Say it’s a cold, bone-shivering night.
Say there’s snow shooting sharp, shooting sideways, shooting into your eyes, and the wind is just howling and twirling into mini-tornadoes, slicing and dicing deep through your coat and into your chest. Your fingers are icicles, your nose a dented, frozen strawberry, and your cheeks look like someone ran them over with a cheese grater a few times.
On nights like this, just face it: you’re an ice-cold mess.
You just need to get home fast and eat some soup.
Yes, you need to stomp your boots, shake the snow off your jacket, let your glasses steam up, and touch-feel your way to the kitchen to heat up a nice hot bowl of steaming, delicious soup. So do it up, heat it up, pour it up, snag those saltines up, and sit right down in front of the TV — flicking it’s flashing lights on in the dark as you curl right up under the blanket with your big bowl of warm love.
And then just slurp away. Yeah, slurp like you mean it. Slurp like there’s no tomorrow. Slurp till you can’t slurp no more. Because we all know that slurping hot soup is one of life’s great pleasures. For a few big reasons:
• Temperature check. That soup’s steaming hot and you’re ice cold. You want the soup to warm you up but now is not the time for First-Degree Tongue Burn, so let those slurps force some cooler air into your mouth to chill the soup out a bit. It’s like cooling beer bottles in the freezer for a few minutes or nuking the cold half of your dinner for ten seconds to heat it back up — just a bit of temperature knob-twiddling to get it jusssssst right.
• Our ancestors did it. What, do you think caveman sipped their soup politely? No, I bet they slurped it straight from the saber-tooth skull and loved doing it. So I say next time your date pops up from inhaling her steak dinner with sauce on her cheek, meat in her teeth, and some mashed potato in her hair, just flash a big thumbs up sign and start slurping your soup. It’s all about embracing our common roots.
• Get closer. To slurp properly, you may need to hunch right on over the soup bowl. Yes, lean those shoulders forward and let that steam fog up your glasses and thaw your face. You are a few inches closer to being at one with the soup. It’s a Zen moment.
So next time you get home from a long and cold winter walk home, just heat up some soup and start laying down some wet and juicy slurps.
Also works with cocoa.
AWESOME!
Last chance till next year to give the Gift of AWESOME this Christmas!
The Book of Awesome is #2 on the bestseller list (right behind Ellen!) and has racked up over 120 weeks since April, 2010. It’s officially the #1 selling non-fiction book in Canada for the past two years and features 150 of the most popular posts from this blog and 50 new entries written just for the book. You can get it for 45% off at Indigo.ca or 32% off at Amazon.com.
The Book of (Even More) Awesome was on the bestseller list for over 20 weeks this year. It’s basically part two of The Book of Awesome and features hundreds more awesome things as well as a space to add your own awesome things at the end. You can get it in hardcover or paperback at 24% off at Indigo.ca or 27% off at Amazon.com.
The Book of (Holiday) Awesome is available in shiny, gold hardcover if you’re looking for a holiday-themed gift. It is a national bestseller and is a smaller book than the other two with more color and photos. Although it’s sold out at Indigo.ca, it’s still available for 32% off on Amazon.com.
Lastly, there is the 2013 Calendar of Awesome and The Journal of Awesome, too.
Thanks as always for your support and have an awesome holiday,
Neil
Ooooh, yes! My sister makes a delicious chicken and vegetable soup. Soooo good! But she’s hasn’t made it in months, what with there being no cold nights at the moment.
…Screw that. I want soup.
My dad makes all kinds of homemade soups, I look forward to it for months and months and now that it’s freezing here I will soon be the delighted recipient of some homemade chicken wild rice soup (my absolute favorite) :)
I’m not much of a soup eater. I prefer to just have hot cocoa on cold winters nights.
That’s good, too. Or Milo! Mmmm…
Ooooh, me, too, I’d love some cocoa with mini marshmallows!
My daughter recently discovered this soup on the Campbell’s soup site. It has got to be THE easiest, best tasting, hardy soup in the world! Even her typical non-soup eater husband is now a soup lover!
Red Lentel Soup
4 cups chicken stock
1 and a half cups Washed, split red lentels
*do not attempt to split at home! Let factory do deed!*
(get festive, use half red, half green:)
1 large white onion, chopped fine
2 cups chopped carrots
You can really get fancifully festive by adding 1 cup of snow peas…get it! Ho,ho,ho,ho!
4 chopped cloves garlic
2 teaspoons Ginger
half teaspoon black pepper
squeeze juice of 2 lemons
grate the peel (zest) of one lemon into soup.
(if you have no fresh lemon just use the real lemon in the bottle…it’s all good:)
Cook at a hard boil for about 20 minutes, stirring regularly so it doesn’t stick to the pot. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve with your choice of naan or roti breads; buns, crackers or nacho chips:)
***
For desert, try hot chocolate mixed with Chai~ My oh my!