Ugly Soup! Adventures in At Hand Cooking

Hey folks, and welcome to Ugly Soup!

What is Ugly Soup? What is At Hand Cooking? Both are fairly simple, and what I hope to better explore in this blog. Let's break those questions apart.

What is Ugly Soup? In the most basic sense, Ugly Soup is just that: hideous, unappealing to look at food of the brothy and stuff-in-broth-y variety. But to a certain extent it is far more complicated. Ugly Soup is not just soup. Instead, it is a broad term to describe any food made for taste and fulfillment instead of for aesthetics. Certain amounts of Ugly Soup are consumed by everybody. We all eat that one thing that someone across a lunch table has looked at and did the 'What are you eating?' face of dread. The face that suggests that the facemaker's greatest fear is that you will leap cross the table and stuff the food into their mouth. But that is a conversation for another day. Ugly Soup is food made without care for anything other than taste.

Which brings us to question two. What is At Hand Cooking? Why, it is how to make Ugly Soup of course! At Hand Cooking is the practice of using whatever food, and if at all possible all the food, available in any given kitchen to make a meal. At Hand Cooking's ingredients are not specifically bought from the grocery. At Hand Cooking's ingredients are not always raw. At Hand Cooking's ingredients are not often associated with each other. At Hand Cooking's ingredients, when listed back to a fellow, often result in the gagging of those not exposed to such cuisine. At Hand Cooking is the art of making something from almost nothing. It is something often practiced, but little explored.

Ugly Soup's mission is simple. To create fine, wonderful tasting food, with whatever I have. No matter how horrible or vaguely alive it may appear.

Spatulaaa!
-Noah