SOUPS
Everyday for the openning month of 3WAY CAFÉ I made three soups a day – we were trying to run with the concept of “3” as much as we could to detract from the sexual undertones that the name implied. We did, however, open in May, not the most conducive month, or time of year to move a lot of soup. The first week I even ran two cold soups: Canteloupe Bisque with Mint, and Hawaiian Black Sea Salt, then also a Guajillo Pepper Gazpacho – I sold a cup or two of each over the course of a sixty person lunch. After that first month we cut it down to a “Soup of the Day”, atleast for the blazing hot summer months, and on average still on served a couple cups a day – there would be days when I literally wouldn’t sell any. Talk about frustrating.
Fortunately we have some good regulars, and everyone seemed to be responding well to the new sandwich bistro downtown. A local artist in the nearby arcade comes by atleast twice a week and gets a cup of soup and enjoys lunch by herself, reading the newspaper while Frank Sinatra whistles over head. My face brightens when an order for soup comes in, I look at Ron and blurt, “Hell ya!”, and once my excitement is over, I always do my best to see how the customer liked it. Almost daily, somewhere around halfway through lunch the batch of soup is almost always half gone. My business partner Daryl, and his girlfriend Kat are two of the biggest soup fanatics I know…… Ironically, I don’t really even like soup. Sure, I like them as much as the next guy, but I enjoy making soups because I enjoy layering and building flavors, and seeing ingredients come together into something special. Like every other aspect of cooking the art of saucier is merely understanding and recognizing your ingredients, how they work with each other, how the flavor profile changes upon cooking it, and determining the right amount in relation to every other ingredient you have.
Anyway, Daryl and Kat give my soups unwavering praise, and I always have them try a couple spoonfuls before we open to ensure that it’s to their liking. Our cook Ron and our delivery driver Barrett have joined their team in an assault to put a hit on my soup. Just last week the four combined ate nearly all of my soup before 1 PM – it was a Roasted Tomato Bisque that we were running as a special with a “souped-up” grilled Cheese – we sold a near record 5 cups of soup, which sounds silly, though three of these came after the lunch rush – we only had two cups left to sell. I literally, in 5 minutes scrambled to stretch the two cups with some cream, a little chicken stock and some corn starch. I made Barrett puree some roasted tomatoes for me, and by the time I was done making the soup nearly every four-letter word escaped my mumbling breathe, and Ron who was putting the final touches on a few salads for a to-go order could barely keep from breaking into an enormous laugh. Daryl, the biggest soup culprit of them all was reclusive in the back office knowing my head was about to explode. All I kept murmuring was, “can’t y’all just wait until “expletive” lunch is over and then you can have all the “expletive” soup you want!” I ironically was frustrated at the fact that we actually sold soup! HA! In those first couple of months, it couldn’t have been more frustrating to see batch after batch of soup go to waste, not to mention the countless man hours it took to create these soups, though it did however give me a chance to refine my recipes, and thankfully Kat kept track of how many different soups were made in those first months, and the number is somewhere in the thirties. Many of those recipes are in the pages to follow – some are cold, most are hot. Most aren’t very difficult to master and they are pretty tasty. Well, that is atleast what Daryl tells me – that way he can eat all of my soup, butter me up, and I can’t get mad when we run out. So, that afternoon, Daryl finally came out of hiding as Ron and I were cleaning up the kitchen. We were joking about my rare explosion over the soup incident. I looked at Daryl, Daryl looked at me then he made eye contact with Ron. Ron turned away, cracking the slightest of smiles, “Damn, Daryl, so nice of you to come on back now…Now that he’s done screamin and cursin….” Daryl, started, “Chris makes great soups, Ron – you don’t think this episode is going to stop us do you? Hell, he just better start making bigger batches….
