I will never be a vegetarian. I might cut waaaaaay back on the meat to help shut down Big Food (read this book ), but I will always permit myself to enjoy a bit of the pig now and then. When I eat it, I feel calm. I'm safe. I'm young. And more importantly, I'm enjoying the heck out of my food. Potato soup has many incarnations, and this Potato-Cheese Soup with Bacon is a combo of two favorite soup memories of mine (potato-cheese soup at the late-twentieth-century cas-din chain, "The Black-Eyed Pea," and a hearty bacon-potato soup made by one J. Meyer for a winter birthday last year). I got to thinking about the warming, cozying qualities of potato soup last week, when we had a cold spell (below 40!) in New Orleans. Brrrrr. Anyway, it was time to get to work. Recreating soups I've eaten at restaurants or other gatherings is a favorite activity of mine, but I'd never attempted to make one that was so far back in my memory. I ate that soup at the Black-Eyed ...