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Let's just say the weather made me do it!

I had sorta sworn off soup at SippitySup. That's because I broke my jaw last summer and was wired shut for eight weeks. I was pretty sure I was finished with liquid food for the rest of my life. In fact, I remember making a pact with myself. No more soup. I could just learn to live with out it. Too many bad broken jaw memories attached to soup. No soup for Sup!

But nope, I awoke this morning all nestled under a down comforter (that somehow appeared during the night) and noticed that the weather had turned a bit chilly. The ineveitable Southern California rain started its pitter-patter on the copper roof of the balcony outside my bedroom.

I knew this tune. I've missed this song. I found myself getting a little emotional as I began to hum along to its rhythmic beat. Could I love the rain in Southern California that much? No, its not the rain making me feel this way. Rather it is the sound of the rain– drip, drop, clip, clop... I suddenly realized that the mellifluous drizzle tapping away on my bedroom window was the sound of soup! I have missed soup.

Well I bounced out of bed. A man with a purpose. I would make soup today.

Okay. So now you see how happy soup has made me, but what about you? You may have been eating soup all along (having, hopefully, not sworn it off due to a broken jaw). So soup may be a "ho hum... been there done that" kinda thing for you on this chilly Monday in Janurary.

So for both our sakes, I gotta make this one special. I gotta make this a super soup!

To achieve that I am going to take one of my favorite vegetables and roast it. I am speaking of the fennel bulb. Or perhaps you prefer anise, or finocchi, hinojo, fenouil, Μάραθο or フェンネル. Because in any language special recipes start and end with fennel.

Now fennel has a distinctly anise (licorice) flavor; especially when raw. I love this quality and use raw fennel profusely on crostini, in salads or as a crunchy garnish. I love the way it flavors a broth and I often add it to the liquid when I steam mussels. However, (as wrong as this sounds) I have friends who claim to know a thing or two about food; yet they protest to the flavor of all things anise. Well, you know what I think about that, don't you? Hurumph...

Well, for these freaks of nature I have a solution. Roasted fennel. Roasting tames the licorce notes. It keeps the sweetness but colors it with a deeply complex caramel. Its tones become rich and luxurious with out the addition of cream or butter. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that these qualities are prized, and ideed make this a very special "first soup of the season".

So with soup now back in my life, you'd think I'd written the final chapter in the saga of my broken jaw.

Hell no! When I do something I like to do it in a big way. I try to milk it for all its worth. After all, it's hard to keep the sympathy vote in play long after a broken bone has healed, right?

Wrong. Because if you go for the highly dramatic broken jawbone, then there is a coup de gras; the ultimate reminder to any and all that you went through something sordidly sensational. Because jaw bones don't heal to quite the same state as before they were broken. Nope. They move– just a tiny bit. Just enough to keep your teeth from realigning. Just enough to cause headaches and to force you to slurp your spaghetti rather than bit it off cleanly.

But there is a solution. That's right. I enter the world of the creepy tomorrow. I become an adult with braces on his teeth.

You know the ones (we are a fairly small club– small enough to make us an anomoly). You've seen us around and you can't quite get yourself to look us in the eye now can you? Because you are thinking to yourself: "Braces? Really at his age? What's next a face lift and pec implants?"

Not that there is anything wrong with braces, face lifts or pec implants.

Then why does the prospect make me feel so creepy? Here's (grab your red wine) to the next time you see me. Just try and look me in the eye, I dare ya.

Roasted Fennel Soup with Walnuts, Stilton and Dried Cranberries serves 8 CLICK here for a printable recipe