Notes From Boomerang Creek: Celebrating the common cannellini bean Cathy Salter One of the simple joys in life is a pot of homemade soup. Winter, spring, summer or fall, soup is always a welcome addition to a meal. Recently, I perused soup recipes in my kitchen library in an atlas-sized cookbook edited by Debra Mayhew called “The Soup Bible.” One recipe in the chapter titled “Hearty Lunch and Supper Soups” immediately caught my attention, because I had a pot of cannellini beans simmering on the stove and a colander filled with ripe tomatoes. The recipe was for a fresh tomato and bean soup. To my delight, it specified not just any bean, but cannellini beans — large white Italian kidney beans about 1/2 inch long with firm texture and skin and a nutty flavor. Before long, a copper soup pot was called into action.