Cooking the Chronicle – Apr 25

Did you survive the Great Pittsburgh Blackout of 2025? We *barely* did. As residents of Phillips Ave., we were unfortunately without power for a full week, though we tried to make the best of it and get creative with nonperishable meals and no internet.

On the Tuesday that our electricity went out, I had actually just ordered all the ingredients to make the prior week’s recipe (“Potato leek soup,” Apr 25). I had prepped all the ingredients—sautéed leeks and onions, peeled and cubed the potatoes, measured out the water and cream—all ready to make the soup together with my daughter when she got home from school. Well, we all know what happened from there.

I held out hope that the power would be restored and kept all the ingredients in my fridge, being careful not to open it. That next morning when we woke without power, I moved the ingredients to the freezer, sure that power would come back that day. On Day 4 I gave up home and begrudgingly pulled out trash bags to empty everything from my refrigerator and freezer. Goodbye leeks, goodbye potatoes, goodbye heavy cream, goodbye butter…

Our power is now restored, our groceries restocked, so my daughter and I decided to revisit this recipe again last night for dinner. This time I prepped nothing, and that turned out to be a good thing because my husband and I were able to teach her how to use a peeler! New skill acquired.

This is a straight forward soup and an easy-to-follow recipe. For those looking to build up their comfort in cooking, this recipe from Jessica Grann is basically a guide on how to make any “cream of” soups. You could swap many veggies our for the leeks—asparagus, squash, zucchini, etc.—and it would be equally delicious.

The yummy combo of potatoes and leeks are only made better by the addition of butter and heavy cream. Don’t even try to make this recipe parve, you will absolutely miss the ingredients that make this soup luxurious.

We served this for dinner with grilled cheese to dunk in it. And I am happy to say our daughter not only ate the soup (a first for her, she’s not really excited about soups), but she dipped both her grilled cheese and her cookie into the soup, which she deemed, “ta’im!”