Hot Sauce & High Scores: Adam’s Comeback

Well…apparently I’m the official Soup Club utility blogger. I step in when Marketing Mike goes missing like he’s on the back of a milk carton for four days (do they even still do milk cartons?), I jump in for Tam now and then…or more accurately, now and then and then again…and now Adam is busy with presentations and diaper duty. So here I am. Saving the blog once more. I kind of like it.

This week was young Adam’s sophomore soup attempt. Heading into the weekend he seemed a little bunched up...confused…torn. You could practically see the thought bubbles. Do I use the immersion blender? Should I go full St. Patrick’s Day with corned beef? Wait…half these people don’t even eat meat. Why did I join this stupid club?

By Monday morning the tension was real, and I get it. I speak from experience. Even when you know how to soup, it can be stressful throwing your creation in front of this crew. These people tell it like it is. But that’s also how you get better. Adam’s first soup was good…not great, not bad…good. So the big question was: is this redemption time?

Quick sidebar. I was at a fishing show Sunday (yes, I do occasionally leave the kitchen) and stumbled across what may be our first official Soup Club sponsor. Meet Jarrod from Harman Farms and his creation: Habanero Harman Hot Sauce. This guy grows the peppers from seed, makes the sauce himself, and somehow produced some of the best hot sauce Kevin and I have ever tried...and we’ve tried a ridiculous amount of hot sauce. Sure, I bought some fishing gear…but Jarrod was the real highlight. Also had me thinking about Noah, our original member who was determined to land us a hot sauce sponsor. What up Noah!

Back to Adam. Time does not stand still and soup must be consumed. Adam had the Soup Club crock pot plugged in at 6:30am, slowly bringing his creation up to temp inside our BPA-free crock pot liners. Yes, I had to mention that because apparently we’re catching heat from the anti-plastic community.

By mid-morning he was spotted in the kitchen frantically chopping a massive hunk of corned beef for Bottomer™ duty. Alongside that was a very respectable vegan Bottomer™ option of black beans and a fresh parsley topper situation that made it all feel very intentional.

Then came the scores:

• Tam opened with a "10 plus." Plus? What does that even mean. Are we introducing bonus scoring now?

• Conlan delivered a full dramatic build-up speech before landing on a holy-cow 9.8.

• Kevin went 8.8 with no hot sauce. Then 9.3 after adding shots of the pineapple mango and green jalapeño Habanero Harman sauces. At this point I’m wondering if we need official citation rules for hot sauce usage…especially with the sponsor!

• Marketing Mike kept his ramp-up shorter than Conlan and landed on a very respectable 9.3.

• Andy dropped a 9.1. For context, anything over 8.9 from Andy is basically a 10 in normal human scoring.

• And me? I went full commitment. Corned beef as both Bottomer™ and topper. Same move with the beans. Hot sauce or no hot sauce…it didn’t matter. Locked in a 10.0. Loved it.

That brought the Soup Club average to a ridiculously high 9.58. One of our highest ever. We knew we were in for good scores when we were literally scraping the bottom of the crock pot just to get Felton a spit-hit taste. He still managed an 8.0…which honestly might have been higher if I had remembered to hit his bowl with hot sauce. Another huge tell was Kevin being so locked into the soup experience that he completely lost track of time and thought he had missed a meeting.

Looking ahead, next week is Marketing Mike, then Andy (maybe Justy?), and then we hit the big one…our one-year Soup Club anniversary. That’s a very big deal and will certainly be celebrated in a souper way!