Always with the soup!

There is something I will never let go of as long as I live. And that is my love of KillerSoup. When filling out social networking profiles or doing interviews for rock and roll stuff, the question is almost always asked about my favorite food. I think pizza is usually everyone else’s choice, that or sushi if they are female and a fan of Sex in the City. (I would venture to say that Sex in the City single handedly made sushi the most talked about food stuffs for 20 and 30-something females who get together in groups of 2 or larger. If they are not meeting for sushi later that afternoon, they are almost certainly feeling bloated from eating too much of it the night before but can’t wait until Thursday after Grey’s Anatomy to do it again).

ANYWAY, my favorite food is KillerSoup. KillerSoup is an Americanized and/or Bastardized version of the Mexican soup called Cauldo. (If you were talking to my mother, she would embrace the more negative connotation as she feels my dad ruined her mothers version sometime in the mid 1980’s). It was aptly named “KillerSoup” by accident. As I’ve said before my mother is extremely religious and does not allow works of the devil in her household. This means that my dad drinks and smokes in the garage and we all try our hardest to not swear around her (which keeps getting harder and harder the older I get).

Growing up my mom worked a normal 9 to 5 work day, but my dad worked second shift so he would leave for work at 3pm. That means that I would have the house to myself for a few hours after school pretty much throughout my school years. This worked out great for playing the drums every day after school without bothering anyone. And in high school this also worked out fantastically for my dope smoking friends that were hungry and didn’t want to show up at their own homes with bloodshot eyes until their bellies were full. My dad was a cook in the army, so he was always both: cooking, and cooking too much food for a small family like mine. So no one seemed to care (or know) that my high-as-all-hell friends would come over every day and munch on whatever my dad had cooked before leaving for work. He made this soup in a gigantic pot. I mean HUGE, you could stir it with an ore… it took up 2 burners on the stove… it was so big it pretty much meant that you’d have left over’s for a good 4 to 5 days. The day my dads soup became KillerSoup is still vivid to me. It was a rather warm Saturday afternoon in the spring and all the windows and doors were open blowing in some much needed fresh air after the long winter’s death-lock grip on our western Michigan community. My mother was in the living room watching her usual scam artist religious guy in a fancy pastel suit, bilk the elderly and weak minded out of their hard earned money. I was warming up some left over soup when my friends Jeff and Drew pulled up in Jeff’s black Grand Am (with sweet tinted windows no less). I could hear the Bulletboys playing Smooth Up in the tape deck before I heard the engine of his car outside the slider door.

Drew and Jeff came in smiling from ear to ear, no doubt high as hell and probably still laughing about something infinitely funny to only someone who is: 16, high, and male. They both sat down at the table and I added some more soup to my smaller pot which was nearing its eating temperature without even asking if they wanted any. Once the 3 of us had our bowls and began eating Jeff and I both began to watch Drew shovel the soup into his mouth with extreme prejudice. He was attacking the soup… he was owning the soup… he was devouring it’s essence for all he had and his long, stringy, bleach-blonde bangs were dipping into the broth without him even batting a bloodshot eye about it…

Jeff and I began to laugh at the sight of this kid going balls-out on the soup when Drew noticed we were making fun of him… He looked up from the hunched over the bowl position and uttered some words to us as some of the soup began to spill out of his mouth and back into the bowl: “This is some Killer fuking soup!” Needless to say .235 seconds after that my mother flipped out at this blasphemous speak in her godly household and we were all sent out of the house to finish our soup on the deck and contemplate our misdeeds in the eyes of god. Since that day there isn’t anyone that knows me that doesn’t call that soup KillerSoup. It just IS KillerSoup now.

