Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

I'm really crap at writing out recipes. I will try to write this tomato soup one, though.

It's very simple. Soup is something you have to kind of have a feel for. You get the hang of it after a few years.

Quarter and seed between 3 and 4 pounds of tomatoes. Toss them with a bit of salt and some olive oil. Grill the tomatoes on the top rack of a gas grill (how bourgie am I? yes, yes) on high OR stand over them and make sure they don't burn to a crisp on a regular grill. The alternate to this is to roast them in the oven at about 250-300 degrees w/ some olive oil and a whole head of garlic. (This recipe is pretty adaptable, so depending on your tastes you can alter it accordingly--my aunt can't eat ailliums much anymore, so I did the grilling thing to add another flavor instead of the garlic.) Cook them until they're done. Use your eyeballs. If they get charred on the grill, this is ok. Let them cool and pick off however much of the charring you want. Some of it is good, but too much is, well, too much, you know?

In a big pot, cook a minced onion (I use the food processor because I'm The Infanta and hate chopping shit) in olive oil, do not brown. Add however much minced garlic (go wild, but if you roasted garlic w/ the tomatoes, you need less fresh garlic here) as you want. Saute for like a couple minutes and add about two cups of GOOD white wine. I use unoaked Chardonnay for cooking. What you don't use, DRINK. This is an important element of the recipe. Reduce this a bit.

When the tomatoes are done, dump them into the wine/onions/garlic. Salt a bit. Add probably six cups of chicken stock/broth. This is all to taste. Add a can of tomato paste. In the summer during tomato season, if you have real tomatoes you might not have to do this. Experiment. Simmer however long you can stand to wait. This is often not long. Puree to whatever consistency you want. I leave a few chunks; you can puree it smooth if you want.

Now the important bit. Add an asston of parmigiana cheese. The real thing, not Kraft. This is the integral part of this recipe. By an asston, I mean like three cups or more. The cheese melts and makes this soup. You can also add some asiago. Asiago really improves the recipe. Reduce for however long you can keep people out of the soup. You can add more wine here if you haven't drank it all already (haha, I know you did, pour it out of your glass, you drunk!).

At the end, you can flavor this soup however you want in the bowl. Two options are blue cheese or fresh basil. Dump in your snipped basil or blue cheese (YUM YUM YUM) and ladle in soup. Add a tablespoon or so of heavy cream w/ the flavoring agents. I never add cream to soup in the pot. I have no idea why recipes say to do this. It's a HORRIBLE idea, because if you leave the cream out until you put it in the bowl, you can freeze whatever soup you have left over (haha, as if, I never have left over soup because people knock me down to get to it). You can leave the soup plain, too. I did yesterday because I had real tomatoes (yes, my family are SO INSANE they have tomatoes already because my granddad started some miniature plants in the house w/ lamps, freaking nutcases).

Eat.

Now I'm going to cook some chicken and dumplings. You wish you were here, seriously.