Hearty Meals for Hungry Hikers
Posted By admin on May 13, 2009
Hearty Meals for Hungry Hikers
Stop by The Soup Spoon in Welches
“You can make soup out of anything.” Danita Sullivan says that last word with delight. She’s the new Oregon restaurant owner of The Soup Spoon in Welches, and she’s always ready to create a fresh taste.
Filling & Flavorful Soups, Specialty Sandwiches & Baked Goods
Every day Danita cooks from scratch for The Soup Spoon, devising menus using what’s in season and can be gotten fresh locally. That Oregon bounty gives her a chance to move away from soup standards to a creative variety. A typical day’s menu might include zucchini-dill, sundried tomato and basil bisque, and spinach pine-nut. Recently, she introduced a fennel blue cheese soup that’s become her biggest seller ever.
Free Tasting Samples
How can you choose among so many delicacies? Danita makes it easy with free tasting samples. Customers get a preview: a plate of small ramekins each holding two spoonfuls of the day’s soups and their garnishes. You can pick the one your taste buds fancy. There are 
also specialty sandwiches and fresh baked goods. “There’s no frying or grilling,” Danita notes, “I roast the meat daily.” Very soon she’ll be buying meat from a local free-range farm. She also uses rice flour as a soup thickener and includes gluten-free breads in her selections, which gives wheat-sensitive customers a much needed opportunity to enjoy dining out easily.
Danita’s may be the new manager, but her familiarity with the café goes back four years. Back then, she was living in California and coming up to visit her sister in Welches, Oregon, consistently making time for a bowl of previous owner Debbie Knudsen’s soup at The Soup Spoon. Two and a half years ago, she and her three children moved to Welches themselves, and Danita and Debbie became friends. Then, a few months ago, Danita came in for lunch one day and discovered that Debbie, about to retire and without a buyer for the café, might close its doors forever. Danita didn’t want to see the community lose this special Mt Hood dining and gathering place. Though she has no professional background in cooking, she purchased the Soup Spoon — a move which has been a complete success for the Villages of Mt Hood neighborhood. About a third of the recipes Danita uses are legacies from previous owner Debbie Knudsen’s collection, but the rest are her own finds. Many are from her favorite, the New England Soup Factory Cookbook, or her next go-to book, 500 Soups
Clearly, Danita enjoys nurturing her community, and feels that comes back to her. “The people are fantastic here,” she says. “You can’t just go to the grocery store – you’ll run into five people you know.” When she’s not working, she’s home with her kids cooking for them and sharing quality time. A big favorite for the family are walks in Wildwood Park nearby.
The neighborhood knows she’s in at 8:30am, and often working till 6pm. Often a nearby business owner will come in early asking if coffee’s on and if they can keep her company as she cooks on the propane stove in the family-style kitchen. “The best part of my day,” she decides, “is wondering, ‘Who’s going to come in and talk to me today?’”
Do You Have a Recipe to Share?
So do you have an interesting soup recipe? You should drop by and share it with Danita. If you hurry, there might still be a fresh cinnamon roll left for you.
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