Soup's On

I don't cook. Twenty years ago I figured out how to make lasagna and used to make that for every single occasion I could think of. Then there was one year of my life where I found myself somehow with nothing much to do. Done with latest degree, piece of cake kid in new school where my name had not yet appeared on every volunteer and PTA committee, happy husband in a job he loved and in a new house with a big kitchen. I cooked that year. I had a "Simple and Easy" cookbook. I would pick a recipe every day, go to the store and collect the ingredients and spend the next two hours or so figuring it out. It was never simple or easy. I'm not cut out for it. Shawn and Shana would come home and partake of my latest dish. They were always polite (nobody starved or got sick that year, by the way), but ten minutes later it was all over. After all that work. Eventually I got a job, dedicated every extra minute to Shana's school and moved California Pizza Kitchen curb-side pick-up to #4 on my speed dial. I did bookmark one recipe, though. It's a soup, well, chili. Lots of veggies, beans, ham. Over the years the ham turned to turkey and I made a few other changes here and there. I still have to take the whole book to the store with me just like in the old days, but I've got the work part down to a science and put it to the test again today on a Sunday afternoon with nothing else to do. I came home from the store and unloaded, washed, chopped, cried (from the onions), sliced, rinsed, stirred, loaded the dishwasher and one hour later was standing in a clean kitchen with a big pot of soup bubbling on the stove. That's almost as fast as CPK.