Soup Diary 090717

At Fables today I was confronted with too many options, and ended up sampling two different cups of soup instead of the usual single bowl. First up, the Lasagna Soup. This was pretty much what you would expect-- ground beef chunks, diced tomatoes, pasta (shells in the case of my serving), with basil and other spices. The saving element though was the onion, which was the prevailing flavor. I'm convinced that just the right amount of onion can rescue just about any dish, and that was the case here. Without it, this would've been very bland; with it, it was a satisfying, if unspectacular cup of soup.

I also tried a cup of the Tomato Gorgonzola, which was a definite improvement. Much like the Spinach Gorgonzola I had a few weeks ago, the cheese made a very definite impression, helping to maintain the tang while cutting the acidity of a more traditional Tomato soup. In hindsight, I wish I had committed to the bowl of this treat, and skipped the more exotic sounding, but mostly pretty ordinary, Lasagna soup.

Other soup notes: Having been on the road for the last couple of days, I ate all my meals at restaurants, and generally started with a cup of soup. Unfortunately, none of the places we stopped at (we looked for local places, as opposed to chains, and looked for lots of cars out front as the signal of quality) had anything on the menu beyond the staples. So, I had a decent bowl of chili in Cooperstown (identified as "award-winning" on the menu, but don't they all say that?), a bit on the sweet side where I like it more peppery; a bowl of French Onion on the road from Cooperstown to Albany, which was noteworthy for using what seemed to be chunks of rye bread to hold up the cheese melted over the bowl (not an improvement on the typical french bread, but kind of interesting); and, the highlight, a bowl of Vegetable Beef in Wampsville, which came with beef and veggies piled high enough to form a dome over the cup-- the chunks of beef were big and tender, and there were lots of onions (see above) and peas, which I like in soup, so I was quite pleased (if only the rest of the dinner had been as good, sigh).