Further Thoughts On Soupmaking

Addie Broyles of the Austin American-Statesman recently interviewed me for a story on improving your soupmaking skills. Unfortunately I didn't have my thoughts entirely, cohesively together, so I'm re-cobbling them together here:

Cook Longer: Just because it takes longer to make doesn’t mean you have to work harder. Soups perform very well on autopilot. For example, with ten minutes of attention a stock can be put on before bed and be ready without another thought for dinner 18 hours later. A vegetable soup can be put on Sunday morning and stew all day with scant attention and be glorious by dinnertime. This is the #1 way to make your soup taste better, it’s the secret behind the alchemy of soupmaking.

Don't Shop For Soup: all the essentials for soup have great shelf life and your home should never be without them: carrots, onions, garlic, celery, potatoes, rice, noodles. From there you’re never too far away from having soup. All the great soups of the world are cucina povera, from the poor kitchen, using the scraps. This should be the spirit behind your soupmaking. Look at the larder and figure out what soup can come from it. It's that alchemy again... How to turn lead into gold.

Cook Like Bob Ross: Don’t paint by numbers. Develop a feel. Choose where you want to put that happy little tree. You start with a big brush, setting the background, the mood, with your stock and aromatics. As you move along, you add layers to the painting, you move to smaller brushes, adding details like featured ingredients which may be highlighted by a separate or shorter cooking process. Then you finish with a tiny little detail brush, adding those little shimmery bright spots like lemon, parsley, salt, finishing oils, etc.

Take Recipes With A Grain Of Salt: Soup is a particularly tolerant medium, so recipes are great for inspiration, but they should be thought of as a lead sheet in music. The chords are there, the melody line is there, but the song can become realized an infinite variety of ways. Think about interpreting a recipe as if it’s a piece of music. That parsley is in the recipe to freshen up the flavor, right? You happen to have only cilantro and mint on hand (shame on you for not always having parsley)... go with what you’ve got. Those shallots and leeks are there to provide a deep savory flavor, but you’ve only got garlic and onions... go with that.

Be Like Michael (Pollan): Don’t Put Anything In Your Soup That Your Grandmother Wouldn’t Recognize As Food". Use only whole ingredients. With the exception of pasta, canned tomatoes, maybe a can of coconut milk here and there, your ingredients shouldn’t come from boxes or cans. This provision is primarily intended to enforce against use of store-bought stock/broth, which is with VERY rare exception pure trickery.

Vessel

LONG-AWAITED SOUP PEDDLER PRODUCT RELEASE FALLS FLAT

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Anger erupted in the state capital today as citizens claimed that fraudulent marketing practices created a media frenzy around a new product release, codenamed "Vessel" by accused soup monopolist The Soup Peddler.

"It's just a big bowl of soup. It's the exact same thing as their previous soup, but bigger," said a visibly disappointed Soupie Carol Hatfield. "It doesn't even come to you warmed up."

The "Vessel" product unveiling on Wednesday afternoon at Jovita's was a who's who of insider media and foodies jostling for position to be the first to catch a glimpse of the new product. Expectations were stoked by nebulous guerrilla marketing stunts like soup spoons dangling from overpasses and clattering by the thousands down the capital steps.

To the raucous cheers of the expectant standing-room-only crowd, Ansel exulted, "Welcome to the next generation of soup. I bring you... Big Soup!" A stunned silence and quizzical expressions spread throughout the room. "Is this thing on?" asked Ansel.

"I feel like I've been played for a fool, I mean I used to trust The Soup Peddler to be a customer-oriented innovator but now I'm not so sure," said Blair Fox, a longtime customer.

Local marketing expert Laney Catledge said, "There's always a bit of smoke and mirrors involved with crafting and conveying a brand image, but I think The Soup Peddler went way too far this time. There was a sense that they were insulting the intelligence of the public."

As of press time, the owner of The Soup Peddler, David Ansel, is reportedly in retreat at his private island hideaway in Town Lake after the debacle and could not be reached for comment.

Good Buddy

I have some sad news to share this week. Though many of you are fairly new to The Soup Peddler, there's a whole lot of back story that I've kind of stopped sharing over the years. After all, you can't really keep telling the same story for too long or you'll find people avoiding you at parties and so forth. But back in the early days I lived in a house just up the hill from our shop and a Collie/Aussie mix named Alex lived there too. We were roommates for six years and she kept me company a lot when I was cooking soup and riding my bike. She became a regular here at the kitchen and sort of the de facto mascot of The Soup Peddler. She was in Soup Peddler: The Movie and also a major character in Soup Peddler: The Book. Over time, I got busy with life, moved out, got married and had a kid. We still borrowed her frequently and took her for hikes and stuff. She was even in a photo with us in Life Magazine. Eventually, we adopted a bad little orphan kitten and he made her visits to our house miserable, ambushing her fluffy tail from the couch or piano bench. She was slowing down, and I guess we got too busy with the kid. We didn't see a whole lot of her in recent years. But she kept hanging in there, to the ripe old age of 17 years. I guess you can see where this is going. Alex was put to sleep in her front yard surrounded by loved ones on a beautiful day last week. I have a few photos to share from those early days...

Thank You For Calling...

Our new guest-star outgoing message. Who dat?

Numerical Cues

Busy days here at The Soup Peddler. Nothing we can't handle, mind you. An auspicious 1066 quarts of soup sold last week. Is it folly to ignore the numerical cues that hint of links between the hidden and the seen? The cat leaves six pieces of dry food in his bowl, scratches his cheek twenty-four times with his back foot, turns around eleven times before settling into a cozy spot (your black coat--upon which he deposits exactly thirty-one individual white hairs). After forty minutes he meows forty-five times at the door, and those six numbers hit on the powerball the following day. But what do we do with 1066? Invading a small island nation is out of the question. Massacre a scapegoated ethnic minority? Not in this day and age! Hire a guy named Norman? Perhaps. We'll keep our eyes open for opportunities.

Numerology

Busy days here at The Soup Peddler. Nothing we can't handle, mind you. An auspicious 1066 quarts of soup sold last week. Is it folly to ignore the numerical cues that hint of links between the hidden and the seen? The cat leaves six pieces of dry food in his bowl, scratches his cheek twenty-four times with his back foot, turns around eleven times before settling into a cozy spot (your black coat--upon which he deposits exactly thirty-one individual white hairs). After forty minutes he meows forty-five times at the door, and those six numbers hit on the powerball the following day. But what do we do with 1066? Invading a small island nation is out of the question. Massacre a scapegoated ethnic minority? Not in this day and age! Hire a guy named Norman? Perhaps. We'll keep our eyes open for opportunities.

Sun-Kissed Reflection

I was thinking the other day. I was laying on the carpet in my slippers, warmed by a shard of sunlight angling through the window. I was listening to Bonnie Raitt's Give It Up on a little record player and I realized that nothing since the time in 1972 when those hippies got together to record that record really needed to happen... nothing since the advent of windows and sunshine and carpet and dust motes and record players and Bonnie Raitt's Give It Up needed to happen to make that moment happen quite that excellently. Except of course my birth. But do you know what I'm saying? That makes one of us... Sometimes it's all already there, the perfection is just around the corner and you can't see it till it hits you, you needn't even seek it. But the years keep ticking by and we have to keep ourselves busy. Let's hope that 2010 is one of balance between satisfaction and seeking newness.