And now for The Worst Soup You Never Had...

When I typed the title for yesterday's post, little did I know that today's post would mirror it, but not in a good way! But that's the way of mirrors sometimes.

So the soup no one had was the rice-squash-apple soup. When it was done yesterday I told The Southerner, "Well...it's okay, but not that good. Maybe if it sits overnight it will be better. Otherwise I'll spice it up tomorrow."

Today, I heated it up and added more stock because it had become the consistency of rice pudding. And get this...I had 8 quarts of it! After last week's sell-out crowd I wanted to be ready. So I added some spice...but basically it still was not good. So then I decided to really kick it up a notch and I sauteed a bunch of garlic in peanut oil with some curry, turmeric, and various other spices. After I added them, I tasted it and...at 3:32pm, just 18 minutes before SS officially started, I jumped in the truck, raced down to the Village (by "race" I mean at a nice slow-safe speed because people here on the island are still quoting my letter to the editor about how everyone drives like maniacs around here, scaring the pedestrians, cyclists, and deer nearly to death), bought four white potatoes and two leeks and hurried home. By 3:48pm I had a pot of water boiling with diced potatoes and leeks. By 4:20pm I had soup. This Potato Leek soup (Julia Child's recipe) is by far the fastest, and one of the least expensive soups, I can make. It's also a big hit. It's also a repeat.

Here's the deal, when we started SS, my goal was to make a different soup every week for the first year. So far I have done that...and I did it today...it's just that the new soup was hidden in the laundry room instead of on the stove when people got here! Julia always gave the same advice, "Serve your food and don't admit it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to." I think that's good advice if the food is still good, just not exactly how you intended. Sometimes though, you have to cut your losses.

So why am I admitting this here on the blog? Because there was a time in my life when a soup not working out like this would've been horrible, devastating, and I would've considered myself a terrible failure. I guess that part of the "take things as they come" philosophy is simply getting older and realizing it doesn't matter, but another part of it is the cook in me. You see, everyone has failures in cooking. And I've made approximately 30 successful soups this year. Some better than others, but all good enough to serve to guests. So what if one pot gets hidden in the laundry room? As long as we remember to compost it at some point, it's just a fact of Sunday Soup.

The cats are curled up on the furniture, giving themselves baths to wash off all that attention from the guests, The Southerner and The Irish One played guitar tunes for an hour and a half, and at one point I nearly teared up because I can't believe this is my wonderful life. I hope you are living a wonderful life too. And now I have to go save my knitting from The Orange Menace (Grinder) who is pretending he doesn't see it, but is inching towards it nonetheless. Have a great week!