This Week’s Soup: Classic Chicken Noodle

Tantalizing aromas of rosemary and tarragon, tender morsels of chicken, the comfort of egg noodles, and a rich and flavorful broth. Good for what ails us.

But oh, the idle shit-talking.

It’s so easy to criticize. Today at Soup Group, I once again was the subject of a dozen needless second-guesses.

When I say that the Soup Group made “Classic Chicken Noodle Soup” today, please understand that “Classic” is a marketing gimmick.

After all, “Classic” is a fairly meaningless term when it comes to a dish like chicken soup. Whose “classic”? My “classic”? Yours? My “classic" very easily could be different from your “classic”, if your mama is from Sweden and my mama’s from South Louisiana. Both you and I think our mama’s “classic” chicken noodle soup is delectable. And potentially we’re both right.

Meaningless term.

But the word “Classic" adds a little something, in the eyes of our customers. More than a year ago, we realized that our “Beef and Vegetable Soup” didn’t sell nearly as well as our “Hearty Beef and Vegetable Soup” sold. Our customers appear to be drawn to an embellished title just like they're drawn to our international titles, like “West African Chicken Peanut” and “Moroccan Lamb Harira”. Good sellers all.

Responsive producers that we are, Soup Group has taken to employing descriptive language for promotional purposes. We’re using adjectives to sell soup.

Classic Chicken Noodle Soup. Good enough.

Leave it alone, Soup Group.

But no. They want the word “Classic" to be prescriptive.

Tomatoes? In the “Classic” Chicken Noodle Soup? they scoff.

For my part, I'm not going to get caught up in what "Classic" means, what I mean by Classic, versus what you mean by Classic, or what our customers might think of as Classic. I don't need to get caught up in that. I'm prepared to deliver on a more fundamental level. Our recipe will deliver on what is promised by every concept of “Classic": This chicken noodle soup will feel familiar, it will be delicious, and you will find it deeply satisfying.

Leave it alone, Soup Group.

They don't leave it alone. They make little comments, they express little doubts, and the way they finally make peace with each little criticism is to say to themselves, and each other, “Well, if that’s what the recipe says...”

I’m not above employing it myself. “Well, that’s what the recipe calls for...” I’ll say. Jalapenos? they'll ask. Why jalapenos? “It’s in the recipe,” I’ll murmur. And they are comforted.

It’s entirely true that it’s in the recipe. But what they don’t seem to understand is that I am the one who makes the recipes. It’s part of my set of weekly duties that include recipe selection and conversion and dissemination. In addition, I try to make sure that our recipe is accurate and delicious.

For some reason, when I started doing the recipes for Soup Group, accuracy in recipe conversion was my first goal, and it took some time to achieve it. It took time to get my brain to do math again (fractions!), and it took time to develop sufficient attention to detail, including a triple-check protocol, to ensure that our time in the kitchen wouldn’t turn out drastically screwed up in expensive and embarrassing ways.

Soon enough it became apparent that accuracy alone wasn’t the whole story. Some of our soups turned out better than others, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out which elements made for a tastier final product - browning, for example. Fresh herbs. Homemade stock. But even after I knew better, I’d follow a recipe exactly when I was converting it to bulk.

I’d be thinking to myself, “That would taste better if you browned the onions”, or “Why doesn’t this recipe call for a can of green chiles to add a little character?” At home, I would follow my instincts and cook it differently when I was making food for Handsome or guests. But when I was making recipes for Soup Group, I’d go ahead and copy the recipe’s instructions as they were written.

Our customers weren’t having it. I noticed in pretty short order that it was the recipes I’d had doubts about that resulted in disappointing sales.

Time to start doctoring it up, I decided.

These days, I go through the original recipe and think about cooking it, step by step, and consider what might be missing, what might be overdone. I think about what I’d do at home, and I make adjustments accordingly.

(While I view this approach as an investment in our future success, I'm also trying to spare myself the criticism that invariably comes my way when the soup doesn't turn out well.)

