If you knew how I love soups!
A plate of fragrant hot soup for me is like a meditation session.
Our plump moustached character Monsieur François Croûton – a gifted chef, who has been fired from a prestigious restaurant, because whatever the patrons would order, François would always bring them soup! Always!
– Bonjour! It would be a Quiche Lorraine, a salad with a poached egg for the lady, two Ratatouilles and a bottle of Chablis. Merci!
On hearing the dish-names unfriendly to his heart, François would only keep his temper, he would rush to the kitchen and just in a moment would bring the order:
– M-m- monsieur, m-m- madame, taste this unbelievable onion s-soup, it’s thousand times better than a Quiche Lorraine and by far healthier... M-m- madame, but you have never came face to face with the excellent beet-root fest.. Pardon! With the soup! And here is the vegetable fest in front of you… Look, the vegetables seem to float in the round porcelain pool! Inhale the aroma, feel the taste of every ingredient in your bowl... Take a bigger spoon... Get a spoonful...

– Monsieur! It’s all great, but we have ordered a Quiche Lorraine, a salad...
– I know, I know, but the soups are magnificent, you should...
And then they used to take Monsieur Croûton away with bows, begged to be excused, and served the proper dishes.
Thus Monsieur Croûton would migrate from a restaurant to a restaurant where of soups, they served only onion soup and at that, not always quite good. And our dreamer’s heart bled and broke to pieces. He grieved that his favourite dish was not wanted in Paris.
Each time after getting it straight in the restaurants, he would come home, sank sadly into his armchair at the fireplace and kept science until his face was lit with a smile and his moustache was turned up higher than ever:
– But of course!
And then as though in a daze: François’s little hands (oh, whatever hands he had) masterly peeled the vegetables, flash-like chopped onion, grated carrots; he would smell spice; he would dreamily semi-close his eyes and remembering someone or something he would dance, juggling with vegetables, ladles, bay leaves and even with sweet peas!

It would be a real show, some true magic! As if a big and kind wizard would be brewing some potion to save the world! Monsieur Croûton’s kitchen would be filled with all types of aromas – so if you, my dear Reader, have had dropped in – the scents would have lifted you up at once, seated you at the table, while François – the good soul – would have put a big big plate of excellent rich soup in front of you and handed in a big big spoon – oh, it would have been much better!