Instant soup

Yesterday the Princess and I went out for brunch. We ordered a tea, an orange juice, a pain au chocolat, a croissant, a boiled egg and a bowl of muesli and yoghurt.  When the waitress arrived with our order, she looked at us and asked “Are you waiting for someone else?”  Humph.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the Asian supermarket downtown.  Very exciting altogether. We bought a jar of “instant Vietnamese sour soup”.  Today was chilly and rainy (alas) and, with great pride, I produced it at lunchtime.  Mr. Waffle looked on dubiously as I poured it into the saucepan.  The illustration on the outside showed bits of fish and exotic vegetables floating in a clear broth. The stuff I poured into the saucepan had the colour and consistency of bovril accompanied by a remarkably pungent smell.  It turns out that you add a dab of it to the other ingredients (not included) to make “instant Vietnamese sour soup”.  This is not my definition of instant.