Here's a Lovely Christmas Soup for You

Here's a little Christmas goodie for all of you, adapted from a recipe from Cook's magazine, the second-best magazine in creation (behind FRONT ... heh, heh, heh ...). It's for potato-feta soup and from the taste I just had, it's righteous: rich, creamy, full of flavor and made to kill you almost instantly. This is not health soup. It is in keeping with the over-indulgence of the season.

Here goes, beginning with what you need:

4 big potatoes
3 carrots chopped finely
1 cup of soup stock (any kind you want; I used vegetable)
4 tablespoons of butter (butter, baby, not margerine)
8 cups of milk
2 cups light cream
8 ounces feta (or some of that wonderful Bulgarian sheep's milk cheese, which you can buy at the little Mediterranean shop across the street from Mick or Mack in Grandin Village. This is far better than feta)
1 medium onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon of salt (if you dare)
Pinch (what the hell's a "pinch"?) rosemary, sage and marjoram
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

Don't peel the 'taters. Dice them and put them into the single cup of soup stock to cook for about seven minutes, medium heat, covered. Reduce the heat to low--still covered--and cook for about 30 minutes, until the 'taters are soft, not mushy. Melt the butter in a big pan or Dutch oven and cover it with the onions, cooking them until they're tender. Add milk, cream, seasonings, crumbled feta and carrots to the onions and heat them until very hot. Don't boil it. Boiled milk burns and leaves this god-awful smell. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes. You can serve it topped with chopped parsley or a pat of butter or some crumbled feta. It's all good. Enjoy it, but don't blame me for the hospital trip.