The Secret Ingredients

Tonight there was soup. It was a mishmashed affair, starting from a chicken that was roasted a few days ago, then turned into a cute little stock, and later something at once light and hearty, like home but fresh, uplifting, and you know, life-sustaining. A funny piece of double-smoked bacon made it's way in there with collard greens, and some quinoa, and some shallots, and got cooked around with some bad bad bacon fat.

But I should be honest. There were two secret ingredients that might have brought the whole thing to the next level. One comes from the venerable Gwyneth Paltrow (she's a great cook guys! And a really good mother, okay?) Somewhere in my celebrity gossip-addled brain, I have the information stored that Gwyneth P likes to use anchovies in everything (everything?). I had one anchovy left in the weird oil jar, and I put it in there. The other secret ingredient comes from someone named "My Mom", who is beautiful and brainy and can play the piano very nicely indeed. That ingredient is Marmite, and it's a real soup game-changer.

In short, the light and thin broth, the texture-y grain of the quinoa, the smoky little piece of bacon, the salty yeasty marmite, and the salty fishy anchovy, mixed with the veg but especially the bitter collards made something I felt a bit moved by.

So let's continue this talk about secret ingredients. Why do you think this Grimes video is so great? Yes, she's a *little* bit talked about these days/months/past year, but like, isn't this video a true winner? Doesn't it make you want to go to a sporting event and throw stuff around in a non-violent way? Like throw a hot dog at the wall and laugh and scream "C'est la vie, man!"? And don't you think it's because it's got those few essential secret ingredients? A cute girl with a nice hair do, sports at night with the lights shimmering away, "normal" people interacting and having fun, an element of surprise, and last but not least, someone smiling and not taking themselves too seriously AND oh, A CATCHY SONG. A-rama-lama-ding-song!