Anyone who knows me even remotely well (this literally includes everyone from potential best-man candidates to guys I worked with installing air conditioning units for a summer nearly 10 years ago), knows how much I love soup.
I’ll eat it for any meal (yes, that includes that rapscallion Break Fast) at any time of year. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as “soup season”–if you’re not sweating into your pot a little bit, I don’t think you’re doing your job, frankly.
So, with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I almost always ask my waiter/waitress what the soup special is when I’m eating out. Unless you’re at a diner in New Jersey (where the specials are ALWAYS the same… yes, I’ll have the Chicken with insert small pasta shape here), you never quite know what you’re going to get.
Typically, it’s some cream of who-gives-a-fuck type thing like celery or mushroom. But, every so often you hit the jackpot.
“Clam chowder,” the server answers me.
Bracing myself for disappointment, despite living less than a mile from New York City, I ask the unthinkable. “New England or Manhattan?” I know what she’s going to say and I know I’m not going to be happy about it.
“Manhattan,” she replies, calmly unaware she’s made my whole day and possibly my week.
I try to keep it cool, knowing I’m one of no more than seven people on Earth that’s thrilled by this news.
“Uh… I”ll have a… bowl, please.”
And the day is mine.
The Polar Opposite of this Feeling?: Besides the obvious (finding out it’s New England), there’s so many ways to go here, but chief of which is the soup of the day being French Onion. Why does anyone like this soup? And why is that your du jour? Come on.
scott spinelli 