No Soup for You!

You know. I think one of the reasons I don't like cooking is that I'm so lazy. Okay, yeah. Duh, you say. But it is actually more complicated than that. Not only am I bone idle, but I have an almost unerring instinct for picking out recipes that call for faaaaarrr more effort than I'd ever willingly put in. In my food world there are two kinds of recipes: 1) pull tab, microwave, stir; and 2) full-on foodapalooza. No middle ground.

You know how some women can go into a store looking for a purse, and they have some kind of radar that makes them grab the most expensive purse on the rack? Over and over again. Me, I can thumb through a cookbook, and every recipe that sounds remotely appealing will have 42 steps, 94 ingredients and include either braising, basting, simmering for long periods of time or some sort of ninja knife skills that I do not possess.

Or they'll just be plain old grunt work. One of my favorite things in the world is gazpacho. But I don't order it in a restaurant, because they always do the traditional style with bread crumbs mixed in. Bread crumbs in cold tomato soup? Nuh-uh. Me no like. I like my bread in tasty-toastey bits on the side, so that they can be dropped in a few at a time and not get soggy. So, if I want gazpacho, I either have to make it myself, a long and arduous process, or beg my mother to make it, also a long and arduous process.

And it's not that it's overly complicated. Any doofus can make it. It's just that you have to chop a phenomenal amount of veggies to make enough for guests. And damn it, if I'm going to make gazpacho, I want an audience. A freaking appreciative audience. Plus, you don't just chop the tomatoes. You have to do a concasse. Which, quite frankly, is a bitch. If I ever went to culinary school, concasse day would be the day I'd say "hellz no" and walk out. Anyway, you core, peel, seed (reserving the tomato goo), then chop, with your hands all messy, then put the tomato goo through a strainer to get the last of the tomatoey goodness. But wait! That's not all! It's chop, chop, chop your way through green peppers, onions, jalepeno, cucumber and garlic. Yee-ikes. Very labor intensive. But, admittedly, soooo worth it.

But most of the time, when it comes to a choice between the 4-hour cooking marathon, and ripping open a bag of chocolate donettes? Yeah, you know which one I pick.