Picky Eater

A picky eater will buy a box of Fiddle Faddle and eat only the Faddle, leaving the Fiddle. A child doesn’t eat the lion from a box of animal crackers because they don’t like lions. You eat linguine and clam sauce and pick out the clams. You’re mystified by the person who orders onion soup without the onions. Is it called onion soup if it has no onions?

January is national soup month. I love soup. I love that a hearty soup (like chicken soup) is a whole meal in itself. I love that the one pot makes for easy cleanup. And who doesn’t love easy cleanup? My husband also loves chicken soup. I found it odd that until he met me he never had chicken soup with chicken in it, seemed odd since the main ingredient is chicken. If there’s no chicken then all you have is noodle soup. It’s not the same. Talk about false advertising.

Even though my husband and I agree on the fact chicken soup is better with chicken, we disagree on two things: the proper soup temperature. I like my soup piping hot even if a few taste buds on burned while slurping my soup. My husband likes soup and everything he eats at room temperature. My husband’s a busy man without time to spare blowing on his food. Why, he doesn’t even have to time cut his food. Give him a steak and forget the knife – he wants his food and he wants it fast. No time to cut and blow.

The second thing we disagree on is when to eat soup. I’ll eat soup year round since I love it. My husband says he can’t eat soup in the summer since it’s hot (outside.) Since he drinks cold beverages when it’s cold out, his reasoning is illogical to me. And since he eats his soup at room temperature, what difference does it make? I would think none.

When I was young I used to eat Lipton Cup-a-Soup. For a kid with absolutely no culinary skills whatsoever this was the perfect invention. No adult supervision required. No chopping onion or carrot necessary. No hacking up a chicken. All I did was boil water and WaLa I had instant gourmet soup in a cup. Even though I never saw any chicken I was convinced it was there. It had to be – the advertisers told me so.  

Hey, now that I think of it – maybe that’s the only chicken soup my husband ate before he met me. It would make sense. He’s never been a picky eater.