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It turned cold with a vengeance here last week. My heart went out to the hardy trick-or-treaters who braved the wind, rain, snow flurries, and hail last Friday night.

It’s been getting dark earlier. In the subsequent days the temperatures have rebounded a bit but it’s been cloudy and overcast.

Our new place has windows on all sides, which makes me more attuned to the shifts in the weather.

The tree outside the window over the kitchen sink has lost its leaves. The still green leaves on the trees in front have been shivering and shaking on the regular.

I have never considered myself a particular fan of Emily Dickinson. I discounted her probably before I had read her because I knew from my older sister that all of her poems with their identical meter could be sung to the tune of “Yellow Rose of Texas” (audio).

When I was younger, I wore my dislike for her like a badge of honor of my own idiosyncratic tastes, as though I alone could see through the canonical poet.

And yet there are so many of her poems that have wormed their way, stubbornly, into my brain. Phrases that bubble up unbidden. Lately, it’s been her poem with the first line “There’s a certain Slant of light,” that I just can’t shake.

In the poem, the speaker describes the quality of winter afternoon light and the way it makes her feel. There are two lines in the last stanza that keep coming back to me: “When it comes, the Landscape listens –/Shadows – hold their breath –.”

It’s easy to ignore the landscape in the city, to pretend it doesn’t exist, that it’s just buildings and pavement all the way down. But if you look you can see it, and maybe even feel it listening to the Slant of light.

Which, I suppose, brings me to the need we have on these cold oppressive days, for soup that warms our very souls.

This carrot ginger soup does that for me. Carrots and onions and garlic and ginger and a pinch of red pepper flakes go into a pot and get sautéed until they get some caramelization.

Then stock and soy sauce and peanut butter and lime juice and brown sugar and sesame oil and a bit of sriracha (and, if you’re feeling the extra umami, fish sauce) go into the pot and it simmers away until the carrots are tender.

Then everything gets pureed with a stick blender, and a modest amount of coconut milk goes in.

It has a savory depth and a subtle spicy edge. But it’s the garnishes that really complete the soup. It gets topped with a drizzle of toasted sesame oil and slices of scallions and pieces of pickled ginger which really bring the ginger flavor to the fore and give the soup some much needed textural contrast.

It’s a warming soup for fall and winter, one that I’ll turn to again and again in the cold days ahead of us.

Looking for more soups? Try this hot and sour soup, this heirloom squash and tart apple soup, or this lentil-sweet red pepper soup.