Holy Squash: Rise of the Soup Surgeon

This is kind of a big week for Soup Club, people. We already had our official meeting on Monday where Adam formally initiated himself into the cult by making his very first soup. Great day, great soup, and honestly a great rookie blog. From the way he told it, I am not even convinced he knew how to open a Progresso pull top can before Christmas. Then, Santa drops off an immersion blender and suddenly we have a soup maker. Character development at its finest.

Fast forward to today and we have a bonus, unofficial, just-for-fun soup situation. Salmon Surgeon Jenn decided she was ready to upgrade her title to Soup Surgeon Jenn with her APR office debut called “Holy Squash… It’s Thai’d Up.” Full disclosure, this was not an official Soup Club day. No pressure. No rules. No legal oversight. Well…maybe a little pressure?

Jenn has been involved in assembling several soups with me already, and she’s no stranger to kitchens, grocery stores, or sharp objects. This particular soup started because I had a leftover bag of ancient grains hanging around from the WFPB Butternut Bulgur Chili. Those grains were originally supposed to replace the bulgur, but of course we found bulgur at the last second. That left us with extra grains and zero plan. On top of that, I had acorn squash, butternut squash, and spaghetti squash sitting on my counter because they were on sale and I have zero self-control. So I basically told Jenn, “Here is a pile of squash and grains. Please turn this into soup.”

At the grocery store, she came armed with a plan on her phone. There was Googling. There was confidence. Suddenly we had a list. Before I knew it, the cart was completely full of WFPB ingredients, which made me very happy. This also worked out perfectly because my brain was still stuck on an awesome fishing show experience and I definitely needed another two to three hours to blog about that. Jenn chopped and assembled what can only be described as a masterpiece.

Then came the spaghetti squash question. A normal person would have just tossed it into the pot and blended it with everything else. Not Jenn. She roasted it, spread it thin on a cookie sheet, and air fried it into crispy strands to be used as a topper. A topper. Genius!

Initial tasting had Jenn at a confident 9.5. I came in at a 9.0 and bumped it to a 9.2 with hot sauce because of course I did. Now the real question. What would the Soup Club think? What would the Campbell’s Crew say? Would this thing fly or crash?

Soup Club scores rolled in:

• Adam said it was not necessarily his favorite but gave props for consistency and viscosity, which is a sentence I never thought I would hear about soup. He felt it tasted great and gave it a 7.5.

• Kevin went full science experiment. Without spaghetti squash it was a 7.2. With spaghetti squash it jumped to an 8.5. With hot sauce it landed at a 9.0. This is why we can not have simple scoring systems.

• Conlan gave it a 7.5. He said it had a nice veggie flavor and was real hearty, but he would have added more spices. Translation, he likes it but wanted to tinker.

• That puts the Soup Club average at a very respectable 8.3.

Then came the Campbell’s Crew:

• Hunter gave it an 8.0, which is solid considering “best soup ever” usually caps out around a 9.0 in his world.

• Nick said the veggies were nice and fresh and landed on an 8.2.

• Ashley came in with an 8.5 and said she really liked how hearty it was.

• Marco loved the cilantro, said the purple soup is still his favorite, and gave this one an 8.0.

• Lucas gave it an 8.0 and simply said he loved it.

• That puts the Campbell’s Crew average at 8.14. Jenn’s 9.5 was not included because ranking your own soup feels illegal, although the rules are admittedly fuzzy.

I know Soup Surgeon Jenn was a little nervous heading into today, and honestly that makes sense. I can imagine her inner monologue bouncing between “Why do I care what these people think,” “Hope it’s not too thick,” “This Soup Club thing is ridiculous,” and "I wish I wasn't 200 miles away so I can join this Soup Club!" all while she is literally performing robotic surgery in some Muskegon OR. At the end of the day, there is nothing to be nervous about when you put up numbers like that. Apples to oranges, but both of today’s scores cleared the 7.2 we saw earlier this week. Just saying.

That wraps up the souping for this week. And brace yourselves, because next week is shaping up to be a big one. Our marketing guy and Soup Club member Mike, also known as Marketing Mike, is making his Soup Club debut. The man claims years of soup making experience, so expectations are high. And rumor has it we might even see a Yavello sighting. Soup never sleeps!