Skip to main content

In Search Of



I just misread a promo for an upcoming holiday event as “Satan is coming to your neighborhood.” 

How’s your morning going?

The heat in our house is churning away which means it must actually be cold outside. I checked the weather report for the day and it indeed looks chilly. Not frozen, mind you, but possibly cold enough to zip your jacket. Or wear a hat. And that brings us to…

Soup weather. As you know, I’m a big fan of soup. As the season moves towards darker and colder, my longing for soup increases. That got me thinking. Where’s the best soup in Howard County? Has anyone ever created the Great Columbia/HoCo Soup Tour?

We could. 

I don’t think we necessarily need a war room with enlarged maps and colored pushpins, but it would be fun to plot out where all the good soup is. That way, whether you’re driving Downtown or in Ellicott City, headed to Elkridge or Woodbine, you’d know where exactly where to show up if you have a soup craving.

I’ve had decent soup from Jason’s Deli and Panera, but I’d like to branch beyond chains and look at independently owned local restaurants. It would be good to know who has exceptional bread to go with their soup, too. 

You know I’m asking for your input, yes?

Years ago at the first Soup-er Sundae event I attended (the last in the old Rouse Building) my daughter and I sampled the most heavenly Chicken Tortilla soup. I can’t remember who made it but I’ve never had any since that could match it. You can just imagine how much an all-soup event appeals to me.

One last thing: local podcast Elevate Maryland. I just finished listening to the October 21st episode: Decolonizing Wealth with Edgar Villanueva. It’s a great interview and presents some quite enlightening concepts about the culture of philanthropy and other nonprofits. I see that Elevate will begin live shows again in January at their new home in Downtown Columbia, Busboys and Poets. Tapings will be on the second and fourth Mondays. 

Does anyone know if Busboys and Poets has good soup?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more