Soup

I bought a cookbook called "400 Soups." I'm not much of a cook, which is why I like making soup. Chop, put in pot, add broth, ignore for one hour. I can do that.

You know what the first soup in this book is? Vichyssoise. That is not a starter soup. For one, I can't tell if the pronunciation is French or Long Island (Vee-shay-soi / Vick-y-soiz) Two, it either has an extra 's', or it is missing an 'n'. That's OK for page 213, but not for page 1.

You know what the first recipe should be? Potato soup. Ingredients: potato, water, bowl. No French peeling the potato or sprinkling cinnamon dust around the edge of the bowl. Just a boiled potato, unpeeled, in a bowl of water, with a fork sticking out of it. Salt and pepper optional.

The first soup should not take culinary beginners into uncharted waters. Give us a confidence booster. Something with celery, not leeks. Herbs that appear in Simon & Garfunkel songs, not Martha Stewart specials.

If I were this book and not a man who reads books, like a Book God peering into the lives of his subjects, I'd move my page 76 to the front. Roasted Pepper Soup would be a good starter recipe.

It looks how it sounds like it will look and has words in its name that everyone can understand. No obscure ingredients either. King Edward potatoes have been usurped by Joe Onion and his gal, Garlic Jill. I'd follow Roasted Pepper Soup up with Green Lentil Soup, and then its cousin, Garlicky Lentil Soup. There should be a good 20-30 pages of pepper and legume soups before Vichyssoise even appears in the table of contents.

To sum up, I would start off with simple pepper and legume soups. Then I would include a table of contents. People wouldn't mind that it came 30 pages into the book because they would be too busy reading the recipes and exclaiming, "Hey, I recognize that ingredient" and "Mmm, this soup is going to taste as good as it sounds, sounds I can confidentially reproduce when saying the name of this soup."

Then you can include Vichyssoise and related soups later in the book in a special "Freak" section with detachable pages, so it's easy to tear out if you want to. The pages should be made out of soft paper, so when you are enjoying a warm bowl of Irish Potato Soup, you can wipe your lips with Avgolemono or Lemon and Pumpkin Moules Mariniere.