For a cupful of comfort, try Nana's soup

When it insists on snowing during your kids' spring break, there's only one thing to do: Revel in it.

So after our troop of moms and spring-breaking kids had donned our ski pants and sledded the day away in the Cascades, there was also only one thing to do: Eat soup. Lots of it.

We landed at Nana's Soup House in Fremont, an actual house just off Leary Way. Co-owners and mother-daughter team Linda and Dana Wolff relocated here last fall, after eight years in business north of U-Village.

"We have about 12 to 14 soups per day," said Dana Wolff, "with eight stable, that we always have, and others that rotate in and out."

Linda Wolff — the "Nana" of the name — is from Oklahoma, and that's where her down-home soup recipes come from, too.

The menu: Other than the day's fresh-made soups, Nana's serves up sandwiches — both deli-style and panini — salads, baked potatoes, wraps, quesadillas and a PB&J, grilled-cheese or corn-dog kids meal. You can get soup in a cup ($3.50), bowl ($4.75), or mix-and-match combos (soup-salad, soup-sandwich, soup-soup); pretty much everything on the board is between $5 and $10. Coffee and bagels make up the breakfast offerings.

What to write home about: Pick a soup, any soup. No, really, pick any soup — Nana's will let you taste them all. The standouts during our visit were the Southwest Chicken Fiesta (a wee-bit-spicy broth loaded with white corn and black beans that had not been overcooked) and the Oklahoma Chili — beefy, tomatoey goodness. More subtle and just as delicious was the Country Mushroom & Sour Cream.

The yummy, spinach-laden Caprese Melt — sampled in the soup-and-half-sandwich option, for $7.95 — was so expertly grilled that its crunch withstood an accidental drop in the soup cup!

The setting: Nana's Soup House feels like a friend's house — it's not laid out anything like a restaurant, which is part of the charm. You can see the tureens of soups when you place your order at the counter.

Summing up: Our total for four (including one $3.95 kids meal) came to $38.24. We left full, befriended and ready for anything — even more spring-break snow.

Raina Wagner: 206-464-8147 or rwagner@seattletimes.com