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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Last summer I went to Italy for the month of August. That sounds super fancy, I know, but I do not have the funds to be considered fancy by any stretch of the imagination, so please withhold your judgement and snark for the time being. Though I do really love the snark. I was able to go because Bossy cashed in her airline miles to get me a gratis ticket (which was insanely generous) and we had a free house to stay in Panicale in Umbria.

Panicale is ideally located right next to the Tuscan border, so driving around from cute little countryside village to walled gothic town was really easy (well, for the most part considering I did get car sick for the entirety of the month, which was less about Italian roads and more about the driver of the rented Cinquecento but whatever).

The first day trip we took was to Montepulciano (where my beautiful copper stock pot was forged), and it was one of my favorite places in the whole of Tuscany because of the breezy, beautiful walled in spot on the top of a hill overlooking the region. It was a gorgeous day and we were lucky enough to have access to the best wines of the region in the numerous bars that dotted the peak of the city.

PostedAugust 17, 2011

Authormelissa mcclure

Categorieslibations

Tagsfetch, K&L Wines, pedantic wine lesson, soupapalooza!, Bossy, Mean Girls, fancypants, Steve Greer, panicale, franciacorta, montepulciano, my summer in umbria

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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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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

italian bubbles: quit trying to make 'fetch' (I mean franciacorta) happen

vegetable broth: you’ve gotta start somewhere

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.