- [VO] Seattle is a four season soup slurping city.

Hot broth, bouncy noodles and beautiful chunks of veg are an antidote to our infamous gray skies and the perfect match for fall leaves and cozy sweaters.

I'm Rachel Belle, host of Your Last Meal podcast, cookbook author and long time journalist.

Today on The Nosh it's soup season.

You'll meet my friend Caroline Wright, who dedicated her life to soup after surviving a deadly diagnosis.

But first, we'll visit a restaurant making the city's most colorful bowl in town.

Ginger & Scallion is a single concept restaurant.

They only serve variations Khao Soi a complex Northern Thai coconut curry noodle soup made with chef JP's scratch curry pastes.

- [Rachel] The first time I had I was in Chiang Mai sitting, you know, on an upside down little plastic bucket, you know, outside in a market.

So every country has their own specialty.

It gets a little bit under the radar.

- [Rachel] Yeah.

- [JP] but we want to make sure people at least try it once.

Well, let's make some Khai Soi.

- [JP] Yeah.

- [Rachel] So we're going to make the broth first.

I have here rendered chicken fat and start to add little red onions there.

lime zest just to get some fragrant smell.

Cinnamon, chili and star anise.

And you just gonna dump it on there and then mix it all together again.

So these are three curry pastes?

Yeah.

It's basically roasted chili mixed with you know lemongrass, galengal, all different herbs there.

- [JP] This is the spicy ones.

- [Rachel] Okay.

- [JP] Of the three and this is what makes it real Khao Soi.

The yellow curry it's like turmeric.

So it gives you that sort of bitterness I'll say.

- [Rachel] Mhm.

- [JP] I'll say.

I'm just going to ladle one or two coconut milk.

So now I'm going to add this thing.

- [JP] This is palm sugar and... - [Rachel] Not parmesean cheese.

- [JP] Not parmesean cheese.

It's one of the key ingredients in Thai cooking.

- [Rachel] bloop!

-[JP] And then the last ingredient fish sauce.

-[VO] Each bowl is topped with a rotating cast of proteins tofu, wagyu steak, oxtail, lamb and my favorite sous vide duck breast that's torched to order.

That crackle at the end is really satisfying.

- [Rachel] I'm getting that nood - [JP] Yep.

- [Rachel] No noodle left behind.

- [Rachel] I got it.

- [JP] And this is when the magic happens.

This is when all the colors and all the flavorful stuff - [Rachel] These are pickled mustard greens?

- [JP] Yep.

And now I'm going to do the chili.

- [Rachel] And these are fried shallots?

- [JP] fried shallots.

- [Rachel] and scallions?

- [JP] Yep.

- [Rachel] This is so beautiful.

There's so many colors.

Now we have two bowls to eat.

- [Rachel] I'm going to try a piece of the duck first.

This is honestly the best duck that I've ever had.

You get, like, the soft noodle with the little crispy on top.

Yeah.

And then there was a mustard green in there, so it's like a little pop in the back of your mouth.

-[JP] Exactly.

Mmm.

It really is all the textures, all the flavors and the different temperatures to like the hot soup And then the cold garnishes.

Okay, let's try the goat.

-[Rachel] The goat is the goat.

- [JP] The goat is the goat.

- [JP] Right?

- [Rachel] Yeah.

Just nice soft tender.

Perfect.

And since we have gray skies nine months a year.

- [Rachel] I can eat this almost all year round.

I hope so.

- [VO] Seattle's self-proclaimed soup lady doesn't sell her elixirs in restaurants.

Caroline Wright is the chef owner of Soup Club, a soup subscription service.

Hi, friend.

Thanks for picking me up.

-[Caroline] Hey.

Yeah.

- [Rachel] Hi.

I've never actually got to go on a soup delivery.

Oh, my.

Gosh, I'm so happy to have the company.

- [Rachel] Can I hold the clipboard?

Yes you can.

I really love to be in charge.

- [Rachel] Yay!

Soup mobile.

- [Caroline] Every week I make an original recipe of mine and I deliver it to people's porches.

What is your clientele like?

Like who?

Who are these people?

I have a big mix of people, actually.

I have some, like, empty nester, retiree type people, busy families, like soccer mom type families.

And then I have like, young people.

Should we carry it together with all four hands and deliver it together.

- [VO] Every week she cooks up cauldrons of hearty, vegan, gluten free soup.

Some are familiar, like black bean, but many are Caroline's creative inventions.

- [Caroline] I moved here from New York, essentially, but I was a cook, like a I worked for magazines and I'd written cookbooks.

Like a year after I moved here, I got really sick and I was diagnosed with a really aggressive brain tumor.

And so when people were asking me how they could help, I said, actually, I could, you know, really use some, like in my mind, home cooked food.

Sometimes the soup would come with notes, sometimes they'd be in like Ziploc bags.

And it was very clear that, like, so much love and care and thought was put into it.

- [VO] Caroline was diagnosed with glioblastoma and told she had a year to live.

She was in her early 30s with two small kids, but that was nine years ago.

-[Rachel] Clean scans - [Caroline] Clean scans -[Rachel] For eight years - [Caroline] Eight years I know, I know, I know, it's crazy.

So when I survived the year I was given to live and like, got healthier and healthier through everybody's soup, you know?

I, what made most sense to me in like, the quiet place that I was listening to a lot in my body and my mind was just to make soup for people who made soup for me.

- [VO] Caroline has shared more than 150 of her soup recipes in these two cookbooks, and as one of her recipe testers I've cooked and eaten a lot of them.

What are we making?

One you haven't made before.

Oh!

It's called Mulligatawny It's like British colonizers going to India wanted a classic British soup.

It's a very interesting mix of ingredients.

What are we doing first?

- [Caroline] We're going to broil some apple and some leek in some coconut oil.

Your soups have this signature that I picked up on right away, which is giant chunks of vegetables.

- [Caroline] Yes.

I wanted people to have the ability to, like, sink their spoon into something.

Another place to get extra flavor for me is, dried spices, especially if you toast them.

All of my soups are finished with acid.

Which I've incorporated to my own cooking, because it just kind of wakes up the flavors the same way that salt does.

Totally.

So what's our next step?

Grab our garlic and ginger and just pop it in the blender too.

We actually work with the, curry leaves first.

- [Rachel] So we're going to fry these.

- [Caroline] Fry those.

So then we add the curry powder and then we'll add the veggies and the lentils.

And then we'll like let it simmer until those lentils are going to just like break down puree themselves.

And you get the fat of the coconut that like kind of mixes it all together.

Yay, it's ready!

We've worked so hard.

Oh my God, look at this chunk.

Nobody puts a vegetable this big in a soup.

It's like a giant sea scallop.

- [Caroline] Mmm.

- [Rachel] Mmm.

Veggies are perfect.

It's so comforting and soothing.

So obviously soup must mean something different to you now than it did before your surgery.

Well, I think of it as like this way to communicate something actually people communicated their like love and their families history maybe, or whatever to me through their soup.

And I feel like I do that for my members too, in a different way.

I really think of it as like my lifeblood.

I feel like it's such an ancient thing, like soup is tied to the beginnings of cooking.

It's kind of like carrying on this tradition.

Yeah, but mine are all weird.