the stories
the kitchen
the market
the proof (party pics!)
the food porn
the recipes
the about
the drop me a line part
the resources
the full list
jewelry alchemy

soupapalooza!

the stories
the kitchen
the market
the proof (party pics!)
the food porn
the recipes
the about
the drop me a line part
the resources
the full list
jewelry alchemy
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Spanish saffron with turkey meatballs: consider the source

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. 

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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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spring pea and poblano with cumin and mint crème fraîche and fried serrano ham: there’s a whole lot of cumin goin’ on

If anyone out there in Cyberville has a clue as to how to get the smell of toasted cumin out of a plastic mini-prep, I’m all ears. It’s true that I’m the jerk who probably melted the plastic of said mini-prep by adding toasted cumin seed to it straight from the stove without cooling it first, but someone somewhere must know how to rectify this sorry state of affairs. I tried scrubbing, I tried soaking in soap and then in white vinegar. I even tried steel wool both to the chagrin of the skin on the knuckles of my right hand and also to no avail, and I’m ready to say Uncle. 

I’ve been a little overly, well, scrubby about things lately. I mean the cumin smell in the plastic isn’t exaggerated at all, but it is sort of indicative of a kind of OCD-like desire I’ve been having to scour things clean and to contain stuff. The result of cleaning and organizing is great; certainly it makes life a lot easier, but building what is essentially a bomb shelter in your chemical room (yes, I did this a couple of weeks ago) may not signal the height of rational behavior. 

In the Clark Kent portion of my life I’m a goldsmith. And being a goldsmith that actually forges and welds gold myself, I’m required to have a space with a hood to contain the fumes from various chemicals I use that either remove or add oxidation to metal. When I moved into the studio space that I live and work in (if you’re curious, you can see pictures of the space here), there was a back office area that conveniently already had a hood built in, which was great, but it also had a pile of crap in it (panes of glass, 15-20 carousels of slides, a slide projector, apple boxes, a slab of iron that weighed at least 500 pounds, a ladder, sand bags and rusting C- stands). Which would be fine if I hadn’t already spent the first several weeks of my occupancy ripping down walls, painting and cleaning up the previous tenant’s meshugas. So I “organized” these things into a few corners, brought in the bedraggled fridge from the kitchen (it makes a great beer locker) and added my chemical tables to the mix. And then there were the extra boxes that soon piled up (what if I need to move my Le Creuset 15.5 qt french oven someday?) , the odd items that I was holding in storage for my gay boyfriend (whose computer and SCALE--why I don’t know-- I am babysitting while he is teaching in China) and a panoply of shit that almost reached the ceiling. Looking through the glass windows into the room was giving me heartburn. 

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PostedApril 12, 2011
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriespositively piggy, soup
Tagsspinach salad, recipe, mint, OCD, soup, Legal Eagle, cumin, Hoarders, creme fraiche, serrano ham, spring pea, bee cake pan, soupapalooza!, piggy piggy piggy, blood orange vinaigrette, lemon lavender ice cream, poblano, Semi-sweet Bitters, green peas
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curried cauliflower with lime yogurt and sautéed vegetables: the accidental vegan (sort of)

Things at March’s soupapolooza! started off with a bang. Literally. And while I get super irritated with people who misuse and/ or overuse the term “literally” (I’m looking at you with my side-eye, Rachel Zoe), it is both appropriate and correct in this instance. It was buh-nan-ahs.

Semi-sweet Bitters showed up early on Sunday, as he always does, prepared to cut lemons, fill water bottles, light candles or whatever else I’d managed to forget or ignore. I love this. Even when entertaining close friends who are by nature pretty forgiving, I still stress about having things ready to go before the first arrivals (and by the way, I’m never on time). So the fact that Semi-sweet is almost always the premier guest and he’s game for completing the incomplete, I’m spared a great deal of hair pulling and some serious bouts of Procrastinator’s Agita. 

It is also not uncommon for Semi-sweet Bitters to bring his sabre, for sabrage naturally, which is a crowd pleaser to be sure: who doesn’t love watching someone decapitate the top of a champagne bottle with a sword? I have amassed quite a collection of trophies of this handy work on top of my sink, beautiful champagne corks with their glass necks still wrapped around the collar. I love them. They’re kind of like my version of taxidermy animal heads on a study wall, except I don’t have a study and the only things that got killed and stuffed are my sobriety and my good judgement. 

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PostedMarch 17, 2011
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriesvegan, vegetarian, soup
Tagspear cardamom chutney, spinach salad, lime yogurt, recipe, triple vanilla cupcake, can be tailored vegan, poor kitty, soup, fried pappadam, curry, Coulter = Secretariat, persian cucumber, soupapalooza!, samosas, cauliflower, bang!, you gotta have a gimmck, stunt baking, tamarind vinaigrette, bacon cupcakes, alcohol induced accidents, Semi-sweet Bitters
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soupy black beans with masa harina dumplings: soup, the whole soup and nothing but the soup

It’s been the perfect storm: a combination of writer’s block, holiday derailment and the stomach flu. That means spotty (uh, I mean no) blog coverage. It also means that I’ve scaled back soupapolooza! to a monthly exercise instead of a weekly one. You see, as much as the soup has saved me (thank you very much, Julie and Julia) it has also broken me. And as I am already morally destitute, I can’t really afford to be penniless, too. I kind of kid. Honestly, I’m pulling back a bit because of the crazy holiday schedule and because I’m working on some very exciting projects. But never you fear! I’m still souping and will be souping on an even larger scale in the coming months (hint hint)...please stay tuned.

We did have our now monthly gathering this Sunday last* and we had a special visitor-- my college pal, LC: kind of like Lauren Conrad (also LC) of “Laguna Beach” and “The Hills” fame, only slightly smarter and without a franken-boob sidekick and her fame-whoring husband Spencer. My LC is a badass. Even if she doesn’t have her own reality series, which, of course, all the best people do. But I digress.

Anywho, I was thinking, here it is December in LA, and it’s kind of, well, weathery, which is strange, so how will I keep my guests warm in my mostly concrete and unheated cavernous loft? Why chiles and black beans, of course, with masa harina dumplings...

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PostedDecember 10, 2010
Authormelissa mcclure
Categoriesvegetarian, soup
Tagsspicy greens, excuses excuses excuses, black beans, soupapalooza!, flaming rum punch, doughnuts, Bad Auntie, cinnamon ice cream, masa harina, guacamole, South Park Creme Fraiche, anchovy vinaigrette, LC!, dumplings, soup, Semi-sweet Bitters
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goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

goldsmith, sometime costume designer and badass cat owner. 

  • dessert (1)
  • party planning (1)
  • libations (2)
  • stocks and broths (2)
  • vegan (5)
  • breakfast (6)
  • desserts & sweet treats (9)
  • quick pics! (9)
  • appetizers and snacks (10)
  • salad (10)
  • positively piggy (11)
  • gear and miscellany (15)
  • vegetarian (33)
  • soup (36)

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.

 copyright © 2009-2015 soupapalooza! and melissa mcclure. all rights reserved.