When I said I was working on a soup book, the response was often, "Oh, I love soup!" People enthuse about soup in a way that’s so heartwarming it makes me feel as if I’m in the right camp...
Both plants have an untamed, assertive, and lively presence that I find exciting. You can count on them to wake up anything that is a little on the quiet side, such as bean- and grain-based dishes. Add a handful of leaves, chopped, to a pot of white bean soup and you have something that's familiar yet unusual.
In both lovage and Chinese celery it's the leaves that are used and primarily for flavor. The stalks of the latter are thin and fibrous, nothing you'd serve for an appetizer, but they certainly can be used to add robustness to a vegetable stock. It's the leaves that pack the final punch, though. They can be introduced to a soup during the cooking and at the end as a garnish.
For lovage you have to buy a start at a nursery, then take it home and plant it. Soon you'll have more leaves than you know what to do with. Chinese celery can be planted from seeds or, easier for most, bought at Asian markets that carry fresh produce.
