This soup begins at the market. You are looking for vegetables that arrived that morning, the kind that still have dirt on them, that feel alive in your hand. Asparagus with tight tips. Peas so sweet you eat half of them standing at the stall. Spring onions with bright green tops. New potatoes no bigger than your thumb.

When you have ingredients like this, your job is to get out of the way. A good stock, some gentle heat, and the courage to stop cooking before you think you should. The vegetables want to taste of themselves, not of the pot they sat in too long.

I learned this in France, watching grandmothers make soup. They added things at the last moment. They tasted constantly. They served the soup the minute it was ready, never letting it sit. The aliveness of the vegetables survived from garden to bowl.

Every meal is a meaningful choice. This soup is a vote for the farmers who grow spring vegetables with care, who pick them at perfect ripeness instead of before. Find those farmers. Learn their names. Your soup will be better for it.