Get-well-quickly tomato soup

I left work early the other day, which is something I never do. But after several colleagues came up to me and said, “Why are you so flushed?” and then, a few minutes later, “Why are you so pale?” I realized something wasn’t right. Not to mention, I was wearing my wooly hat with earflaps in the office. My boss said, “Why are you wearing your hat?” I didn’t have a good answer—it just felt cozy on my cold head. So I decided that the magazine could live without me (a tough and rare choice for me to make).

On the way home, I stopped into Whole Foods to pick up some soup. Growing up, my two favorite “I don’t feel well” soups were the canned variety: Campbell’s Chicken Noodle and Campbell’s Tomato, both best served with so many saltines crunched in the bowl that it turned into a sort of cracker-and-soup paste. Whole Foods doesn’t sell Campbell’s, and I don’t know if I’d eat the stuff anyway—too much MSG and other weird ingredients. So while perusing the soups, I realized that I craved a creamy, tomato bisque, loaded with garlic. This was not on offer, so I decided I’d have to make it myself.

Now you may be saying, “She’s sick, why would she make herself soup?” And to this I reply, because when I have an idea in my head of what I want, I know that nothing will stop me from getting it, not even a burgeoning illness. I remembered I already had all the ingredients for the soup I imagined, so I grabbed a loaf of sourdough bread and walked the short block home.
Read more »