Hi everyone,
Couple of nights ago Sandy and I decided on grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. I drew the soup. It was a package of dry mix called Tortilla Soup. I pulled out a sauce pan, opened the package, and poured it in. There were no directions. Who needs directions? Right men?
Sandy, being a girl, went to the computer and brought back directions. The full recipe called for five cups of water. I poured the mix into a larger pan and added the water.
“Probably shouldn’t have added all the water at once,” she said.
“You didn’t tell me so it’s your fault,” I pointed out.
“Also calls for a can of corn.”
I found one in the pantry and dumped it in.
“And a can of diced tomatoes.”
I shrugged. “No diced tomatoes,” I said. “How about this can of tomato soup?”
She shrugged.
I poured the ingredients into a larger pan. “It’s awfully thin,” I said. “Can we do anything to thicken it?”
Our son Jeff has become an excellent cook, a skill he did not inherit from me. But Jeff admits that when something goes wrong, sometimes his first response is panic. He doesn’t always have the experience to know how to rescue a dish from disaster. At this moment my son and I had shared much in common kitchen-wise.
“Corn starch,” she said.
“Where is it?”
“Look in the spice cabinet.”
“Nope.”
“Pantry?
Above the cereal?
Behind the coffee filters?”
Five minutes later we agreed. We had no corn starch.
“Try a little flour,” she suggested.
I was now in the biggest pan we own, the one reserved for chili when we want leftovers for a week. Shrugging in unison, we added flour.
“Uh, you got anything else? This is still pretty thin stuff.”
“Not really.”
My eye lit on a sack of instant potatoes. “Aha!”
Into the boiling cauldron went a large spoonful of potato mix. And by golly that put us over.
The soup tasted great, I’m sorry to say, because I don’t see how we can ever duplicate it. The good news is that we have enough left over that it will be some time before the future will be in jeopardy.
I was sitting at my keyboard when a clatter on the roof sent me hurrying to the entrance hall, looking up at the skylight there. 
Children's Author David L. Harrison's Blog 