The best soup I've ever made

I invented a recipe for a smoked fish soup a couple weeks ago. I think I wrote about it. I replicated it for Soup Swap—tripled to make 8 quarts. I ordered fish from the Harbor Fish Market in Portland Maine, and had it shipped overnight. The key to the soup is smoked haddock—that's what gives the richness to the broth. That and some dashi (fish, kelp, and mushroom soup stock.) The joy in replicating the recipe was partly the joy of ordering fish from Maine. Not just smoked haddock but insanely large and beautiful fillets of fresh haddock. (Also smoked mussels, smoked shrimp and fresh lobster.) Another part of the joy of cooking this soup was that it was done, from chopping the fennel to cleaning the pot, in 2 hours. A rich, delicious, redolent soup—8 quarts of it (actually 11 quarts because it's hard to judge sometimes)—in the time it takes me to commute daily. I wish this blog had smell-o-rama, so you could smell what I smell now. Smoky and fishy and sweet, but all in a good way. Once again, I feel incredibly joy that Leila first gave me the idea, and that I had the gumption to start Brooklyn Soup Swap, and that people have joined me for so long.