Soup's On!

I was just tagged by the Lady Miss Cheryl, challenging me to keep the following meme alive. And fearing that some horrible fate will greet me if I don't comply, not to mention being constantly challenged to find something ... anything ... amusing to blog about (lest the natives get restless, and trust me I never hear the end of it when they do), I'm game.

So here goes:

· Find the nearest book
· Name the book
· The author
· Turn to page 123
· Go to the fifth sentence on the page
· Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
· Tag three more folks.

Nearest Book: The Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary Edition (4500 recipes for the way we cook now).

I really don't know why this is sitting on my coffee table right now. I bought it at Costco after seeing an article in the New York Times, which talked about:

The Authors: Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker

Irma was the orginal author back in the '30s, who threw herself into chronicling her recipes as a way to distract herself from her husband's suicide. So I'm thinking the original version may have been titled The Joy of Cooking Sure Beats the Shithole That's the Rest of My Life. Or something like that. My hope is that Mr. Rombauer didn't kill himself out of financial concerns, because after Joy's publication, ol' Irma got richity, rich, rich. Plenty of joy to go 'round.

Marion was Irma's daughter. She's dead. Ethan is Marion's son. And heir to the throne. Somewhere along the publishing line, they got in bed with Scribner, who now mostly controls the rights and has been known to bring in a food editor to reimagine the whole thing for a new edition. As happens with most children who see the change of something their family was a part of as a change to the actual family ... instead of, say, just an update of a cookbook ... Ethan has been pretty pissy about each version since his mother and grandmother were no longer deeply involved.

To which I say, Ethan, honey ... seriously. There are only so many uses for cream of mushroom soup that the market needs these days. And we have these amazing things called microwaves and food processors. Not to mention frozen puff pastry. Let's not keep looking back, okay? Also not to mention that grandma is dust. Worm food. Pushing up daisies. She doesn't give a damn, and you look like an idiot. Go count your fortune and shut it.

Turn to page 123, go to the fifth sentence on the page and copy out the next three sentences:

No matter what the soup, a small quantity of salt pork, a ham hock or a few slices of bacon will add flavor and depth. As for stocks, there are three simple methods for removing fat from soup. If you chill the soup, the fat will solidify and it is then easy to spoon it off; or float a paper towel on the surface of warm soup, and when it has absorved as much fast as it will hold, discard.

A good friend, Michael Hambone, once told me that there's no food that can't be improved by the addition of gravy, cheese, bacon or frosting. It's got to be heartening for him to be validated by this venerable tome.

And this defatting thing is a pickle, let me tell ya. The chilling trick really works the best. But whoever cooks with enough time to chill his or her stock probably also completes his or her Christmas shopping by July in order to fully "enjoy the holiday season." These people can't be trusted and must be destroyed.

I'm also pretty sure they're the same people who devised the urban legend that floating a paper towel on top of a hot liquid would result in defatting it ... instead of the real-life version where you frantically plunge your hands into scalding liquids in a futile attempt to retrieve a paper towel as it sinks like the titanic to the bottom of your soup pot.

"Is that rice?" they'll ask you as they pick soggy white bits from their molars. "No," you'll say with a smile. "Bounty."

I'm a tagging:

The professional ex-wife.
The Christmas Queen.
The Little Dutch Boy.