Many of my Soup Group friends still get nervous on the journey. That’s why they take refuge in the idea of a recipe, I guess. And why they can't stop voicing these little criticisms.

I, however, reject the notion that some cookbook is necessarily more valuable than our Soup Group's years of experience cooking our soups, in our kitchen, with our shoppers, and our cooks, and our skillets and pots and spatulas and ladles. At some point, even I have to give myself some credit for our body of work, this hands-on experience. Seems to me that trusting yourself and trusting the food should trump using a recipe as anything more than a guideline. We're making soup, here. There's a lot of room for success.

So leave it alone, Soup Group.

By the way, I was totally vindicated in that today's soup is delightful.

Exposed

Aw, man! Taqueria Patzcuaro was featured in Kyle Wagner’s recent Post article about Denver’s best green chile spots!

They know me there. No, really - they start making my drink when they see me walk in the door. The waiter comes by to say hello and confirm my order. He doesn’t ask me if I want a menu. He knows I don’t want or need a menu. I’ve been ordering the same thing for the last ten years, and he knows it as well as I do.

My drink: the icy-sweet, delightfully fruity cantaloupe liquado

My plate: the smothered bean burrito with cheese, lettuce and tomato

Taq Patz is five minutes away from one of my old jobs, and five minutes away from one of my old residences. I used to go there all the time, for a couple of years. It’s more than 20 minutes away from home now, but I’m still there at least once a month.

I’m, well, I am who I have always been: the girl lunching off-hours alone in the window booth, nose in a book. To me - such a treat! In ten years, only one waiter - and he was a neophyte - has ever asked me, “So what are you reading?” What part of me reading did you not understand? No. The regular waiters are consistently polite and efficient, and bring me a straw without being asked, without ever intruding on my space.

I have so much love for this experience.

Darn you, Kyle Wagner. Your brand of recognition is guaranteed to clog the joint with noisy groups of people who’ll linger over the menu, not knowing what they want. And that will only embolden Taq Patz to raise prices further. When I started going there, the smothered bean burrito was a mind-bogglingly reasonable $1.85. I could manage the burrito, the liquado and a generous, thanks-for-not-bugging-me tip for five bucks.

Aw, man.

I’m only kidding (mostly). I’m glad for them to get the recognition they deserve. Go, Taq Patz!

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for my favorite-most-familiar restaurants in this town, like Taqueria Patzcuaro, to name my signature dish after me. I don’t order the same thing everywhere I go, but at any given restaurant, I’ve worked out the Preferred Daughter special, if you will. And I’m a Denver native. There are restaurants I have been frequenting for more than a decade. It only seems natural that a restauranteur might name said dish after this loyal, enthusiastic patron with excellent taste.

I guess, like with so many things, apparently, first I’ll have to earn a book award.

Cooking Today

It’s embarrassing enough that I watch Cougar Town. It’s appalling that I enjoy it. And I’m going to have to kill myself now that I truly am looking forward to Lisa Kudrow guest starring this week.

That I’m thankful to hulu.com’s advertisers for interrupting After Hours to tell me about it means I’m already dead and paying for my sins in hell.

Currently playing on the screen of my laptop, which is perched on a dedicated kitchen shelf, is After Hours with Daniel Boulud on hulu.com. It’s a tv series that aired on the Mojo network for three seasons, from 2006 to 2008. The premise is that the famous and charismatic French chef, Daniel Boulud, invites other famous chefs to dine decadently with him after-hours at a series of rotating restaurants in NYC, LA, New Orleans and Miami. The guest list, which also includes the random actress, sports figure or author, also changes with each 25-minute show. The show features the prep and the dinner.

I’ve sort of been devouring it.

There’s a moment that has stayed with me from the Season 1 episode at Cru in NYC. It’s not a food-related moment. The invited author Jay McInerney takes heat from the other guests for name-dropping when he’s telling a story and says, “My hostess, the Princess of Malaysia, she only drinks first growth Bordeaux, so automatically there were only eight wines...” blah blah blah

(Yes, incidentally, that’s a direct quote, and the award-winning writer did use the redundant pronoun that always frustrated my mom about my elementary school grammatical habits.)

