Every restaurant I go to I have the same conversation with the waitperson and then with Kim. With very little variation this is how it goes:
Waitperson: Hi, my name is (whatever) and I'll be your server tonight. Yes sir, you have a question?
Me: Yes, I do. What is the soup of the day?
WP: It's broccoli and cheese (or chicken chili or loaded baked potato).
Me: I see. How long have you worked here?
WP: I've been here for two years (or ten years or five months).
Me: And in all that time that you've been working here, has the soup of the day ever been split pea?
WP: (without any hesitation whatsoever) No sir.
Me: I see. Thank you.
(Waitperson departs -- I assume to get our drinks, Kim assumes to tell everybody in the kitchen about the weirdo at table eight.)
Kim: Why do you do that? You know it's never split pea. You're the only person in the world that likes that stuff.
Me: You know I'm not. What about your Uncle Mike?
Kim: Well, I guess they figure selling two bowls of split pea soup is not worth making their other customers sick to their stomachs.
There is a restaurant near us that specializes in soup -- it's called "Ladles." And every day for the last couple of weeks I go to their website to see what is the soup of the day. So far no split peas. Today it's General Tso's Chicken Soup. Isn't that weirder than split peas?
The only good thing about winter is that soup tastes so good when it's cold outside. But it's starting to look like if I'm going to get any of my favorite soup I'm going to have to open my own restaurant to compete with Ladles. I'm going to have to keep my overhead low in case Kim is right and my Uncle-in-law Mike is my only customer.
5 comments:
I'm just going to put this out there- in the cafeteria in the Capitol the soup is split pea for like a week out of the month (or was, I can't swear to it now that I'm bring my own food). And I liked it a lot.
Two customers! Harris-Teeter has something called US Senate Bean Soup -- but I think that's made with navy beans not peas. Have you tried that too?
Actually, I haven't encountered it in the Congressional cafeterias. Although I do frequent the House side, so maybe we don't get the same soup as the Senate side. Their side is much fancier.
I like split pea soup and would highly recommend the following:
Cook bacon (as much as your pan will hold), slice up onions and saute until soft (I did it in bacon grease-follow your heart) cook green peas til soft. Put the whole thing in the blender and then return to heat, smooth, smoky and delicous.
Thanks, anonymous, I will definitely give that a try. I like any recipe that starts with "Cook as much bacon as your pan will hold."
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