I had a nagging feeling this Monday morning when I woke up from a sleeping pill haze (an hour earlier, actually, thanks to the time change). I looked to my left and saw Monkey curled up in the crook of my rib and then I heard very loud, concentrated mewing emanating from Osama Beans Laden, a very persistent, totally annoying rescue kitten downstairs, so I knew everything was OK, but something was off (anybody want a really cute, neutered gray cat--he's 'ca(s)t'rati?)... like in Pretty in Pink when Andie and wacky Iona are discussing whether or not Andie should go to prom. Iona says, "I have this girlfriend who didn't go to hers, and every once in a while, she gets this really terrible feeling--you know, like something is missing. She checks her purse, and then she checks her keys. She counts her kids, she goes crazy, and then she realizes that nothing is missing. She decided it was side effects from skipping the prom."

But I didn't skip the prom, I actually went four times. Granted I never even got kissed at any one of them, so it could hardly count that I even went, but I did take a hit of ecstasy my Sophomore year and I danced up a storm while I tapped my acrylic nails rhythmically on a red solo cup full of rum and coke, so I have that going for me. Which is good. I also happened to wear a silver lamé sequined poufy gown that year and I tanned myself into oblivion which meant the only things keeping me from exactly resembling a baked potato were a of a pat of butter and a sprinkle of bacon bits dusted on my head (ugly but DELICIOUS!). Incidentally, I think the fact that the only thing that keeps lamé from being lame is a french accent. Never has anything been more appropriate.

As I started my hike Monday morning, it hit me. Sunday was the three year anniversary of soupapalooza! and I hadn't remembered.

PostedNovember 9, 2012

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagsrecipe, thanks for souping, potatoes, kielbasa, soup, ritz crackers, soupaversary, sausage, positively piggy, soup with a side of ennui, soupapalooza!, baked potato prom dress, piggy piggy piggy, potato

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One year. Twelve months, Fifty-two weeks, 365 days, 8,760 hours, give or take the few that need to be classified as “lost”...

It feels like I just started this little adventure and it’s been a thousand years all at the same time.

This Sunday, soupapolooza! is one. And like any proud mother whose offspring is reaching a milestone, I can’t help but think about how this thing I imagined is nothing like I imagined; that it has its own ideas independent of my expectations and I am powerless to do anything about it. That everything and nothing have happened all at the same time-- and that I’ve been living my life in the moments in between.

I didn’t know what would happen when I started cooking. I hoped I would learn how to dice and that I would understand a little more about what makes good, healthy food (I have). I hoped that other people might the enjoy stuff I created and join me for a few hours a week (they did). And I hoped I wouldn’t poison them (I haven’t).

Here’s what I didn’t plan for in this year since I started making soup:

PostedOctober 20, 2010

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriesgear and miscellany

Tagslessons learned, soupapalooza!, thanks for souping, soupaversary, one isn't the loneliest number

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Memorial Day is supposed to be a solemn holiday-- one to reflect on those Americans that have served and died in that service for our country. But the only evidence of reflection I saw this weekend was whether or not the BBQ was too rare to eat. Memorial Day seems to me, at least in this most ungodly and Babylonian of states, more about beer, cookouts and screenings of “Purple Rain” at the cemetery. Not that there’s anything wrong with that... I mean, after all, could a five foot nothing mixed race dude from Minnesota wearing violet lycra pantaloons and pointy boots really be a famous musician and arbiter of style anywhere else in the world besides America? Well, besides France, of course.

Really, what a gloriously mixed-up, mashed about mess of a place this is. We are a nation of ligers; an unnatural mix of a lion and a tiger that makes for one screwed up animal, since lions live in prides and hate the water while tigers are solitary and are great swimmers. Put them together and we are a totally confused animal that has no idea what it wants and needs but is pretty sure it’ll still be killing some giant land animal for dinner. There is such diversity and beauty in this society made up of glaring contradictions that it almost makes the ridiculous religious and political rants some of my facebook friends seem palatable... well, almost.

So I’ve been thinking about what traits we, as a group of more than 310 million people living on one landmass, share as Americans and which of them makes me most proud. And I’ve come to the conclusion that my hands-down favorite is dissatisfaction.

That’s right. I say screw people that are totally satisfied since satisfaction breeds laziness, smugness and the propensity to stick to the status quo. I say be pissed with whatever it is that isn’t working for you and acknowledge that you would like things to be different, and then go and make a change. Not to sound like a Michael Jackson song or anything.

PostedJune 1, 2010

Authormelissa mcclure

Categoriessoup

Tagslime, tortilla, texmex, mexican, memorial day, dissatisfaction is very american, pasilla, there is no such thing as eco friendly jewelry, sometimes I'm a real asshole, sometimes I like to rant, we're all ligers, soup, thanks for souping, soupapalooza!, recipe

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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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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.”

potato kielbasa soup: sometimes you eat the potato, sometimes you look like the potato

so far so good: a year in the life of a soup blog

aztec tortilla lime soup: a garnish is still a garnish

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

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.