The rest of the guests hassled McInerney for name-dropping, but I’m completely absorbed with the apparent reality that being an award-winning author gains you entree to dinner with a princess. For real? I was impressed that McInerney had scored an invite to the After Hours table. Princesses? Who knew?

This tells me that I have not been trying nearly hard enough to get my writing published. My only defense is that I didn’t know I was risking dinner with the princess.

On tonight's menu: Smoked Oyster and Bacon Stew. It's a pantry-based recipe, as in, I don't feel like going to the grocery store, what's in the pantry already? We'll see how it goes.

This Year's Gumbo

My family has an annual New Year’s tradition that I love.

Our longstanding custom is for Mom and Dad to host the Colorado relatives (i.e., Dad, his two siblings and their families) on January first for a New Year’s celebration where Mom serves seafood gumbo. There is no separating these elements, and there will be no compromising: It will be January first, Mom and Dad will be hosting, and on the menu will be Mom’s rapturous seafood gumbo. This has being going on for over 35 years, without exception.

It’s who we are. It’s in my blood.

And if you understand that, you might understand that as far as I’m concerned, it’s not really the New Year until all the gumbo is gone.

Mom makes a big pot, cher. Some years, if we haven’t crowded the dinner table with out-of-town relatives, extended in-laws and cherished friends, there is some gumbo leftover at the end of the night. That represents a jackpot for the Denver relatives (i.e., me and Frere) who get sent home with tupperware containers of rice and gumbo, rolls, sometimes salad.

The homemade goodness of the take-home gumbo provides a nice cushion against the last of the celebrating and socializing that will go on before normal routines are resumed. Because Oh my God, am I tired by January second. I love my family and I am so glad to see so many cherished friends during the holiday season. This year was another year of blessed, plus blessed. But it was an advanced-level social schedule, especially for a reclusive curmudgeon like myself, especially when you add in the rich foods, late nights and extra boozing.

On our walk last night, The Handsome Man and I were comparing notes on how raggedy we felt.

“I feel like I have something in my stomach, and it’s hot, and it’s just been sitting there for the last five days.”

“I feel like there’s a film all over my skin, just a thin layer of toxins, like I’m dirty.”

Yeah, once again Handsome and I were under-equipped for the entirely welcome holiday onslaught. Fortunately, we’re through the insanity now, and back on the also entirely welcome solid ground of our normal level (i.e., intermediate level) of socializing. That’s weekend plans for big events, weeknite plans with small groups, easy-peasy professional obligations, you know.

Fittingly, Joe and I are polishing off the last of the gumbo tonight. In honor of the new year, I’ve been reviewing the year that has passed, and giving more thought to the year ahead. And I find I sort of want to do a midnight countdown and sing Auld Lang Syne.

But Who Am I?

Listen, I’m not Byron Lars’ target customer by a long shot. I am aware of that.

Nonetheless, I carrrrrrrrrre. I care about what he's doing in that campaign. I care on two counts:

J’adore le fashion...

...and I have a lot of compassion for my fellow fashion-lovers, in all their diversity. I guess I’ve got sympathy for those who might feel hurt by it. I know how it feels to be in a place that feels delightful/safe/familiar only to get blindsided by a casually-offered blast of ignorance.

Someone else who knows how it feels? Byron Lars, I imagine. He’s African-American. (I only know this by report and phenotype. I haven’t met the man. He hasn’t told me himself how he identifies.) There’s no way he hasn’t felt that slap in the face before.

When that slap happens in a place you love so much, you’re going to turn the other cheek and say, “More, please.”

But that don’t make it right.

I’m coming from love, here.

(For your information, yes, I knew he was African American...At least, I knew before I put that piece on my blog. The difference between the tone of my first draft, before I did further research, and the draft that I published is a story unto itself, really. The fact of the revision. The content of it...)

