There's not much bacon can't fix

When I got home from tour, I had a hankering for tomato basil soup. I had cup in the airport on the way to Houston and it was damn damn good. It's not often you find actual good food in an airport. I had only ordered a cup....and didn't have time to order another one. So the soup was on on my mind for most of time I was out on the road. Once I was back at home,I searched on line, found some Tomato Basil Soup recipes, mixed and matched a few and whipped up the soup. It's ok. not as good as ones I've made before, or the one I had in the airport. But good enough. Had a bowl. waited a day, thought it maybe needed to settle. I started to think, how could I fix it? Thicken it up a bit. Should I add spice? Just seemed kind of blando. When I put the soup in the fridge I noticed we had a little bacon. When I saw it I thought, what could I do with the bacon? BLT's? It was just a few slices. Hmmm. Then I started reading my husband's cook's illustrated magazine I saw a recipe for simple Italian-style meat sauce. For some reason I thought maybe the recipe included bacon.....it didn't. But the recipe looked really good so I ended up making that and it was damn awesome. I followed the directions exactly. I figured the test kitchen people worked hard to figure out the best way to make it so why don't I just trust the experts. Generally, as I mentioned with the soup, I research recipes and try to create one from all of them that tastes great. Lately, except for the soup, I've been pretty successful. Anyway, i scooped up a spoonful of sauce and tasted it and it was so delicious I was kind of startled. Not startled, but definitely surprised. The combination of flavors made it simply delicious. I tasted it and it reminded me of Anthony. My sister's old roommate. Anthony died of A.I.D.S. but before he did, he taught me how to make sauce and meatballs from his grandma's family recipe. the flavors in this sauce was exactly the same as his. I hadn't thought of Anthony in a long time As I sampled my sauce, i was flooded with memories of Antny. When he died I think I was a freshman in college. I'd known him probably 10 years. He'd been in a band with my sister and roommates with her as well. I used to go up to Boston and visit her in the summers. The first time I met Antny he was in his underwear (I think they were either red or blue and they were um...form fitting) painting the kitchen. I came out of my sister's room, she had gone to work I think and I was like Woah. and he was all, "Hi, you're Donyne's sister" or something. I went back in the room and called my sister at work.  She informed me of who he was and that he did live there. So I went back out into the kitchen.....and so my relationship with  this super fun gay man began. He was the coolest most interesting kind of guy I'd ever met at that time. He was a waiter at Friday's (When Friday's was new and cool) and he wanted to make a hat out a big tub of fluff he had on the top of his fridge. He asked if I liked fluff......Fuck Yes. So he proceeded to feed me fluff n nutters galore. I was in heaven, we NEVER had fluff at home. This guy was awesome. When I met him, I was too young to really get what gay was. I just thought he was fun. He had toys and he had fluff  and he was just damn fun. So as I kept tasting the sauce I kept thinking of making sauce with him in his kitchen. And him telling me how he used to make the gravy on Saturdays with his grandmother. It was an all day affair. but when we finally sat down and ate it, incredible, just like this sauce I made.  It was nice to think of Antny.......but what about the bacon?

So this morning I pull out the bacon, the soup a little cheese. I cooked the bacon, chopped it up and sprinkled it on top of the soup....with a little Italian cheese mixture on top. Soup fixed...thanks to bacon.