*Blogger’s note: I originally pulled this post down because I thought it a little too raw and personal. And it is. But here’s what I’ve come to believe: it’s just a version of the truth that doesn’t portray my behavior in the best possible light, to be sure, but ultimately is just a part of the whole. And that greater whole is complicated and sometimes loving and fun and sometimes petty and mean just the same, and that’s A-OK with me. This was just how I was dealing, incredibly poorly I might add, with my own expectations of the timeline. I hope you enjoy, even if you think I’m a total ingrate. ---mm

If I thought I tripped into a pothole when I turned 39, then I plummeted full-force into an Everest-style crevasse starting a few short months before I summited to 40. I cannot tell you how crazy I became. Like so crazy that I pitched an absolute hissy fit when I found out my whole family was going to celebrate my niece’s ninth birthday but had no plan to acknowledge mine, this year that I would officially stop being Peter Pan and become Peter Pan-fried. Yes, I was jealous of a nine year old. Trust me, I’m aware (and, sadly, was also even aware at the time) of just how terrible I was behaving, but in the interest of really spilling the pettiest of the petty details, I’d like to set the scene:

PostedFebruary 17, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriespositively piggy, soup

Tagsblue cheese, brattiness, panic button, soupapalooza!, cheesy, main course, 40, piggy piggy piggy, pancetta, pear

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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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Halloween came a week early this year when I came perilously close to chopping the tip of my left thumb off. It’s been months since my last knife wound thanks in part to knife skills lessons from various and sundry professionals (thank you, Obi Wan) and from a year’s worth of diligent practice; but it was like Dan Akroyd’s Julia Child from the late 1970’s SNL skit where blood just shoots out all over the place in a fountain of red corn syrup. Hilarious. Only mine was plasma and platelets which are apparently necessary to sustain human life. Anyway, I spent a large part of the afternoon with my left hand propped over my head wrapped in a roll of paper towels trying to avoid a trip to the emergency room for stitches since I let my health insurance lapse a few weeks ago. Eventually the bleeding slowed enough for me coat the digit with enough neosporin to support two girls in a mud wrestling vat and to dress it with a sterile bandage and cover it with a rubber glove so I could continue cooking.

And that wasn’t the only creepy occurrence.

There was this little thing a while back where my subconscious rendered an ex boyfriend dead. As in totally kaput. Morto.

Yes, I had a dream, but not a dream in a MLK or a copper pot kind of way, oh no. It was like when Jimmy Smitts was written out of NYPD Blue: there were tears and there was pleading and then the dude died. As in dead. As disco. And I woke up sweaty and full of guilt and shame (guilt because I realized the One Night Stand-Up was sleeping next to me, and shame because technically I should now refer to him as the “Two Night Stand-Up”, which isn’t nearly as funny).

PostedOctober 28, 2010

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesvegetarian, soup

TagsGorgeous G, apple pie ice cream, goat cheese w/ pistachio, cranberry & toasts, spinach and gruyere stuffed mushrooms, sunday bloody sunday, soup, butternut squash, blue cheese, killing off ex boyfriends, Chef Kenobi, soupapalooza!, cheesy, apple, romaine and flash pickled fig salad, thumbs up, One Night Stand Up

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I had an unspoken but hard and fast rule about soupapolooza! when it began: that I would never repeat a recipe. Since I tend to repeat boyfriends, bad behavior and boring stories I thought I would give myself the opportunity to be bold and different with the soup. But I also promised that I would use local, seasonal ingredients, and in looking back on the very first soupapolooza! I realize that unless we’ve all joined Marty McFly (oh how I miss my spiral perm and Whitesnake) in the DeLorean and have managed to have three seasons happen at once, that little rule was shot from the very beginning, so whatever. I cheated this week. Because I remade the creamy roasted tomato soup with a different variety of tomato, but I cheated nonetheless. I’m a big fat CHEATER. So sue me.

Maybe because I was familiar with the recipe and/or maybe because it’s so simple, I had the most laid back Sunday. Usually I’m up at 7.30 or 8, finalizing the day’s menu and printing out my shopping list, out the door by 9 and working through the farmer’s market by 9.30. Afterwards I come home with the various loot from the market, extra supplies from the grocery store, wine from K&L and new gadgets from Sur La Table (ANY excuse to buy a new pot) and start assembling the mess by 2. By 6.30 I’m ready to serve with candles lit, bar set up and salad dressed; well, in a perfect world...

Most Sundays I’m still running around and usually unable to talk with anyone when they arrive (just a few weeks ago I was quite short with the Conspiracy Theorist Web Designer when she was kind enough to ask what could she do to help and I practically screamed “get out of the kitchen and get yourself a drink! THEN we can talk about Atlantis!”). It’s a long, arduous, active day and, truthfully, I drag my feet much of the time. Sometimes I cheat by going directly to the grocery store and buying the crappy produce there, not that I like to admit this, but it can be challenging to stare down the barrel of the gun being held by an unknown number of potential party guests with nothing but an unknown stack of recipes in defense. And sometimes I try to shave some time off the prep by avoiding the hipsters with strollers and the displaced homeless people on Ivar at the farmer’s market. Plus I hate shelling out the fiver for parking at Bed, Bath and Beyond because, truly, that is beyond offensive since I come out of that place smelling like a bad candle. I do always get a better result when I go to Hollywood, though, so my cheapness and outrage over paying for parking really shouldn’t be part of the equation. But sometimes it is a very convenient excuse.

But this week it was all a breeze. Because I’m a cheater. Because I knew the recipe and because I was craving a grilled cheese sandwich.

PostedMay 18, 2010

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup, appetizers and snacks

Tagsroasted tomato, tomato, grilled cheese, cheesy, cheese, tricolore salad, gruyere, mini grilled cheese sandwiches, parmesan, parmesan wafers, recipe, soup and the single girl, soupapalooza!, veruca salt, cheating, puree, soup, thanks for souping

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pear with blue cheese and fried pancetta: “40” isn’t just a crappy song by U2 anymore

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

butternut squash and apple with blue cheese: Halloween came a little early this year

roasted roma tomato with gruyere mini grilled cheese: the Shafer beer of soups or the one to have when you’re having more than one

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.