On Wednesday evening at Bowling League, I was telling my friends BH and MB about my soup misadventure, and I invited them over for Sunday supper if they’d be willing to let me try again and cook some soup for them. They were planning on going out of town for part of the weekend but said they’d call me when they knew whether or not they’d be back by Sunday evening. On Friday, as I was discussing with my staff plans for Monday when we were going to be having our staff retreat at my house, I offered to cook soup for lunch, and they thought that would be great. I was thinking maybe I’d fix two different kinds in case not everyone (about a dozen people) liked one or the other—maybe a minestrone and a tomato soup. I figured I’d have plenty of time to shop and cook on Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday, I heard from BH and she said she and MB were looking forward to coming to supper on Sunday. I had found a recipe that I wanted to try, but when I talked to my friend CS, she said why not just make a double batch of the minestrone that I was going to cook for Monday and have some of it Sunday night, so I decided that made more sense. The minestrone recipe calls for dried cannelloni beans which, it says, have to be soaked overnight, so I was going to go grocery shopping Saturday so I could soak the beans that night. But there was a note at the end of the recipe that said, “If you would like to use canned beans, do so...." That’s all I needed—with permission to use canned beans, the grocery shopping could wait till Sunday.
I made a list of all the ingredients I’d need for the minestrone and the tomato soup, and off to HyVee I went early Sunday afternoon. The first dilemma I had was that in the recipe book, in the list of ingredients, it called for prosciutto, but nowhere in the cooking directions part did it say anything about prosciutto. One of the first things it told me to do in the directions is to “put the pancetta, garlic and parsley in a large saucepan…,” though pancetta was not in the list of ingredients. So, I looked these up on my Internet cooking terms Web site, and though it didn’t say these terms are interchangeable, I gathered that prosciutto is a type of ham (from Italy), and pancetta is a particular part of the prosciutto, so I figured it meant the same thing. When I got to the store, I asked the woman in the deli for prosciutto and forgot to say anything about pancetta, so I hoped I was getting the right thing. Otherwise, I only had trouble finding two of the ingredients: sea salt and shelled peas. Of all the different kinds of salt I found, the only one that sounded anything like sea salt was seasoned salt, and I wondered if maybe “sea” is an abbreviation for “seasoned.” It’s not. I looked it up on the Web when I got home. (My new cell phone has the capacity to connect to the Internet, and I’m wondering if I should pay for that service so I can “look it up” while I’m in the store instead of having to wait till I get home.) The recipe called for fresh or frozen shelled peas, but I couldn’t find anything anywhere that said “shelled” peas. I asked a colleague, AW, and his wife, who were in the frozen food aisle, what it means when it says “shelled peas”—and they said something about maybe using regular peas, or snow peas, or black-eyed peas or navy beans when they make soup. I just went with the regular frozen peas.
I got home from the grocery store two hours before my dinner guests were to arrive, so I thought I had plenty of time to fix the minestrone and have it ready by the time they got here. I had read through the recipe and added up the times it takes to cook and simmer various ingredients, and it came to about 45 minutes, not counting the time it would take to cut up the celery, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, etc., which I figured couldn’t take all that long. As I put the prosciutto/ pancetta and parsley in the saucepan and began to sauté it, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t sure what a garlic clove was, and I was supposed to use two of them, crushed. Actually, four, since I was doubling the recipe. I had bought two packages of fresh garlic, which comes with two in a package. As I took one out, I debated whether the whole thing is a clove, or whether a clove is some small part of it. As I rinsed it off, it sort of pealed like an onion, and I cut the dirty brown end off, and it sort of fell apart into what I surmised might be little cloves. Unsure, I decided it would be better to use two (four) of the little pieces than both (all four) of the whole big garlics that came in the package, just to be safe. (I later found out I had made the right decision when I asked BH and MB upon their arrival.)
By now I was wondering if my Internet web site, which I don’t have time to go connect to every time I have a question while I’m cooking (unless I pay for DSL service, which may be worth it), has a 1-800-ASK-COOK help-line affiliated with it. If so, I might as well just dial it when I start cooking and stay on the line, because I have LOTS of questions. For example: “2 (4) large potatoes, cubed and rinsed.” Do I peel the potatoes? I’ve heard the skin is the best part because that’s where the vitamins are, so I decided to leave it on. “3 (6) carrots, cubed.” Do I peel the carrots? I remember peeling many a carrot when I was little, and I don’t recall either of my parents (both of whom, by the way, are wonderful cooks, and neither of whom, I must say, is to blame for my heretofore lack of interest in and experience with cooking) ever fixing anything with carrots without peeling them, so I peeled them.” 3 (6) tomatoes, halved, seeded and chopped.” How and why do I seed a tomato? I got creative and used my apple slicer to slice the tomatoes, then I used a spoon to scoop out the seeds as best I could before I chopped them up. What do I do with the seeds? I love them, so I ate them.
I was putting all of these ingredients in the pot as I did whatever I was supposed to do to them; but, before I knew it, it was time for my guests to arrive, and I hadn’t even gotten all of the ingredients sliced, diced, crushed, ground, chopped…let alone had they cooked for 45 minutes. But it was probably for the best, because I was at a point in the recipe that I really needed help. When they arrived I fixed them drinks (I didn’t have any hors d’oeuvres ready because I had thought I’d be ready to put dinner on the table when they got here), and I asked them some questions. Despite being nearly 10 years older than I am, B said she doesn’t know a whole lot more about cooking than I do. Fortunately, M is a good cook and was able to answer all of my questions. After reassuring me that I had done the right thing with the cloves, she answered my remaining questions in turn: no, the zucchini doesn’t need to be peeled; you slice cabbage like you slice lettuce (which she then had to show me—my lettuce comes ready-to-eat in a bag, pre-shredded and all); and, finally, as I began to panic about the rice, wondering if I was supposed to have cooked it separately and then add it to the pot, she assured me that no, I could just pour it from the box into the soup where it would cook just fine.
By now, they’d been there about a half hour, and B asked if I had any crackers and cheese, which, fortunately, I did and was able to whip out some tasty appetizers. (Lesson learned: always have some appetizers or hors d’oeuvres ready.) The soup was almost ready, so I put the Italian bread in the oven, finished setting the table, and dinner was served. As they took their first bites, they both raved and marveled that this was my first (successful) attempt to cook soup, and they said it was delicious. They said they were genuinely impressed and weren’t just saying that to make me feel good, which I appreciated because I wanted them to be honest since I was going to be serving the same thing to a dozen people the next day, and if it was awful I needed to know.
After the soup cooled, I put it in the refrigerator and realized there was more than enough for a dozen people the next day, and I thought it was a pretty safe bet that everyone would like minestrone (unless anyone was a vegetarian, which we had discussed earlier and couldn’t think of anyone who was), so I decided not to make the tomato soup after all. As it turned out, one person is a vegetarian, but she doesn’t like tomato soup so that wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. What I should have done was fix one batch of the minestrone without prosciutto. Another lesson learned. Fortunately, she had her own soup at home, so she ran home to get it when it came time to heat the soup for lunch. I felt awful, but she was very gracious about it and it worked out fine. Everyone else really seemed to enjoy the soup, and I felt a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in knowing that I can do it, and I’m not completely hopeless!
"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen." - Frank Lloyd Wright
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