Columnist Susan Snyder: Kitchen tips, for your protection

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003 | 8:10 a.m.

Beware the bowl of soup that conceals its contents.

If you don't have your own horror story, think of the California woman who found a condom in her chowder.

According to the Associated Press, Laila Sultan and her three friends have sued an Irvine, Calif., restaurant over the February 2002 incident in which she bit into something chewy while sipping her soup.

Gives you the willies, doesn't it?

It turns out the condom was rolled up and unwrapped and, we shall assume, unused. Still, the ordeal sent Sultan to the ladies room for a 15-minute purging fest and sent her to a psychiatrist for medication to treat depression and anxiety.

There are two lessons to be learned here:

"Chewy" is a term that should apply only to Gummi bears. And mysteries make fine entertainment, as long as they don't apply to what is in your soup.

One way to avoid mishaps is to make your own soup. And, of course, I have recently done such a thing using a recipe from Bon Appetit magazine.

This magazine is one of those wish-books for those of us who wish we had the time, talent and tools to actually cook even half of what's among its pages.

Knowing that eventually women will toss up their hands in despair and cease buying magazines filled with unattainable goals, Bon Appetit has recipes labeled "No Time to Cook."

These typically use ingredients we can pronounce, and the assembly doesn't resemble that of a solid rocket booster.

So armed with October's issue and the philosophy that only soup made at home can truly be trusted, I embarked on "Operation Butternut."

This soup was to be prepared in an hour.

I started at 4:30 p.m. and we ate at 7. (We had to wait for the kitchen floor to dry so we could set the table.)

The first step was peeling two butternut squash. Imagine peeling a Volkswagen Beetle, only smaller. There is nothing to grab, and once some of the pulp is exposed it's as slippery as a Clark County politician dodging federal charges.

There also is the small matter of the garbage disposal. Don't put squash peelings in there.

Ever.

"There seems to be something wrong with the disposal," I told the Other, who was looking up the number for Sammy's California Woodfired Pizza -- just in case.

It became Bon Appetit meets Home Depot Dan. I went out of one kitchen doorway to look for him just as he walked into the other doorway with the bathroom plunger.

Again, the willies.

"Noooooo! You can't put Mr. E. Coli in the kitchen sink!" I wailed. But it was too late. One plunge sent squash peels and icky water shooting from the other side of the sink like the Bellagio fountains.

It was so beautiful, I cried. (Actually, I was doubled over in the doorway laughing so hard, I cried.) We took apart the pipe underneath.

Then while the soup simmered away, we scraped sopping peelings from the cabinet under sink, scrubbed the countertops and mopped the kitchen floor.

The soup was wonderful, when we finally got around to eating it. We knew exactly what was in it.

It's what might be growing on the kitchen counter that has me a little concerned.