Some soup thoughts: I tried this new recipe for artichoke soup last night. Found online altho I can't remember where or I'd link to it. It used frozen artichoke hearts which I think has up and down sides. On the major up side, this made the recipe possible in the home kitchen. I can't imagine how many artichokes you'd have to cook to get enough hearts to make this recipe -- somewhere in the neighborhood of a lot. But the flip of that is that I'm sure the flavor would be a lot stronger if you could take the time to cook all those artichokes from fresh. It could be that there was something else missing, flavorwise. Maybe it needed more salt. Or pepper. The herb flavor (tarragon) was coming thru so I don't think that was it. The recipe called for cream but I used 2% milk cos that's what we had, so maybe that's why the flavor didn't pop like I wanted it to.
So, a partial success and worth trying again but not quite there yet.