Tam Brought the Mojo...Hunter Forgot the SpudBowl™
Jeff
10/6/20264 min read
This was one of the best Soup Club meetings we've had to date. No drama. Well...not much drama. Great soup! And by great soup, I mean great-tasting soup AND great ingredients! I don't even have much to complain about today. That's probably going to make this a very difficult blog to write.
This week, Tam was up! We left last week's meeting feeling pretty good about where Soup Club was headed after The Great Soup Club Reset. It felt like we were back on track. Like we actually had a plan again. Eat Healthy. Have Fun. What a concept.
One of the new developments was Hunter cautiously peeking his head out of retirement and agreeing to become our official SpudBowl™ guy. Since Hunter got all weirded out about actually making soup, we figured we'd give him something he could easily handle.
Here's what Hunter needed to do: Buy big potatoes before or on Sunday. Bake potatoes in the oven Sunday. Put potatoes in the refrigerator overnight. Gut potatoes Monday. Think cleaning out a pumpkin. Air fry potatoes. Bring potatoes to Soup Club. Simple.
...and...we had no potatoes.
I think everyone kinda planned for no potatoes. Hunter's return from retirement is apparently going to be a gradual process.
Fortunately, what Tam presented us with instead was one heck of a spread. Lentil soup cheffed up by Ed. Rice and/or yogurt Bottomers™. Avocado, cilantro, sunflower seeds, toasted cumin seeds and lime Toppers™. Warm naan bread on the side. And, of course, it wouldn't be a Tam week without some sort of cookie. There was some sort of cookie. Don't know. Didn't try it.
But looking around at everything spread across the table, THIS was exactly how we'd envisioned Soup Club working. A healthy, great-tasting base soup with Bottomers™, Toppers™ and sides so everyone could make their own meal exactly how they wanted it. Much, much appreciated.
Let's get to the scores…
Soup Club Feedback:
Kevin: Kevin was already two bowls deep and slipping into a bit of a food coma from all the bread and cookies when he laid down a 9.0. Then came his homemade hot sauce. 9.5!
Conlan: Said this soup "clocked me." Then immediately said it needed more lentils and more veggies. Wait. Is "clocked me" good or bad? Then came the score...9.9! Okay…apparently being clocked is good.
Josephine: We're still learning Josephine's likes and dislikes, so this one was going to be interesting. Two words: "Just perfect." Followed by: "Ten. Solid. Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point!!!" 10.0! Apparently we've found something Josephine likes.
Adam: "Absolutely delicious!" 10.0! Then Adam went on about a conversation with TGMB about how far he'd be willing to hop into a car and drive just to seek out this soup or something like that. That's a pretty strong endorsement. Side note: Adam ranked the cookie a zero and crumbled the remains into his napkin like a six-year-old hiding broccoli.
Jeff: 9.5. I based my score heavily on the ingredients and how everything molded together to create the final flavor. This soup had excellent ingredients and one of the best flavor profiles in Soup Club history. It would've been a perfect 10.0 for me without the vegetable oil. Soooo easily avoidable.
I ran some numbers with and without the oil and coconut milk:
Original: ~350 calories | 15g protein | 46g carbs | 10g fiber | 13g fat | 7g saturated fat
Without Oil & Coconut Milk: ~220 calories | 14g protein | 42g carbs | 10g fiber | 1g fat | 0g saturated fat
That's roughly a 130-calorie reduction per 15-ounce bowl while retaining nearly all the protein and fiber. But unlike last week's nutritional rant, I'm not complaining much here. This was really, really good soup.
Marketing Mike: Described it as "hearty—with lots of body balance." Wait. Now I'm confused. Is "body balance" the same thing as Adam's "nice pull" from last week? Or are these two completely different official soup-evaluation metrics that I've somehow missed? Anyway...10.0! Then Marketing Mike changed his score to 37.5 with the cookies. He was kidding, of course, and apparently used that as a segue to ask Adam for his half-eaten napkin cookie. Waste not, want not.
Soup Club Average: 9.82 …Way to go, Tam and Ed!
Campbell's Crew™:
Hunter: Started by apologizing for the failed SpudBowl™ debut. Somehow, he blamed it on the Detroit Lions. I'm still not entirely sure how the Lions prevented him from baking potatoes on Sunday, but I'm sure it makes sense to Hunter. He described the soup as "amazing." 10.0!
Felton: Felton is very proud of the fact that he will NEVER give a soup a 10.0 without hot sauce and meat. Well...We put a dollop of Kevin's hot sauce on top. Next thing I know, the dude is knocking on our conference room door, proudly interrupting a meeting just so he could announce: 10.0! He loved it. In fact, Felton was apparently so happy that he volunteered to wear a Willy Wonka costume on October 27 and serve as our ladle dude.
Marco: Marco was in the office. Tam specifically brought extra soup with Marco in mind. Marco no-showed us. Apparently he doesn't like lentils and had a hankering for some pork belly. So much for baby steps.
Campbell's Crew™ Average: 10.0 …Well, at least from the people who actually showed up and scored it.
It was great looking around the room today and watching everyone wolf down a great meal and walk out the door with a little extra pep in their step. This is what Soup Club is supposed to be. Good food. Good ingredients. Lots of options. Meaningless banter. No one quitting. Nobody going to the hospital. And only a minor potato-related retirement failure.
We're making progress! We're going to try to keep the mojo going next week with Kevin.
The good news? He's bringing in a chicken fried rice soup inspired by chicken-fried-rice expert Chef Eric.
The bad news? Chicken fried rice soup and a SpudBowl™ sound like a pretty terrible combination. So we're going to have to wait another week for the official SpudBowl™ debut. Hunter did commit to practicing, though. So somewhere this week, a potato may actually make it into an oven. Baby steps.
