soup

For week three of Soupapalooza, I was inspired by one of the few measly snowfalls we've gotten here in Minnesota to make something white and creamy. Given its availability this time of year, cauliflower seemed like the most natural choice, notwithstanding the fact that I spent most of my youth vehemently opposed to it both in theory and in practice. I didn't trust anything so stinky and frankly, so pale. But I've grown up now, and stinky and pale is alright by me.

It's a good thing Minnesota is (typically) such a cold and snowy place as we turn the calendar page to a new year, because for the second year in a row, my New Year's resolution has involved soup. Here's a tip apropos of resolutions, people: Don't bite off more than you can chew, or slurp. Last year, I resolved to figure out a way to make a delicious vegetable soup that satisfied my hungry, winter (read: carnivorous) self and I did it! It pays to make super attainable resolutions. The vegetable stock and the soup itself are recipes I go back to time and time again, and each time I do, I feel warm, nourished, happy and yes, a wee bit virtuous. This year, as I was thinking of things in my life I wanted to change in 2012, I somehow fell right back into a pot of soup.

If you had told me, even two years ago, that one day I would open up the crisp white butcher paper of a package from Clancey’s Meats and Fish, gasp at the stunning beauty of a couple of beef short ribs and run for my camera, I would have told you you were nuts. If you had told me that I would decide to write my next article about short ribs solely because the picture was so fantastic, I would have told you you were double nuts. If you had told me that while I was going all Richard Avedon on the short ribs, I would simultaneously be cursing myself for not having bought more of them, I would have paused, shrugged and agreed that it sounded like something I might do.