Broccoli Cheese Soup (1985)

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that I love produce grab bags. As in you get a box or bag and it’s just random stuff. In the past I’ve done Arganica, Relay Food and Hungry Harvest. I liked them all, but these were all really expensive, even Hungry Harvest which delivered surplus produce from grocery stores.

So I found a new supplier. And it’s a non-profit that fights food waste, which is one of my biggest pet-peeves.  It’s called Gather Baltimore. In a nutshell–they recapture, reuse, and redistribute any and all leftover healthy fruits and vegetables they can get their hands on.

So whenever they have inventory, you can stop by and for $7 get a whole big blue IKEA bag full of produce that otherwise would’ve been tossed. They then also take food to financially challenged families in food deserts for free.

I love it. I’m giving food a second shot and I am helping  Baltimoreans in need. Win-win.

So when I got at least 8 crowns of broccoli in my latest Gather Baltimore Blue Bag, I immediately knew that I wanted to make a Cream of Broccoli or Broccoli Cheese Soup.

So I went to my collection (just updated!) and scoured index after index after index and came up with NOTHING. But finally. Finally! I found a recipe in my Saints Cyril & Methodius 75th Anniversary Jubilee Polish/American Cookbook.

Leave it to the Polish Catholics of McKees Rocks, PA to pull through.

I doubled the amount of cheese. Because 2 cups come in the shredded cheese bag, and I just really like cheese.

Speaking of cheese, I went on a Bumble date a couple of months ago. Lemme tell you about it……..

I have established again and again and again that I am a not the best person on the planet. EVIDENCE.

So it will be no surprise that I have no issue with readily admitting that the only reason that I was interested in this particular man is because in his profile he said that he was a cheesemonger.

Yes, you read that right: CHEESE. MONGER.

So on our date we go to this little pretentious bar called W.C. Harlan. The bar is adorable and I love the fact that there aren’t any TVs or a jukebox, but oh my god did I feel old when I was there. And square. I did not fit in. I wasn’t ironically wearing 1980’s mom glasses and high-waist jeans or had piercings and tattoos. Hipster I am not. I’m becoming An Old.

But they do have good cocktails so I got one of my favorites, a French 75.

Anyhoo, halfway through my cocktail and the conversation he says to me:

I think I’ve lost my passion for cheese. 

After that I heard nothing but:

blah blah blah certificate in acupuncture blah blah blah move to west coast blah blah blah holistic medicine…

Me:

The only reason I was on this date is because you were in the cheese industry! You’re the cheesemonger at a fancy liquor store! I thought I’d get free cheese and booze!!!

Needless to say, there was no date 2.

But there was good soup!

Stay tuned for more dishes from my Gather Baltimore Blue Bag!