Back in Junior High School, or “Intermediate” as it is known in the parts where I’m from, I signed up for every imaginable sport. Now I know that those of you who know me in this phase of my life are leaning back in your chairs, patting your stomachs and cackling in disbelief (I know for sure some of you indeed cackle when you call “bullshit”), but there was a time in my youth when my butt lined the bench of every B-Team sport to play in the gym of the mighty, mighty CLIS Eagles and in gyms throughout the greater Clear Creek Independent School District.

Before I even got to Jr. High there was ballet, swim team, drill team, cheerleading (I still just ooze pep and sincerity, right? You haven’t lived until you’ve witnessed my bubble letter writing) and gymnastics. At CLIS there was volleyball, basketball and track; the fifty meter hurdles being the only event of which I showed any sort of natural aptitude. After high school I dabbled in riding horses and I literally had a five minute affair with tennis, a particularly embarrassing moment in which I joined a club, bought four or five tennis skirts, a pair of K-Swiss shoes and the panties that you can stuff your extra balls in (get your head out of the gutter), and I signed myself up for a private lesson. My dad had told me earlier in the month that all well-bred young ladies should play tennis. Which was particularly funny since I’m certainly not very well-bred, among other things. Anyway, I drove myself to my inaugural lesson all decked out in Le Coq Sportif fare, tossing my pony tail as I walked into the office of the club like an annoying, totally entitled bourgeois peacock.

“I’m here for my lesson!” I told the lady at the front desk.

Sometimes it’s crystal clear when things are done and there is no need to ask the Magic 8 Ball for its opinion. Things can be burnt, they can be dry, the timer in a turkey can pop up or he could have given someone else an engagement ring-- take your pick, they’re all excellent indicators. I like to think I don’t need to read tea leaves to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me by BANGING ME OVER THE HEAD. I like to think I can just use those god-given magical five senses to determine whether or not something is cooked.

I was hanging out in Gray Gardens, also known as my couch when it is strewn with potato chip bags, coffee cups and a sleeping cat between my knees, when I got a call from the Bossy Blonde in her “thinking chair” from the west village. I desperately need a thinking chair, by the way, and the conversation went a little something like this:

“So [Chef Kenobi] and I were having drinks last night and he asked me if you were obsessed with soup. He said, ‘what’s her deal? Is she going to make soup every Sunday for the rest of her life?’ And I wondered about that, too. I mean it’s not like you gave yourself a year deadline to cook through Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blog about it, thank God, since it’s already been done and Amy Adams was so annoying in it.”

mini doughnuts and cinnamon ice cream: sweet treats from the fully-outfitted kitchen of a sour sport

mulligatawny: when to say when

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.