Thursday, February 06, 2003

I was very proud of

I was very proud of my soup; I’d made it twice before and it had met all requirements.  For the mazoh ball soup at a seder, that’s a lot of requirements.  It had to be light, and flavorful, and rich, and light, and full of vegetables and pepper, but not too spicy, and light, with mazoh balls that didn’t fall apart, but didn’t sink, but kind of floated in the middle of the bowl…

Having met so many disparate sets of needs with my mazoh ball soup twice already, I felt cocky about this batch.  In fact, there’s a photo - blurry, but unmistakeable - of me that day, a lens of my glasses broken in some bygone accident, a look of grim determination on my face, and a big clear plastic bag of chicken feet in my hand, raised up to face level.  It was gonna be some good soup.  The details of the soupmaking itself are a little too personal to share in this venue; suffice to say that by the end of the day before passover I had a big ol’ stockpot full of steaming hot chicken soup, as fine as had ever been made.  I put it in the fridge and went about my business - as if everything was normal.

But something abnormal was happening.  Some of my soup was not cooling in the fridge.  The middle of the big pot stayed warm all night long, lovingly incubating some yeasty spore that had wafted out of fields hundreds of miles away, straight into my kitchen.  Of course, that meant the soup wasn’t kosher for passover anymore, but there was something even worse - the stuff had started to ferment. 

The next morning I took the pot out of the fridge and placed it - the edges cool to the touch - on the stove, started it warming for the feast that night.  I tasted it - rich, light, not bad, a little spicy… they’d have to live with it.  Then after a few minutes of warming I tried it again.  Yes, another winner… seemed a little sour though, maybe vinegary?  I’d have to add some sugar.  The soup came to a slow simmer quickly - faster than I’d expected.  The vapor rising from its surface was tart.  I tried it again.  It was fizzy in my mouth and more sour than rich - barely even food-flavored.  Something had gone awry.  I’d cooked myself 10 gallons of chicken beer, and the beer wanted revenge on the world for the tragic monstrosity of it’s existence. 

It got worse fast.  Soon it smelled like a crime scene.  I had to dump it, hissing and bubbling, down the sink.  The redolent veggies and ground chicken and shredded chicken that could not evade the collander were, in brief, inedible.  I ran out and bought more veggies and some premade stock, clear and golden as mine never truly was, and endowed with a not-unpleasant light richness.  I was able to throw together a new pot of soup while I made the mazoh balls, by focusing my chi and visualizing the many-armed shiva using all the burners and counterspace in our tiny kitchen. 

It all came together.  Though I had only half as much soup, there was still a little left over. No mazoh balls, though - they were history.  I tried to mourn my ruined soup, but no one would hear of it - the soup was delicious, I shouldn’t worry, let’s eat another bowl it’s so good already - and eventually I let it go.  I was there to celebrate the ability to come back from the brink of disaster.  That year, redemption came in a fiestaware bowl.