Brad's Supper-time Woes

"What do you think," Brad asked carefully as September approached, "if we made soup every Sunday so we'd have a back-up meal for the week days that we're busy?" I glared at him. "What are you implying," I snarled. "Are you trying to tell me, after ten years, that cereal is no longer good enough for you?" After he spent an apologetic ten minutes professing his love for sugar-coated cereals, my poor husband tried again. "You make the best chili ever," he started before I interrupted him. "Don't set up false expectations for me," I shouted. "I'm not," he insisted, "but your potato soup in unparalleled." I groaned as he rattled off a list of five soup-like meals to put in a Sunday rotation. This was a nightmare.

But I rose to the challenge. Unfortunately, Brad "Don't-Fix-What-ISN'T-Broken" Mosiman was about to re-encounter his wife, "Hey...Let's-Try-THIS!" Enter: One-pot chicken-and-dumplings:  Fail. So Brad "Let's-Not-Re-Invent-The-Wheel" Mosiman wrote down and posted his Top 5 Soup Picks. So Amy "Back-To-The-Drawing-Board" Mosiman got out her potato soup recipe and yawned.

"What'ya making," Brad asked in cautious excitement as he saw potato-soup-like ingredients strewn about our small kitchen. He peered into the pot. "Is it always this color when you're making it?" he asked with the air of a man who once out-raced piranhas while crossing a shallow river in Panama. "Yes," I snapped, a woman who is energized daily by the tears of 9-year-old children. He wandered over to the recipe book. "Which one do you use," he inquired. "What...are you going to shine a flashlight in my eyes and drip water on my forehead next?" I countered evasively, "I use a combination of three recipes." He scowled as I dumped half a bag of shredded carrots in the steaming pot and tossed a large handful of some sort of green seasoning in after. "What was that," Brad asked in concern. I shrugged. "I don't know...oregano?"

My ghost-white soup turned out a little thicker than usual. "A little thicker?"  Brad said in disbelief before hollering out to his daughter in the other room, "Sydney! Want a slice of soup?" Cereal's looking pretty good after all...isn't it, Brad Mosiman?