I Always Feel Like... Somebody's Watching Me

Sometimes it seems like the television knows who I am and is talking just to me. Last night, after getting so obsessed with soup, I saw a television commercial for Progresso Soup featuring my two favorite soups-- Italian Wedding and Chicken Tortilla.

I started making Italian Wedding soup when my daughter was tiny and I still enjoyed things like sitting at the table rolling hundreds of tiny meatballs. Ron and I liked it so much that I took a batch over to my parents-- they were distinctly underwhelmed. Something about beef meatballs in chicken stock just didn't fly with them back then.

Then, years later, they were assigned the soup in gourmet club and thought it was wonderful. Old people-- you can't show them anything-- they have to discover things for themselves. Or it's even better if you can get them to believe they invented it-- then they'll be a fan for life.

Since then there has been a bit of debate-- I put spinach and small pasta in mine. She uses escarole and lots of cheese and sometimes makes the meatballs out of ground turkey. It has become one of my father's favorite dinners and so she makes it all the time now. I love her version too, so I've given in. In fact I don't think I've ever had a bowl of Italian Wedding Soup that I didn't like.

Chicken Tortilla has a rockier past at my house. I love it in restaurants. Love it. I order it whenever I can.

We had a little soup potluck at work and so I made some-- I thought the recipe was pretty straight forward. But the recipe called for floating lime slices before serving. I put the lime slices in the crockpot before I took it to work and they sat in the soup all morning. By lunch time the lime had overpowered the soup and it was awful. I took it home and tried to rescue it by diluting it with chicken stock but that seemed to only make it worse. Even my soup loving family couldn't eat it.

I need to try again someday, now that I know better, but just now I'm looking forward to trying Progresso's new versions.

Eat More Soup Month- November 2010

Mary's new plan:

Here's the thing-- I find myself writing about soup a lot-- on facebook, on livejournal, on twitter. If I find myself with a belly full of warm goodness, I just feel the urge to write about it. Particularly this time of year.

And then there's this-- I've done NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month-- each November) before, but I find that about halfway through the month I lose my way. I lose the plot and head off on ridiculous tangents and eventually it's too painful to keep going. This makes me doubt that I was ever meant to be a writer.

So this year I've decided to spend November eating and writing about soup. I'm going to eat soup every day and write something here every day. Those are all the rules I'm setting for myself, no word count goal or a required variety of soups. I know there will be Basic Budget weeks where I eat only canned soup or make it myself and if I get a cold I promise you it will be Hot and Sour soup every day.

I'm curious to see if I *will* get a cold. I usually do get sick in November and soup is my favorite remedy, so if I'm already eating it every day... will that be preventative medicine? We shall see.

So anyway-- here we go.