Homage to Julia - A Simple Soup

Of course I love Julia Child. Who doesn't? Why wouldn't you? If you've read her biography/autobiography, "My Life In France" then you know what a remarkable woman she really is. She had never cooked until she was married at a very late age. She went to France, tasted the most amazing thing she had ever put in her mouth and a few months later was one of the only women to enroll in Le Cordon Bleu. She proceeded to write one of the most influential and well known cookbooks in the nation. Not only did she write it, but she tested and retested every single recipe in those 700 some pages. I'm no Julie Powell here, I'm not about to go and make a beef flavored aspic with a soft boiled egg suspended in the middle, but you bet your ass I'll make a soup with 4 ingredients:

1 lb. potatoes, peeled and diced
1 lb. leeks, thoroughly rinsed and sliced
2 quarts water
1 T. salt
5 T. butter*
3/4 c. cream*
pepper
parsley for garnish

Place potatoes, leeks, water, and salt in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil a cover slightly, simmer for about 40 minutes until potatoes are soft. Transfer soup to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth, working in batches if needed. Add butter and cream to pureed soup mixture and top with pepper and parsley. Yum.

Ok, so brutally good soup. I wish I could take credit but this one belongs to Julia and the wonderful people of France. To accommodate both myself and Spencer I put 1 T real butter and 2 T cream in my bowl and then added the soup. For Spencer I put equal amounts of earth balance and soy cream in his bowl. We ate it with some delicious fresh bread from the bakery up the street and both agreed that it was amazingly good. And as a testament to that, he didn't even run to the kitchen for more salt, pepper, or red pepper flakes. Thank you, thank you.