Potato soup with sweet fennel and basil running underneath it, which is not what you expect and is exactly why people come back for it.

Most potato soup tastes like potato and cream and stops there. This one puts basil and sweet fennel under the potatoes, so the first spoonful reads familiar and the second one does not. The potatoes are grown in Washington and Oregon and dehydrated in small lots, close enough to the Thorp kitchen that Rill Foods buys off the fresh crop instead of a warehouse. Nothing in the bag is artificial and there is no added MSG. Cook it with bacon and half and half for a full chowder, or leave the meat out and finish it with oat or almond milk and it is still a proper bowl of soup. The label insert marks it vegetarian and gluten free, which makes it one of the easiest things in the pantry to cook for a table you do not know well.

One 7 oz bag makes 8 servings. The package front reads Dairy Free, Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Washington State Potatoes. Hand packed in small batches in Thorp, Washington, where the Rill family has been cooking soup since 1985.