I haven’t forsaken you, Dear Reader, I promise. Not at all. I did, however have quite the soup sabbatical. You see, I had this little “Oh no, I’m turning 40” blip and, in pursuit of personal goals like, say, making a living and dating, I neglected my soup baby. I feel bad. You, maybe not so much. But now that I actually feel the relief of being in my 40s, I think we can pick up where we left off and get back to the eating, entertaining and the spilling of guts.

I’m in the middle of conjuring a post right now-- one with a beautiful soup I picked up from food52 that I made while my mom was here visiting for Thanksgiving that involved pears, blue cheese and friend pancetta. Yes, all that deliciousness in one bite. And there was more, too: homemade white truffle potato chips, mission fig, red onion and ricotta crostini, a salad of winter greens with apple, egg, pecorino with a pomegranate vinaigrette and my mom’s Italian cream cake. Which, by the way, is not Italian at all. So wait for it...it’s coming in a few short hours. Or maybe a day. I never can tell. But here are a few photos just to keep you waiting for my ramblings. And hopefully to whet your appetite for more...

Stay tuned and Soup on!

*please see the following post for the recipe!

PostedFebruary 16, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriespositively piggy, soup

Tagsbrattiness, blue cheese, main course, cheesy, 40, piggy piggy piggy, pancetta, soup, pear

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I fall. A lot.

Figuratively, literally; both my head and my behind seem to need constant, unexpected contact with terra firma. It would seem that the universe (if I believed in such a thing) was dead on when it had me born as a Capricorn, the ultimate earth sign. It was also playing a big joke when it had me born to a woman who wanted me to be dancer-- I spent much of the fourteen years of weekly ballet classes in a heap on the floor instead of gracefully in the air, but whatever. I’m also the girl who spent eight weeks in a cast on my leg from walking across the driveway. Yes, walking across the driveway. It’s not even a good story.

Over Labor Day weekend I had the honor of playing “The World’s Oldest Bridesmaid Barbie (tm)” for a beautiful and lovely friend. Now I’m going to level with you here: there is something truly pathetic and sad and totally like a Lifetime movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt about this situation. See, I’m about to turn 40. Yes 40. And yes, even though I know that in Kabbalah 40 is some kind of enlightened number, blah blah blah, and that it’s just another day, and that Kabbalah is a total load of Ashton Kutcher crap, I’m perilously close to jumping to the next box in questionnaires. And I really don’t like it. Not to mention I’m about to be relegated to a totally new dating pool in my online quest for love (more on that later-- can’t wait to meet you, Wyldmustang, 65 in Canyon Country). So at this incredible three day wedding extravaganza that united two wholly young, gorgeous and abundant people I felt a little (OK, A LOT) sorry for myself. Which is both annoying and expected. But really. Who wants to be the broke, in-a-rut bridesmaid that has almost a decade on the next oldest bridal party member? It was totally Bridesmaids minus any humor on my part at all.

PostedOctober 20, 2011

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesvegetarian, soup

Tagsmushroom, soupapalooza!, Elvis pie, hazelnut gremolata, world's oldest bridesmaid, splat!, chili corn cake, hazelnut, zucchini puff pastry, spiced pumpkin salad

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I am unashamed that I like really bad television-- über mind-numbingly soul-sucking sideshow TV, to be specific. I think this must be the same impulse that hipster dudes have to sport facial hair and roll up the sleeves of their vintage Members Only jackets in an ironic way. I like high culture also, but isn’t it a mark of my good taste to admit that I like something that is just plain bad (as long as I know that you know that I know that it is, indeed, low brow and tasteless), just like those smelly, hirsute boys in Williamsburg do?

Seriously “on-the-side” side note: I’m still not completely sure just how wearing iconic and tacky clothes from an era before you were born is ironic, exactly, though I did try and wear a poodle skirt once in fourth or fifth grade after seeing Grease for the 12,000th time. I wouldn’t even have been able to pronounce the word irony, much less understand its meaning back then, had I ever heard it, which I hadn’t. It took a little elevator scene in the movie Reality Bites my senior year of college to really drive that one home for me. Thank you Ethan Hawke. Thank you for more than just your OG greasy hipsterness, thank you for your contribution to my education. And PS, Ethan: I still think Winona Ryder should’ve chosen that douchebag Ben Stiller over you even though his weasely re-editing of her reality show was kind of pathetic, if not simply self-serving. She’d have a viable career now, that little wisp-of-a-waif Winona, and possibly be living somewhere other than in a cloud of shoplifting shame and Xanax residue and that wouldn’t be such horrible thing now would it?

