Friday, January 8, 2010

Soup Diary 100108

Time to give credit where credit is due. The soup that got me started with all my recent experimentation is the stuff I had on my last visit to Fables before returning to Montana this week: the Roasted Red Pepper Bisque. About a year ago, I was in the library and feeling a little peckish, stopped at the cafe for something to eat. My plan was to just have a bagel and some iced tea, but I saw the bisque on the menu and though that it might make a nice complement to my meal. But really, I had no expectations beyond something warm and creamy. What can I say? It knocked my socks off, and ever since I've become practically obsessed with repeating the experience-- hence the ongoing effort to try varieties of soup outside of the old chicken noodle/cream of broccoli/vegetable standards. The cup of bisque that I had on Wednesday was every bit as good as I remembered it (I don't think I've had it since that first time, due to what I now refer to as the "luck of the ladle" on my subsequent visits). It was rich and peppery garnished with some crumbled feta cheese-- the perfect "last cup" to last me through the next few months before I can get back to my favorite soup place. In fact I had a stark reminder of just how great it was when I stopped for a cup of soup while waiting to change planes in Minneapolis and was limited to the selection at a Quizno's sub shop. I had the Broccoli Chedar soup, and while it was warm and creamy, it offered nothing else to make it stand out, and certainly wasn't memorable enough to make me long for a quick return to that particular restaurant. I guess, like people, it takes all kinds of soup-- after all, would I really appreciate how good the Red Pepper Bisque was if I didn't occasionally stoop to sampling the more pedestrian Broccoli Cheddar?

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