Sauce, good. Soup, bad.

What's better on a cold day (or on a spring-like day in December) than a good cup or bowl of soup? I would argue that there is nothing better. I like most soups, chicken noodle, tomato, chowders, stews, creamy, not so creamy, I'll go for most anything. You can even have cold soups in the summer, melon soup, gazpacho, etc.. It's also a secret way to get in more liquids if you're sick of trying to drink your 8 glasses of water a day for "feeling good, clear skin" and all the other BS. Love 'em all.

Jeff does not agree with this sentiment. After years and years of trying, I had given up on Jeff ever liking soup. I've tried all sorts of different recipes, always thinking that they just weren't tasty or spicy or chunky enough. But I had officially given up. I was done with the soups. I would still make them, but I wouldn't even attempt to serve them to Jeff. (I imagined that if I did put a bowl of soup in front of him, he would react much like Randy in "A Christmas Story" -- and it's just not funny to plan the "little piggy" game with a grown man)

About two months ago we were having a dinner guest over but it was a "school night" and I wouldn't have had enough time to cook dinner after getting home from work. So the only thing that I could think of to make was a stew, because supposedly those "get better if they sit overnight" and so I could make it Sunday night for Monday night dinner. I don't know if it's true, but it would certainly be easy. I didn't care at that point whether or not Jeff would eat it (it was his co-worker, so he could suffer for the cause). I figured he could pick the beef and potatoes out and eat them.

But, to my great surprise, he dug right in to the stew, broth and all. When questioned on this point, he said "this is not soup, this is stew." I understand that things are a bit chunkier in stews, but come on, same thing. So fine, stew was back on Jeff's list of "yes, I'll eat it."

So then, shortly before Thanksgiving I wanted to make my own mini-Thanksgiving dinner. I made a butternut squash soup because it just sounded so darn good and would go great with turkey and all the fixin's. I filled my bowl up to the top and brought Jeff out a salad. He sort of looked longingly at my bowl, as though he was missing out. Everyone knew he would not like it, but I put some in a small little bowl and watched him cringe a bit as he ate it (not because it wasn't good, it was delicious, I would argue one of the best soups I had ever made). He set it aside and filled his plate up with turkey, potatoes and all the good stuff.

I continued enjoying my soup and looked up just in time to see him dumping his entire bowl of soup all over the food on his plate. Classic.

I wasn't exactly sure how to react, but I think my puzzled, smiling, furrowing brow face said it all. To which he replied "soup...bad, but it's great as a sauce." What?! How can it be good on the top of mashed potatoes but not good with a few croutons floating in it? Curried butternut squash soup on top of green bean casserole? But not good on it's own?!

So I told this story to a friend of mine, we agreed that this was crazy and chuckled about it for awhile. She had us over for dinner a few weeks after later and she made us grilled cheese and tomato "sauce."

As long as we referred to it as tomato sauce throughout the dinner, Jeff would eat it. Someone please tell me how funny that is. He doesn't really have an explanation either, except the non-descript "It's a texture thing." Except that the texture doesn't change if you pour it over your turkey or dip your sandwich in it.

Anyways, I've learned to live within Jeff's definition of soup, I'm sorry, I mean sauce. In fact this morning I mentioned that I had asked my mom to send me the recipe for shrimp soup. To which he replied "it's a double whammy" (because he obviously doesn't like soup and he doesn't like shrimp). I quickly backtracked and said that I didn't need to put the shrimp in and that it was actually a chowder. He was relieved and it was then an acceptable menu item for Christmas Eve.

Semantics. It's not a texture thing, it's a semantics thing. I will now refer to anything he doesn't like as something else. You don't like shrimp, well, actually it's salmon that's rolled up to look like a shrimp. No, it's not broccoli, it's actually lettuce bunched up really tightly.

Here's where I want to put my mom's shrimp soup/non-shrimp chowder recipe (a classic in our household), but she hasn't sent it yet. MOM, I'm waiting!!