Creamy Ham and Asparagus Soup

Christmas season in Memphis, and the house on Deadrick Avenue is full of the smells and sounds that make December bearable: Rosetta\'s cooking, the choir rehearsals at Mt. Zion, the holiday mail that makes my bag heavier and my heart fuller. I am 60 and the year is ending the way years end — with counting, with gratitude, with the knowledge that time doesn\'t negotiate.

The week\'s main current was christmas. I visited Mama at the Whitehaven facility, making the drive that I have made hundreds of times now, the route from Orange Mound to Whitehaven as familiar as my mail route, each turn a habit, each mile a devotion. She was having the kind of day that eighty-something-year-old women have — partly here, partly somewhere else, the present and the past shuffling like cards in an old deck. I held her hand and told her about the family, and she listened with the attention that flickers like a candle in a drafty room — bright, then dim, then bright again, never quite going out.

I cooked this week the way I cook every week: with intention, with the ingredients at hand, and with the understanding that food made in a home kitchen for people you love is fundamentally different from food made anywhere else. The recipe doesn\'t matter as much as the hands that make it and the table that receives it. I stood at my stove or sat beside my smoker and I made smoked Christmas ham, and the making was the medicine, and the eating was the communion, and the cleaning up afterward was the humility that every cook needs — the reminder that the meal is over but the feeding continues, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

The evening settled over Memphis the way evenings do — slowly, with the particular gentleness of a Southern dusk that takes its time, that doesn\'t rush the light out of the sky but lets it linger, lets it say goodbye properly, the way a man should say goodbye to a day that was good to him. I was on the porch with Rosetta, and we weren\'t talking, and the not-talking was the truest conversation we had all week, because after all these years, the silence between us is not empty — it\'s full of everything we\'ve already said, and everything we don\'t need to say, and the love that exists beyond words, in the space between two chairs on a porch in Orange Mound.

When the smoker cools and the Christmas ham has been carved and passed and wrapped in foil and set in the back of the refrigerator, there is still one more meal in it — and that meal, I’ve come to believe, is the most honest one. Rosetta and I were quiet on that porch, and I knew by morning I’d want something warm that didn’t ask anything of me, something that carried the weight of the week without adding to it. The ham we’d smoked became this soup, and the soup became the last true gift of the season: humble, filling, and made from what was already there.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups cooked smoked ham, diced into 1/2-inch pieces
1 lb fresh asparagus, tough ends trimmed, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt to taste

Instructions

Blanch the asparagus. Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Add the asparagus pieces and cook for 3 minutes until just tender but still bright green. Drain and set aside, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.
Build the base. In a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5–6 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Make the roux. Sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and stir constantly for 2 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. The mixture will look thick and paste-like — that’s right.
Add the broth. Slowly pour in the chicken broth, about 1 cup at a time, whisking after each addition to prevent lumps. Add the reserved asparagus cooking liquid. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes until the soup thickens slightly.
Add the ham and asparagus. Stir in the diced ham and blanched asparagus. Simmer for 5 minutes to warm through and let the flavors come together.
Finish with cream and cheese. Reduce heat to low. Stir in the half-and-half and shredded cheddar, stirring gently until the cheese is fully melted. Do not boil after adding the dairy. Season with black pepper, smoked paprika, and salt as needed.
Serve. Ladle into bowls and serve warm, with crusty bread or buttered cornbread alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Creamy Ham and Asparagus Soup — What the Smoker Leaves Behind