But I digress.

PostedAugust 18, 2011

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagshipster, recipe, icebox pie, gingersnap pie crust, tomato, rhubarb, crabby, lemongrass, cat on a leash, grilled avocado and peach salad, vaguely asian, roasted cucumber sandwiches, soupapalooza!, Bad McDonald's Habit, my gay boyfriend, peashoots, Ethan Hawke is greasy, now with fish sauce!

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So basically I’m like the worst blogger ever. Or maybe just the laziest, take your pick. And I mean that’s saying a lot. Sloths have more frequently updated blogs than I do, and they take a week to cross the street to get to a tree.

I just checked this here little soup site for the first time since mid-May. It’s late July. There are already stacks of Halloween candy and Thanksgiving crap going up at my local CVS, so I’ve got a lot of time to make up for. I won’t bore you with the details of this, my lost summer, but let’s just say I’m going to play the sympathy card and let you know that there has been a big, bad sickness in my immediate family that kind of knocked me out like that dude on the Bachelorette during that insane trip to Thailand this season. I didn’t wind up on a Thai stretcher or get sent home after my “hometown visit” (poor dude), but I did do quite a bit of wallowing and moaning and I kind of let myself watch a lot of bad TV. So I’m sorry. I’m back.

Because I lost so much time and I am no longer able to battle my ADD (forget about any salient stories people), here are some pictures of deliciousness from this summer so far...

PostedJuly 20, 2011

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesvegan, stocks and broths, vegetarian, soup

Tagsquick pics!, recipe, Cook's Illustrated, bad blogger, soupapalooza!, broths and/or stocks, summer!, soup, America's Test Kitchen

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Sometimes there’s just not a whole lot to say, though that’s not normally the case with me; I can flap my jaws about nothing for days and days only to realize that the only person listening is the cat. And that’s just because she is required to in order to get fed, and she is an indoor cat with no means for escape. Oh, and she isn’t really listening at all since SHE’S A CAT. Incidentally, Monkey, that long suffering pet of mine, is also quite possibly the best birth control on the planet. See, I have a gallery wall of pictures of her in my upstairs lounge. An entire wall. And as soon as any of my dates sees this wall, it’s all I can do to keep them from fleeing into my parking lot for their very lives.

Being at a loss for words already, I was also having a really difficult time settling on a menu for this month’s soupapolooza!. Say what you will about the difficulties of cooking (it’s hard! I can’t boil a pot of water without burning it! I cut the crap out of myself every time I use a knife!) but I’ve found that probably the single most essential element of cooking is finding and using the right recipe. It’s tricky and fraught with peril; just like shooting a movie: you can have a solid script that makes really bad film, but there is no chance in hell of a good movie coming from a bad script. It’s impossible. And slightly more expensive than screwing up a pound of turkey meat. Flawed recipes and subpar ingredients never a good soup make, no matter what. So, always consider your sources when you get the itch to cook.

For this month’s soupapolooza! I pried myself away from making cat videos (only slightly more disturbing than Princess Beatrice’s wedding hat, consider yourself warned) and watching the William & Kate wedding loop long enough to go through probably two dozen cook books and ten different google searches. As I so long-windedly pointed out in my blogpocalypse about baby showers/ party throwing, menu planning is daunting, and I was totally in violation of my “figure it out five days in advance and then don’t make changes” rule.

PostedMay 5, 2011

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagsmeatball, saffron, recipe, soupapalooza!, Monkey the Cat, shaved asparagus, Jenni Jihad, turkey, atomic strawberry cake, crazy cat lady, mycatisawesomebirthcontrol, soup, Legal Eagle, Semi-sweet Bitters

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pear with blue cheese and fried pancetta: ballad of a lazy blogger or how I put the lame in lament

wild mushroom with toasted hazelnut gremolata: I've fallen and I can't get up

heirloom tomato and lemongrass with pea shoots & crab: If only my McDonald’s habit was as cool as my Member’s Only jacket

vegetable broth: you’ve gotta start somewhere

Spanish saffron with turkey meatballs: consider the source

Why? Because soup is cheap, delicious and easy. Kind of like me.

a weekly attempt to eat well and to savor life. or to see how much food I can get on my clothes.