Over the course of my adult years (which I have thus far spent as a single person), I have come to a pretty damning conclusion about soup. You see, soup, which is almost always made in ridiculously large batches, lends itself well to being eaten, consumed and shared in bulk.
So essentially, at its core, soup is a glaring reminder (other than your grandmother) that yes, you're alone.
I'll explain.
It starts out innocently. No sooner does the first chill of winter arrive before we're making Sunday plans with a soup pot. It sounds like a win-win: depending on the type you make, it's certainly a healthy enough meal option, plus it's economical and easy to split up into five containers for the work week ahead.
But here's the thing. While you're scouring the web for Ina Garten's Roasted Tomato Basil recipe (which is admittedly delicious -- just ask Chrissy Teigen), you fail to remember one minor detail. No one, no matter how much they love soup and no matter if it's chili, French onion or otherwise, wants to eat soup every single freaking day for a full week.
And that, my friends, is the reality for a single person embarking on any soup-making journey.
"But people in relationships get sick of soup, too!" all of you blissfully happy attached people might cry.
Allow me to remind you that sharing a crusty baguette over two bowls of vegetable soup and committing the ultimate act of love (falling asleep on each other while you watch Netflix afterward) is quite different than standing over a microwaved bowl that's hot to the touch but cold to the taste.
By Wednesday, you begrudgingly watch your cheerful, Chipotle-toting coworkers between slurps, and it sets in: the utter fatigue of bringing and eating soup every single day of the week. You're left with one of two options:
ONE: a huge vat of soup remnants that you promise to clean out "later," which will actually just sit in the back of your fridge between a half-full bottle of pinot grigio and the jar of olives you bought once to "start making dirty martinis at home." Until, of course, it gets to the point where you're afraid to even take the lid off to clean it out, so you either throw away the container entirely or gag your way through dumping whatever is left into the toilet.
OR
TWO: a freezer full of soups.
Listen: This is not a story about loneliness, and this is not a story about needing to be in a relationship. I, like many other single people, am perfectly and happily independent. I just have a lot of leftovers.
One fine day when I live in a brownstone in Cobble Hill with my family and our three golden retrievers and we spend Sunday mornings all together in one impossibly large and impossibly clean all-white-linen bed watching CBS Sunday Morning, maybe I'll get back into soup making. For now, I'll stick to the standing-over-the-sink-in-a-bra-and-sweatpants-eating-cold-rotisserie-chicken-while-my-cat-stares-in-judgment diet that I've grown so accustomed to.