Summer Soupe au Pistou

With plenty of tomatoes and lighter, vegetal flavors from the south of France, we think of this as the quintessential French summer soup. If you can find freshly shelled beans, by all means use them in place of the dried beans here—just reduce the cooking time to about 30 minutes (see Note). For the best texture for the pistou, which is a French version of the more well-known Italian pesto, use a mortar and pestle. We find the process therapeut