Prompting you to make soup when the season is not only heading directly towards summer but when we’ve also just experienced three solid days of brain-soaking humidity may appear to be inviting objurgation, but I have an explanation. This lemon halloumi angel hair soup has been my dinner almost every day for the past week — when it wasn’t the broccoli and coriander salad — and its gentle, soothing yet uplifting quality and utter ease of preparation makes it the perfect quickly-wrought meal and moment of calm amongst your regularly scheduled festive hustle, bustle, carousing, and general calendar-wrangling.

And what makes this so summer-amenable is the enlivening touches — the sour beats of lemon, the powerful freshness of the mint, and that daring flounce of grated halloumi, the latter of which being the detail that truly drew me into this recipe found in Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros. I recently bought myself that book from a second hand shop and have thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in it, there’s a certain slapdash confidence to the recipes that is marvellously appealing. Although there’s not a lot to it, each ingredient coalesces and cooperates so beautifully, with the stock and halloumi bolstering the savoury salty depth and the lemon and mint taking it out of the realm of the prosaic.

The tendrils of halloumi echo the wispiness of the pasta charmingly, though if you’re not an angel-hair enjoyer you could replace it with thicker strands of spaghetti. That being said, I do think the delicacy of the angel hair is ideal here against the delicacy of everything else. I’ve increased the lemon slightly, as I wanted it to be the first and last thing you taste, but nothing more needs to be added — the flavour is exceptional in its simplicity. Don’t skip the mint — its icy kiss lifts the rest of the ingredients and simply makes so much sense.

On a puffily muggy night when you’re overworked and underslept, this soup feels tranquil and nourishing — though perhaps more spiritually nourishing than anything else, given it is basically buttery pasta water. Indeed, I enjoyed two glorious bowls of it this very evening, while sitting by the wide open sliding door window. And us not forget that people in numerous countries, Korea notably, imbibe soup as hot as the weather in order to cool one’s self down — there is a delicious precedent!

For more summer-friendly soups, I recommend Shorbat Jarjir; my Chilled Cannellini Bean Soup with Basil Spinach Oil; this Chilled Eggplant and Yoghurt Soup; or my Tomato Bread Soup with Fried Carrot Pesto.

Lemon halloumi angel hair soup

A soothing yet lively broth and utterly simple to make, somehow despite the heat I keep returning to it. Recipe from Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam, and barely adapted — I’ve reduced the quantities for one serving and increased the lemon.

• 750ml water
• 1 chicken stock cube, or heaped teaspoon stock powder
• 20g butter
• 1 lemon
• 40g angel hair pasta
• 50g halloumi
• A few mint leaves

1: Simmer the 750ml water, chicken stock cube, 20g butter and juice of half the lemon in a wide saucepan for about five minutes.

2: Gently break the angel hair pasta and drop it in the simmering broth.

3: The pasta won’t take too long to cook, so use this time to finely grate the 50g halloumi, using the smaller holes on the grater; and roughly chop the mint leaves.

4: As soon as the pasta is tender, use tongs to lift it into your bowl, then ladle over plenty of broth, scatter over the halloumi and mint, and add a final squeeze of lemon.

Serves 1, with seconds. I usually leave a small amount of grated halloumi and mint aside for the second portion.

Note: To feed two people you don’t necessarily have to double everything, simply add a bit more here and there. I also never actually measure the pasta and halloumi, I just grab and slice with my heart, respectively.

music lately:

Turkey Lurkey Time, from the 1969 Tony Awards performance of Promises, Promises. My personal Christmas tradition is that every December 1st I watch this extremely low-res, fuzzy video and cry; I couldn’t tell you why but it’s something in the marriage of choreography with rubber-boned limbs and although the quality seems to get fuzzier and fuzzier each year, it never ceases to make me genuinely sob (you’ll have to click through to see how ridiculous this assertion is.)

Squabble Up by Kendrick Lamar; new music from him is always an occasion, I love the way he punches out his words with such decisive verve and the way you can approach this video with the same kind of art history analysis you’d bring to the symbolism in a still life painting.

hopefully by Astrobrite, washes over me like a wave of syrup and glitter, I love it.

PS: Again I’m bringing your attention to ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal. Their latest message on 30 October reports that their team are “tirelessly delivering safe drinking water daily to families facing unimaginable hardship.” Further afield, if you have paypal you could also consider donating to Gaza Soup Kitchen — in their words, “in a world abundant in resources, no child should ever go to bed hungry. Right now in Gaza, every bite is a story of resilience and hope…your donation is their tomorrow.”

Finally, here in Aotearoa you can find out more about the powerful and momentous Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti and contribute to the kaupapa. Now is the time to write your submission against the bill, whether brief and witheringly terse or a floridly long and vituperative diatribe (guess which option I’m choosing).