Mockingbird Soupapalooza

I have reached the ripe old age where two things consume me more than ever. One of them is a passion for making homemade soup. As soon as the notion hits me I go into chop, chop mode. Babe insists he is way too young to be spooning or sipping his meals. Well, that's a man for you. My friends are well-acquainted with and love my signature soups so it's my story, my fifteen-minutes and I'm sticking to it.

My other passion is trying to figure out what to include on my Bucket List which I tend to update more frequently than ever these days. I used to hold onto the shrinking hope that I would one day win a prize of some kind for something I had said or written. Not a Pulitzer, nothing so grand. But an award for marathon talking would not be out of the question, would it? Alas, I have now lived long enough to realize that even that ain't gonna happen.

So while I chop soup veggies with a vengeance, a flowery thought begins to blossom. I am known around St. Simons Island as The Soup Potzi because of my love for making soup and sharing it. So why not turn my Bucket List into a Soupapalooza?

Here goes: I'll make a big, I'm talking HUGE, pot of soup with veggies picked and dug up from the White House garden. If it were possible to get in touch with Michelle Obama as easily as I touch bases with the Doodah Sisterhood, no doubt Mrs. O would happily give me a thumbs up on raiding the national veggie patch.

Think about it. I could chop-chop, sauté, stir and taste my Soupapalooza in the White House kitchen. How cool would that be? For sure I would need lots of good help and for that I would peruse my original Bucket List to see who I hope to meet before I meet my uh ... you know.

Dori Sanders. Mrs. Sanders is the South Carolina author of many cookbooks that feature fresh fruits and vegetables, especially peaches, grown, harvested and sold at a roadside stand by her own hand. I have always wanted to meet her and this way maybe I could talk her into preparing a South Carolina peach cobbler for the First Family.

I would then invite the First Couple and those two precious children to come for the prepared meal. (Hope those kids like fruits and vegetables). I am pretty sure the entire family does the nutritionally balanced food thing. One look at those four healthy looking bodies says it all.

Not very far down on my Bucket list is the name of Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. I don't want to go to that Writer's Conference in the Sky without being in her presence at least once. Ms. Lee ought to be seated at the First Table. I have heard rumors that she is painfully shy and extremely protective of her privacy. Even so, how could she not enjoy a down-home bowl of White House Veggie Soup at the table surrounded by our country's first African American President and his family? I would even call my concoction Mockingbird Soup if she agreed to join us.

I don't know how Chinese cellists feel about soup, other than egg-drop or won-ton, but I know for certain that I would want to invite Yo Yo Ma to join us for a bowl or two of my concoction at the White House, if he would agree to bring along his cello. (Like he would ever leave home without it?)

Imagine this: Yo-Yo's concert dates get cancelled, Harper Lee's infirmities demand homemade chicken soup, and President O? Well, I might have to add something spicy to the soup in order to put dark hair back on his head or chest. Lord knows he'll be white-haired before too much longer while busting his hump to straighten out our messed up world.

Itzhak Perlman and his violin would be nice to round out our group. Not sure how classical music fits in with ordinary homemade vegetable soup, but it's worth a shot.

I could go on and on, but I ask you, what else is a Soup Potzi supposed to do while waiting for a global garden to grow?