It's Soup Weather

Today I woke up and my knees felt all achy. That usually means one of two things: either I'm getting sick or else the weather is changing. Then I looked out my kitchen window and saw this:

I don't know if you caught that, but it seems that overnight we changed seasons. Strange really. Just a few days ago it was in the high eighties and today the leaves have started to turn and all of a sudden it's chill and rainy.
I love the autumn. What it lacks in the glory and majesty of spring, or the brazen sultriness of summer, it more than makes up for with bounty and sweetness. Autumn is so quiet. It always feels to me that the earth is taking a deep breath and then sighing, letting out it's final fruit-laden breaths before settling down to rest for the winter.
Seeing the red on the trees made me want to come home and nest- to inhale the last litle bits of my garden and cozy up by my fire. It made me think of soup, but not just any soup- a soup so full to bursting with rich summer flavors that eating it would make glad that autumn has arrived and sweep away tht tiny bit of longing I still have for those golden, sunny days now slipping through my fingers.
So such a soup I did make, from the ripest tomatoes on my vines, still fat and laden with the juices of summer, and the freshest, most aromatic leaves of basil I could pluck from my herb garden.
This soup is so simple, and so good.

I basically followed Ina Garten's recipe without the carrots or tomato paste, and served it with a broiled croissant with cheese and mushroom. 

It was magnificent, and tasted just like autumn should.