Why do I keep making stuff that looks kinda bland but tastes so good? Also apologies for this picture being sideways.
The
prompt: Make a dinner based
on a stranger’s favorite holiday special. A friend of a friend provided me with
“Frosty the Snowman” (1969), which made for a unique challenge.
The
thought process: I had some troubles
with this one. I watched through the special last night looking for something—anything—to
base a dinner off of, and I came up with near nothing. Another kind of meal
would have been easy: breakfast? An egg-based dish based on that persistent
magician’s “messy, messy, messy” hat. Dessert? Frosty and Karen ride in an
entire boxcar filled with “ice cream and Christmas cakes” (this is a direct
quote, I swear). But dinner? The closest I got was something based on carrots,
grasping at straws from when the magician tells his rabbit “no carrots for
Christmas” (again, direct quote).
After talking to some people about this
frustration, I decided to try a different approach. Inspired by three different
but similar suggestions, I decided to go down a route based on temperature.
Temperature plays a pretty prominent role in the special—the entire plot is set
in motion because Frosty needs to get away from heat, Karen has to deal with
the frigid nature of a refrigerated boxcar, and a snowman gets locked in a
greenhouse.
Going with this theme of contrasting
temperatures, I went with one friend’s idea of a chilled soup. I always think
warm when I think of soup, so chilling it is definitely a pretty
counterintuitive measure. I thought it would be fitting, given the theme of
temperature, to go with some sort of flavor that also gave a temperate
impression. Tropical always makes me think warm, and a stroke of good fortune
got me a recipe surprisingly quickly for chilled tropical soup.
Self-reflection:
I should really figure out how to use a
can opener. I had a small amount of time to put this together if I wanted to
refrigerate it for as long as the recipe said and still have time to reflect on
the taste. And probably half that time was used struggling with opening the can
of pineapple juice to a point where I could actually pour it in a fairly clean
manner. Being rushed and struggling with a can opener is not a great
combination.
I got to use the blender again! It’s
been working pretty consistently and it’s a very convenient tool to have. It
kind of felt like making a smoothie. Additionally, I had no idea that nectar
was a thing that was sold separately. Do people just go around… drinking… like,
pear nectar or something?
Regardless of nectary surprises, this
soup tastes absolutely delicious. It definitely could use something crunchy to
go along with it, and the comment from my sister that it “tastes like a dessert
soup” was not entirely reassuring that I met the initial goal of the prompt,
but it’s close enough to fitting that its taste makes up for anything that the
soup is lacking.
Quote
to sum up the cooking process: “It's
got to be all warm and snug inside for those Christmas flowers to grow so
beautiful. Let's go in.”
Recipe
credit: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chilled-tropical-soup
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