Dec. 8: A nice hot bowl of soup

Campbell's cream of tomato soup is the best lunch ever.

I don't want a grilled cheese with it either.* Just a bowl of cream of tomato soup, made with milk, with crackers I can crumble in it.

I could that for lunch everyday if I wanted to.

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Cream of chicken is also good as are cream of mushroom and chicken noodle. But cream of tomato will always be the pinnacle of soups. 

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I am not sure when soup turns into stew. 

Soup is just flavoured water, really. My beloved Campbell's tomato soup is just water that is flavoured with milk and tomatoes and other stuff that probably isn't good for me. But if I add pieces of chicken and beans and licorice and marshmallows and Orville Redenbacher popcorn, it stops becoming soup and starts becoming stew.

If you can eat with a fork, it's stew. If you can't eat it with a fork, it's still soup.

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Here is a picture of Soupy Sales:

Soupy Sales is dead now. He was a Capricorn, like me. He was also a slapstick comedian, unlike me. Here is about all I know about Soupy Sales:

1. His real name was Milton Supman.

2. He used to have a live TV show.

3. One day on that TV show, someone played a prank on him by having a naked lady cavort around backstage. I know this because I saw footage of it on TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes.

There used to be a soup store at the Eau Claire Market in Calgary. The name of the store was Soupy Sales. 

Soupy Sales, the comedian, no longer exists.

Soupy Sales, the soup store, no longer exists.

Soon, the Eau Claire Market will stop existing. 

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The Eau Claire Market was a weird hybrid of a mall/market/cluster of restaurants set up in Calgary's downtown core. I was there on the opening day, which took place sometime in the early 90s. A friend of mine, who had graduated from art college, was also there and he said he was disappointed with the market, whose design emulated the 1988 Olympics.

There was a variety show to open the market. Some actors from the acting program I attended did a musical number. I think I did a magic trick. No one really cared. The Eau Claire Market was never a fun place to go. The movers and shakers in Calgary wanted to emulate something that worked in trendier cities like Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal. 

From day one, the Eau Claire Market people wanted buskers to populate the market. I tried my hand at it, but I'm not a very good busker. Somewhere in there, I have a picture of me and my friend, Scott McClelland, performing at the Eau Claire Market.

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I haven't talked about soup much in this note, so I will end with a sonnet:

Tomato soup, I like you when you're hot

and mixed with milk, I stir you with my spoon.

You wait upon the stove in yonder pot

I'm sure that I'll be slurping you real soon.

I charge that Campbell's makes the very best

condensed tomato soup in all the world.

You don't agree? Let's put it to the test

It is preferred by every boy and girl.

You splork from can an orangeish reddish paste

but now with crackers mixed inside the bowl.

You are, dear soup, unparalleled in taste

A lunchtime treat that warmly fills my soul

Take heed, my friends, and please do not be duped

and please insist on Campbell's treasured soup.

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I rarely eat grilled cheese, but when I do, it has to have Kraft singles in it. As a rule, I hate melted cheese.