The soup tasting is an annual event, intended to raise money for the fire station. One could choose three bowls for 6 dollars if you wanted to take them away, or you could buy one bowl if you were eating there and keep going back indefinitely. Gail and I were doing take out, so we were given three small plastic bowls and a paper bag. About 20 steamers and slow cookers were lined up along one wall, womanned by several wives of the local firemen, some from our very own Becraft Pumper, the fire house that protects the end of Middle Road, where Michael and I rent out apartment.
The opposite side of the room was filled with men chowing down -- many of whom were husbands of the soup makers. In the center table Gary Mazzacano, a Middle Road neighbor and also the Fire Chief and recently defeated Republican primary candidate for sheriff, was surrounded by his fire acolytes. He joked around with Gail, whose husband Shawn is a volunteer at the Becraft Pumper, the fire station at the end of our Middle Road that hosts monthly breakfasts of pancakes, any egg type you want (including the chef's irresistible scramblers), corned beef hash, and bagels and toast. I met Sean for the first time one Thanksgiving when he, in full fire regalia, came pounding through the front door of our apartment into the kitchen, where I stood humiliated in front of my smoking oven. He turned and called back to his fellow firefighters, "Burned turkey!" And left.
At the Greenport Station soup tasting event, the clam chowder is particularly highly regarded, cooked up by an elderly lady who Gail hoped was still alive this year, and who was and actually promised Gail the recipe. Other excellent soups included creamed turkey, corn chowder, cabbage, sausage and black bean, a very thick chicken noodle, split pea, a crab bisque and Sunday soup (a hearty tomato beef stock loaded with meatballs). There was also a Mac and cheese soup, a yellow lava-flow that was a little intimidating.
As I walked the line, I made expansive sounds and exclamations about the soups and how I had a terrible time choosing my three because they all looked so fabulous. The women behind the soup vats offered polite smiles in response. I checked out the crab bisque but rejected it because, as I said loudly (everything I said there was loud), it would kill my husband.
Out front a table was set up with paints and what looked like coloring books. Dawn, however, was missing. Two super obese men, sitting in front of a fire truck guarding a gaggle of pumpkins that were for sale, nodded at me. I didn't go back into the firehouse to see if I could locate Down and the secret of her stock. I sat in the car with my soup and waited for Gail, who was successfully cadging recipes inside.
A friend of ours who ex-patted from Brooklyn to a farm 2200 feet up in Bovina, NY and is trying to grow root vegetables and pigs is called by the locals a "citiot". I think this might have resonated with the soup ladies.
"Is it worth it?" I asked heartily.
Gary also lives on Middle Road, so all of his neighbors, including we Democrats, put up signs for him, which apparently weren't sufficient to beat the opposing Republican in the county wide primary, who the paper said "trounced Mazzacano" and who apparently didn't need signs, because I never even knew his name. We hope Gary runs again, although I'm still a registered Dem in Manhattan so I can't vote for him anyway.
"Sure," she said, and she did smile but not with any sense of irony, which was a little worrisome.
I went for the clam chowder, pea soup, and the turkey -- the latter because, as I announced to the room, I can't figure out how to make decent turkey soup. I wondered, again loudly, if the woman who made the turkey soup actually used stock, since I explained turkey stock is usually so awful. I made other stock words, and the woman overseeing the turkey soup looked at me blankly and said that Dawn, the turkey cook soup, was outside doing face painting and suggested I go out and ask her.
"Good idea. Thanks so much," I said with a creepy effusiveness.
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