Soups On....

I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older I make more obvious careless mistakes. I made one this past week which my mom noticed right away.
I do all of our shopping and on my list for Giant Eagle was 4 cans of “Cream of Mushroom Soup” something which I eat about 99 % of our family’s supply (about one can a week as an evening meal).
Mom saw on the store receipt “tomato soup” and asked if I had gotten the wrong soup.. Before I checked I knew she was right..those UPC codes have long worked exactly the way they were intended. Sure enough I had already stuck a four pack of “tomato soup’ behind a leftover 4 pack of Cream of Mushroom in our pantry.
For lunch today Mom had determined she was going to cut up some leftover pork and warm it up in some Mushroom soup for her lunch which she did before I cooked it for her in the soup. Somehow I managed to cut my right index finger on this particular soup can.
This was not intended to be a post paying homage to Andy Warhol, who coincidentally is buried within ten minutes walking distance from our home. I was surprised to discover that most of the Campbell soup “images” have some sort of Warhol connection..evidently for a profit making venture he painted the different varieties in addition to the famous tomato one.
Mom and I had a brief discussion about how several of the Campbell Soups (specifically tomato, cream of mushroom and cream of chicken) served as quick sauces for various recipes. She then told me she had two different “Campbell Soup Cookbooks".
Few know (other than immediate family) that my mother has an extensive cookbook collection. In fact her collection rivals the size of the offerings available at a bookstore like Borders filling up over two standard size home book cases. Most of the famous ones are there in several different editions, Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens etc. She also has a bunch of ethnic ones she has collected over the years.
For her 80th birthday the family got her two huge volumes, a culinary reference dictionary and an interntional cookbook..both the ‘gold standards’ of the cooking industry. Of course she stopped cooking anything but short order stuff for herself about 10 years ago. I do most of our cooking now with her guidance.