vegetable soup

I tore my back up shoveling snow yesterday, which is making eating this soup somewhat difficult, which in turn is making me realize two things: (a) how important our backs are, and (b) we don't sit up straight when we eat soup; we lean over the bowl so that (i) we can get the aroma of the steamy broth as close to our faces and noses as possible, and (ii) so we don't spill soup all over the tablecloth as we guide the spoon through the hazardous nothingness between the bowl of soup and our mouths.  Today I am using another technique: with my left hand under the bowl, I elevate the bowl to my face, leaving my right hand free to put the spoon into my mouth.  Now, vegetable soup...let's talk about it...

I decided that I don't want to talk about vegetable soup—I want to eat it—instead I want to talk about soup bowls.  The soup bowl above was made by a potter who lives and works in NYC named Judy Jackson.  She's in her 70s, and perhaps it takes 70 years to learn what she has learned about soup bowls: they should be big.  I don't want a dinky soup bowl that forces me to go back for seconds and thirds and fourths.  For me, soup is a meal and that's how I like it.  Heavily buttered bread and a big bowl of soup.  Doesn't that sound right?  Well, apparently not because big soup bowls are way more uncommon than they should be.  I'm a soup guy, so I'm particularly irritated about the small soup bowl situation, dictatorship, really, it's really a small soup bowl dictatorship.