable stacks.

Mostly, she marveled at the kitchen dance performed by the cooks, a husband and wife team working in rhythm side-by-side, conferring, consulting, connecting with one another and the food.

That hot Sunday, a steamy day in July – it was Dallas, after all – the girl fell off her tall stool into the world of simple, seasonal food prepared with care but without fuss.

ALANNA's TIPS This soup will knock you over. Allowed to meld overnight, it takes on a lemony sweetness that makes for something almost sippable, completely spoonable.

The soup will separate as it chills but easily re-combines with a good stir or shake.

Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences.

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COLD & CREAMY CANTALOUPE SOUP

Hands-on time: 25 minutes
Time to table: 24 hours
Makes 8 cups

1 large ripe cantaloupe, washed well
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
Zest of a lemon
3 cups whole milk
Dash white pepper
Dash salt

Slice the skins off the melon, cut in half and remove the seeds. Cut the flesh into rough cubes. Purée in a food processor or blender, this should yield about 5 cups.

In a large pot, combine the cantaloupe, butter, sugar and lemon zest. Gently bring to a boil and let simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Stir in the milk and bring back to a simmer, let gently simmer for 5 minutes.

Transfer to a storage container and refrigerate overnight.

Serve chilled in chilled bowls as a starter or as a main-course soup with a salad or sandwich or as a savory fruit dessert.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE Per Cup: 144 Calories; 8g Tot Fat; 5g Sat Fat; 24mg Cholesterol; 92mg Sodium; 14g Carb; 1g Fiber; 14g Sugar; 4g Protein.

WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 3 & Points Plus 4.

NUTRITION NOTE This is the kind of recipe I look at and wonder, Hey, is all that butter needed? Could it be just as good made with skim milk? The answers are "yes" and "no". Just to see, I tried recently. The soup was okay-good but not knock-you-over and can't-wait-to-make-it-again good. I do think you could cut back on the butter to 2 tablespoons but think whole milk is important to both texture and taste.

Adapted from a recipe copied onto a 3x5 card that day in Dallas, from Phyllis Murray, my mom's girlhood friend, and her husband Bob.