Torn

I’ve got mixed feelings about Byron Lars' Spring 2010 collection.

I really, really like the designs. By contrast, some of the advertising choices leave me feeling uncomfortable.





See? On the one hand, really quite fly, in terms of the designs themselves. That deconstructed pinstriped jacket with wrap-tie is swoon-worthy. And the embellished, pleated gray mini? With the coordinating blazer, and pink graphic tee? Awesome and adorable at the same time. Byron Lars is outfitting some very specific fantasies of mine with this collection. I even like the model, with her ethnically-blended appearance - that hair, with those eyes.

But what -- and this question stands for always, for every fashion shoot moving forward, okay? -- what is the model doing in a ... what is that even called? That bamboo, rice-paddy hat?

I’ve been to China, and in China, those hats are prevalent and useful. True.

But in the US, I’m pretty sure they’ve been a racist symbol, a symbol of otherness throughout an American history that includes the exploitation of workers on the transcontinental railroad, the abuses of the Japanese-American internment camps, and a long history of proscriptions on Asian immigration.

I know better than the hat.

But given that two well-educated acquaintances recently asked me what I meant by the word “diaspora”, of all things, I was prepared to think maybe Lars doesn’t know better than the hat.

There’s a whole world of words and images associated with any given people and/or their struggles, and outsiders -- no, most of us aren’t always terribly well-educated about these things. That’s unfortunate, and it needs to change, but for the moment, it’s a fact. Meanwhile, one result of this informational disconnect is that lots of people don’t know the full weight of what they’re evoking when they use certain cultural symbols (see: “ironic” blackface, for example). I understand that, and I’m generally inclined to give folks a break.

Plus, I wanted to like the jacket. The jacket is fly. I didn’t want the jacket encumbered with the racial and political shit that is heaped upon it with the addition of the coolie hat. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the fashion.

So I was going to give you the hat, Mr. Lars. I was going to let the hat slide. I had decided to hope the hat was an anomaly.

Then, as I continued browsing the lookbook, I saw the rice paddy hat again, but in conjunction now with 1940s-style pumps and a dangling rope that was evocative at once of both a stripper pole and an emergency airlift.



What are you doing to me, man?



Seriously.

Part of me wants to give Mr. Lars the benefit of the doubt: surely he has some kind of explanation or description or position statement somewhere to accompany this promotional concept (though I didn’t see one). Because he must want us to reflect on something. He can’t think that it’s okay to evoke the history of foreign peoples and their struggles casually and solely for the purpose of hawking his latest fashions.

And don’t tell me it’s “art”. Is it art if you didn’t think about it? Is it art if you don’t know what you’re doing? A toddler unintentionally making swastikas with finger-paints might say, “Look at the pretty designs”, but the rest of us don't have to go along with that. Fashion, or fashion as art, anyway, should aim for better. “Art” without informed consideration, “art” that aims for evocation without signification, isn’t great art.

It might be inflammatory, it might be commercially successful. But, to the critical viewer, it ends up feeling underdeveloped. And tasteless. It also tends to be insensitive.

Which is not to say that the “position statements" that get served up by fashion corporations when they take heat for this kind of ”artistic expression" offer any real satisfaction. Their statements are not reliably intellectual, and they tend not to evince any real political consciousness. Sometimes their statements are as ignorant and misinformed as their imagery.

But I think if designers and/or their advertisers are going to appropriate these symbols, then they have a responsibility to say what they meant by it. A lot of people are going to be offended or confused by this imagery, and if the designer and/or the advertising team doesn’t care, I’d like them to go public with why they don’t care.

I might not like what they have to say, but I’d probably respect them more for saying it.

Meanwhile... *sigh* ...I truly like the jacket, Mr. Lars, and so much else. Good work on that. I’ll be interested to see what comes next.

Happy New Year!

“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” - Dr. Maya Angelou

Here’s to making our best dreams come true in 2010!