Avgolemono and fried artichoke hearts.

Avgolemono soup with artichoke and lemon fritto misto. © Ryan Schierling

I'm not naming names, but some of us are occasionally bent on pretending that, in those short hours after work, we're actually on a Mediterranean vacation. The perfect food vehicle for such fantasy is avgolemono. It is a cheery egg-lemon soup with all the satisfaction of a wintertime comfort food, but perfectly suited in its lively essence to the heat of summer.

It seems that really good Greek restaurants are few and far between, and I have yet to adopt a Greek grandmother, so alas, my history with the real deal avgolemono is somewhat limited. Yet, a singular experience has remained ingrained in my memory as a stalwart standard. It was at a small Greek diner, that I've long forgotten the name of, where I stopped alone for lunch one day as I was passing through town. For some insane reason it has stayed filed there in my memory, waiting patiently for this year when it finally found its way to the surface and I was inspired to work out how to make it at home.

Wanting a warm soup in Summer felt as if I was making some kind of advanced mental preparation for Fall. Or, perhaps I just had a hankering for lemon. Who knows. But on a recent morning walk, it was all I could think about. It's a shame I didn't turn my attention to this dish sooner, as a traditional avgolemono soup is surprisingly straightforward to make. Simply a homemade chicken stock, white rice, and a rather miraculous lemon and egg finish. You might think of avgolemono as the Greek counterpart to our traditional chicken noodle soup. It's a warm and silky soup with a soft yellow color, tender white rice and an unmistakable lemon brightness.