My sister called my lentil soup 'boring' and she was right

I was making my usual lentil soup for a family dinner in Portland last month and my sister said it tasted like 'brown water with beans'. Stung a bit but she had a point. I started adding a splash of apple cider vinegar and a pinch of smoked paprika before serving, and it cost maybe 10 cents extra per batch. Now my family actually asks for seconds instead of just eating it out of politeness.

3 comments

3 Comments

leodavis1mo ago

Totally changed my mind on this one honestly.

jamesroberts1mo ago

Hold on, are we really pretending a 10 cent upgrade is some kind of cooking breakthrough? You took the world's most basic bean water and added vinegar and paprika. That's not a recipe, that's just admitting you were serving warm disappointment before. Your sister was being generous with "boring" when she could have said "depressing." I get that you fixed it, but let's not act like you reinvented the wheel here. You basically just added salt and sour to something that should have had flavor from the start.

susan_wright341mo ago

Is @jamesroberts just calling it like it is or what? That whole post had me cringing, acting like vinegar and paprika was some secret family recipe passed down for generations.