Fat Tuesday - No Soup For You

Fall has arrived in Northern Virginia, and with the cool weather comes reason to start making soups. Soup season is fantastic, it counters the cooling winds of the fall and fills the home with aromas that cannot be conjured from other cooking.

Sunday, I decided I would make a batch of soup for myself, my wife (you can read what she thought about it), and the in-laws. I had previously purchased a big book of soups and stews from the secondhand book store for $1, and I had gone through and marked several soups I wanted to make. Sunday morning I reviewed my selections and narrowed it down to chicken and corn chowder versus Mulligatawny. I was torn. For those who aren’t familiar, Mulligatawny is an Indian soup made famous by Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi episode. The soup is a little exotic if you don’t normally have Indian food, which I really don’t. But I decided to venture into imperial lands, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to yell NO SOUP FOR YOU!

However, I forgot my wife and her family are not really Seinfeld fans, so no one was going to laugh at my jokes. Somehow I had forgotten the fact that I ran into the same problem when I made Jambalaya. Despite my best Newman impressions waddling around the kitchen saying “Jambalaya” no one laughed. Where is my sister Marie when I need her. Hello? Is this thing on?

I still find it unsettling whenever I make efforts at creating exotic foods. Growing up in my middle-class suburban life, I didn’t venture out in the taste world. I hated onions for most of my young life. How am I to know what this soup is supposed to taste like. Even more unsettling, I feel my cooking ventures start to send me into hipster territory, an area I generally avoid like a rash on a fast-food cashier.

Either way, I did complete my batch of Mulligatawny. I kept my soup nazi references to myself. I don’t actually know if it tasted authentic, but despite my father-in-law’s initial reaction of “it smells pungent in here,” everyone seemed to keep it down.

Now for the recipe, that’s a bit of a problem. Since I already didn’t know what I was doing, I looked up a few other recipes and ended up piecing them together. Unfortunately, I don’t remember what all was in there. Sorry. But if you go over to foodnetwork.com Emeril has a decent recipe that I used part of.