Soups up!

I was making some soup the other day.Ofcourse the way I made it,the only definition soup could have is that it has loads of water in it.Not that it tasted bad.I threw in loads of butter,basil and thyme,so they saved the dish.But I doubt very much if one could find such a recipe in any cook book.I walked into the kitchen with a determined look,put on my apron very meticulously,looked about one last time,took a deep breath and after that point everything was complete mayhem.

This is the way I made my soup.I took a pot(ok...pan if you are so particular about cullinary normenclature) and boiled some water.Then I swung my hands around like a windmill and whatever they touched went into the soup. :-D

Well and why not?I am sure all of you have read that story called "Stone soup".For those of you who spent their childhood bereft of stories like these,here is a quick summary....

This soldier or some hungry bloke walked up to a cottage.He knocked on its door and was greeted by a mean old lady(one didnt know she was mean till the middle of the story but since I took the trouble of reading it,I am informing you right at the beginning,so you don't really have to look at her in a favorable light) .He asked her for some food and she turned him down.So he decided to teach this stingy woman a lesson and told her if she could give him a pot,a stone and some water,he would make some stone soup for himself.As she was very curious she gave him what he asked for.....look basically what happens is,he tricks her into giving him lots of yummy ingredients,one by one and makes a delicious hot soup right in front of her eyes and she never realises he fooled her......phew!!these recaps are tiring!!

Oh and by the way just some random fact :According to Portuguese tradition, the events described in the "stone soup" tale took place around Almeirim, Portugal. To this day, there's hardly a restaurant in Almeirim which doesn't serve stone soup

The point is...I loved that story everytime I read it.It was a mouth watering tale for a perpetually hungry child like me.I imagined the soup with lots of melting butter,fleshy soft mushrooms,scrumptious amounts of colorful vegetables.It always tasted different with every reading.Soups were an adventure for me.There were so many varieties.Some hot,some cold,some clear,some creamy.

I feel when it comes to soups,there are no rules(ofcourse i know someone who believes that this logic applies to life in general.I disagree but thats a topic we'll cover some other day).Its a case of laissez faire.Do what you want.As long as the pot of water is bubbling away anything goes.I used to watch this cookery show called Floyd in France.He would agree through and through with my soup logic.All his dishes were an almalgamation.He threw in loads of vegetables,every kind of meat and buckets of wine.His soup recipes looked ambrosial.Those episodes were my first lessons to some free-spirited cooking.

So it was that my plat du jour was just plain steaming soup yet a unique concoction,a ghoulash.