Yesterday in Sweet Tomatoes, Greg and I overheard the following in conversations around us:
“Well, I’m gonna go and check out the soups!”
”They have The. Best. Soups. Here. The salad is starting to grow on me, though.”
Conclusion: Old guys love talking about soup.
Also: the word “soups” is funny.

I don’t really care for soup. Soup is too hot for my mouth. I also don’t drink hot beverages, like tea or coffee. Sure, I have some hot chocolate, but that’s it… and to be honest, any hot chocolate I put into my mouth has to be “cooled down” first with either milk or a shitload of whipped cream. I burn my mouth easier than anyone I know. This, of course, makes the consumption of soup difficult.

My sister and Mom have a thing for homemade vegetable soup. Trish makes a big deal about it—“oh Mom, you have to make your soup, please make your soup, whinewhinewhine…”—and my Mom sometimes gives in and makes it. Not always, though. Mom’s reached the age where she has figured out that her kids can cook for themselves, damn it, so if they want soup they can probably just make their own damn soup. The thing is: I can appreciate this soup my Mom makes. It really is pretty tasty. However, I won’t seek it out, and many times I just won’t even try it if it is there as part of a meal, and I will never just order the soup over the salad, no matter what. I ALWAYS go for the salad. Always.

When I get sick and I am puking all over the goddamn place, the first food I usually want to eat when I can keep solid food down again is salad. That, or a sandwich with a lot of vegetables and a ton of red wine vinegar. I know they tell you to eat crackers and chicken soup or something, but I want the roughage and the vinegar. I’m almost positive Trish has the same quirk with wanting lettuce after vomiting. We are salad junkies. We used to come home from school and put some iceberg lettuce in a cereal bowl, smother it in Wishbone dressing (Italian for her, French for me) and eat that crap as we watched “Splash” or “Ghostbusters” for the millionth time.

I just love salad. I can eat it any time of the day, except for breakfast, maybe. I can eat it on my lap or at a table! Sometimes, in my car or sitting on a floor, in the dark. And I am somewhat flexible on the toppings. Let’s say I am having chicken on my salad. I can enjoy it equally if the chicken is cold, or if it is warm chicken. I don’t stress out about it. I keep an open mind. I can have cucumbers, or carrots, it doesn’t matter which. Sure, croutons. Throw those hardened bread-nuggets on there. I’ll take ‘em. HOWEVER: Dressing is the thing that can make or break a good salad. I don’t like the “creamies.” Creamies include ranch, blue cheese, thousand island or Russian. I love the vinaigrettes, though. The Italians—especially homemade. The French(es): red, honey French, creamy French (my only exception to the creamy rule). I won’t name names, but I know someone who is so enamored with a certain type of dressing that she will lick the plate/bowl clean after a salad, just to get all the remaining remnants of dressing.

My point is: no on the soup. I wish I could understand the mythology surrounding the American Soup Culture, with the biscuits and the oyster crackers or whatever, and the difference between the chowders, but the day they were handing out the Soup-Wanting-Gene, I must have been frigging around somewhere else… probably puking and eating salad on a continuous loop.