I've long heard tell of the sort of soup that keeps going year after year, like a rather delicious family tradition. I've never had one of those. The closest I've had is the chicken soup Mama made, the one she stewed down for a few days (resting in the refrigerator in between to skim off the layer of grease) before serving.

This is a Stew.

I started it the other night with a package of beef and some potatoes and carrots. It's good. It's been hungry, since then -- I was running low on the meat in there, so I wound up partially thawing and then dumping in some chicken. Now it's cooked through, and starting to get tender and juicy, so I tore it apart a little, added more carrots and corn, and dumped in potato flakes to give body. (I'm too tired to wash and slice real potatoes right now.)

I never knew that feeding a soup was such dedicated work.

I've also decided that it needs a fume hood.