Saturday, September 17, 2011

Avgolemono Soup

I was driving and listening to Mississippi Public Radio. I heard a man talking about his Greek family in Mississippi. Mainly he talked about food, southern classics combined with Greek home-cooking. It made me so hungry! As soon as I got home, I googled a recipe he mentioned his grandmother made for him every time he visited, avgolemono soup.
It had three things that always appeal to me in a recipe. It was exotic, cheap, and easy. I worked it into the next week's menu.
The day I was cooking it, Nate headed to the door to do some yard work. I said, "Dinner will be ready when you're done."
He said, "Smells great! What is it?"
"Well, I know you love Greek food, so I'm making a Greek soup. Avgolemono soup."
"Oh, that's neat. What's that translate to?"
"Uh..." I looked away, pretending to be very busy stirring, "Near as I can tell, from the ingredients...um, egg lemon soup."
Silence.
I looked up. Nate stood at the door, speechless with the dim hope his wife was joking, but going cold with the knowledge that she was not. I am, after all, the woman that once fed him Vanilla Butternut Squash soup.





You'll be shocked to know that I was the only one in the family that liked it. Nate declared it edible,but said he'd only want to eat it again if we were utterly destitute and couldn't afford hot dogs. Suzy wept into her soup bowl.
Before bed, she came to me and thanked me for the food. I said, "Aw, did you decide you liked it after all?"
Her eyes widened, possibly with fear that I'd make it again. "No, no not at all! But Daddy told me to say thank you anyway because you worked hard. But I did not like eating it."
Yep. I ate leftover avgolemono soup for lunch for a week.






If you'd like to make your family sob at the dinner table, here's the recipe?