Anthony Bourdain is a Douche

I am still working on finding my voice in this Blog and I am not sure which way I will go with it. I know for now that I do not want to simply list recipe after recipe. Frankly, that has been done countless times and it is pretty boring.  I will try and include all of the parts for each recipe so you can try my ideas if you feel inspired.

I just finished reading Anthony Bourdain's latest, "Medium Raw."  I am starting to find his particular brand of angry intellectualism boring. To be perfectly honest, the more I read this guy, the more I think he is a narcissistic douche. Most pretentious line from the book: "Is there something fundamentally, ethically....wrong about a meal so Pantagruelian in its ambition and proportions?" Seriously?

Oh yeah, Soup. It's one of those things we all tend to avoid because it seems like so much work. The truth is that soup is easy and is also very healthy.This particular recipe takes about twenty minutes to prep and about thirty minutes to cook. Sure you can open a sodium laced can of crap or you could put some effort into an amazing meal. Once you get into the groove of cooking fresh each night, you will never go back to frozen or canned crap.

You will need about a pound of organic carrots, (fresher is better), three nice sized leeks, one clove of garlic and one onion.  Chop it all up. In a soup pot at medium high, (I like La Creuset cast iron pots), heat three tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. Sweat your carrots, leeks, garlic and onion. After about 5 minutes add 3 medium Russet Potatoes chopped and cook for another 5 minutes. Salt and Pepper.

In a separate pot, heat up 4 cups of chicken stock and 2 cups of water. Add the hot stock to your soup pot and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 25 to 30 minutes.

You can either blend the soup when it is cooked or use an immersion blender to smooth it out. I like immersion blenders because you don't have to remove the soup from the pot.  Add 1 tablespoon of chopped flat parsley and 3/4 cup of milk. (You can use lowfat milk and it won't hurt the flavor). Continue on low for about another 5 minutes.  Salt and Pepper to taste and serve. You can also put some Reggiano Parmesan cheese on top.

You can make this a true vegetarian soup by substituting olive oil for the butter and skipping the milk.

I adapted this recipe from experimenting with Vichyssoise. (A cold potato and leek soup).  You can vary the flavor of this soup by adding a tablespoon of fresh chopped ginger at the beginning or using curry spices to really spice it up.