Here is my KillerSoup recipe incase anyone wants to try and make it. Good luck:

KillerSoup, by Jay

This is a magical soup passed down from my grandmother to my father. Legend has it the Spanish Conquistadors would eat this soup before going out and Conquistadoring around… and during the infamous Spanish Inquisition they would lower you into a vat of boiling KillerSoup to see if you were a Christian… if you liked the soup your life was spared as long as you agreed that Intelligent Design is not a Science and shouldn’t be taught in our high schools… (I couldn’t agree more)… KillerSoup is great for a hang over and for a cold fall day. It is best in the winter though, when you can make a huge pot and eat it for days with out having to go out side and it warms your entire apartment while cooking, but you can still enjoy KillerSoup in the summer just remove your clothing down to your underwear before eating, that’s what I do, you’ll be fine.

Okay so measuring cups are for sissy’s so depending on the size of your pot… (I use one of those large soup pots you can get at Target or whatever.

Ingredients:
Stew meat. (Usually 2 packs of the 2.oo size at the market)
5 potatoes (Idaho makes the best ones I think)
Veggies (depending on what ones you like, must use Celery for the flavor though).
chopped 4 Celery, 4 big carrots, 10 mushrooms, 1 ripe tomato, 2-3 corn on the cobs (or can of white/yellow corn in the winter when cobs are hard to find).
1 big can of White Homney. Goya brand in the Mexican food section. They look like white Corn-nut shaped balls.
1 small cabbage. Either those little wrinkled Boston Cabbages or just use half of a reg. big cabbage.
4-5 beef bouillon cubes.
liberal amounts of the following spices: Italian dressing, A1 steak sauce, salt, pepper, cumin, lemon pepper, season salt, oregano, parsley, red pepper, save some of the top of the celery, the leafy part and chop it up) bay leaf.
Lime
Corn tortillas
Can of tomato sauce

Process:
put meat into some chopped onion and Worcestershire or a few hours or the night before your going to make the soup. (if you have the time).
fill pot half way with water and start that sucker boiling on high
you have some time to kill now so chop up everything EXCEPT the potatoes (they will oxidize and turn brown like a bit apple super fast).
when water is roiling add the meat and some of the juice along with the chopped up large tomato and bay leaf. Let boil for at LEAST 2.5 hours (the longer you boil the meat the softer it will be when you eat it). ck back a lot and keep adding water because it will evaporate away. After few hours the meat should be able to fall apart with little effort while slicing thru it with a fork. Add some more water so the pot is again little over half full
add 4 or so bouillon cubes. All the spices can of tomato sauce, three or so big squeezes of the Italian dressing, splash of A1, chopped celery leaves. The sauce should now look red… you can drop a splash of V8 juice in there as well if your feeling funky like that… let boil for a good 15 min…
when the soup looks good and mixed up (the tomato should be all shredded up and broken down by now). add all the veggies starting with the now pealed potatoes. This will fill a LARGE portion of the pot so good thing you didn’t put to much water in or you’d be overflowing soup all over your stove right now…
lower the heat off of high but still with some power and let that sucker boil. The cabbage and mushrooms should be floating on the top…

Option: Add a small hand full of white rice. (it will sink and you’ll never see it again!).

Essentially the soup is done when the potatoes are done… you have to keep checking it (DO NOT STIR IT A LOT or YOU’LL MAKE IT INTO MUSH). When the potatoes are firm but split in half easy its done… don’t over cook because when you turn it off its still hot as hell and will continue to “cook” for an hour or so. You’ll prolly screw this up a few times, so you’ll have flaky broken potato pieces in your soup but its still good and don’t be discouraged… Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Warm up a corn tortilla and chop the lime up. Serve in a big bowl with those lime as garish. Sprinkle a touch of parsley or your favorite spice on top, roll the corn tortilla and dip it in the juice… yum.

Sing this song after your done eating:

“Thank you KillerSoup… thank you…
For being so good to my face and belly…
Thank you KillerSoup… we will always love you
Until the day that we are dead and can’t eat soup anymore…
Harp solo
We are looking into a way to embalm our bodies with KillerSoup though…
Thank youuuuu.”

Then take a nap, store soup in Tupperware in frig, and make sure you eat It all with in about 4-5 days… Taking bowls to work to share with co-workers is a good way to make friends and get people to come to your rockbands shows, just tell um the story about it proper…

(Respect Knuckles… out)