Portuguese Kale Soup

On my recent trip to Provincetown my fellow traveler asked one of the locals what she would recommend as a don't miss experience in the area. Portuguese Kale Soup was the answer. As a fishing and whaling center in the latter part of the nineteenth century many Portuguese fisherman came to settle in the area. The town today still has several Portuguese bakeries and the women who for hundreds of years formed the backbone of the town while their families fished are immortalized in a large photographs overlooking the water. The kind local who told us about kale soup described it as a hearty soup of kale, kidney beans, potato, with some sausage bits in a nice broth. Only she used her hands as an italian might when describing a favorite meal. We managed to get the famed soup at lunch one day and it was exactly as promised - a hearty serving of kale, kidney beans, potato and sausage in a tasty broth. It was simply delicious. I don't eat a lot of kale, it's at the farmer's market sometimes but I'm never sure what to do with it. I was pleased to see the leafy greeens used in soup, which is far superior than the way my mom ever cooked kale. Who knows, maybe I'll try to cook some up myself one day.