Welcome to the Mellon Patch: Cooking with Little Lord Fauntleroy

Welcome to "Cooking with Jack", the cooking show that, quite frankly, makes other cooking shows look like crap on a stick. Today we're getting extra fancy by making Vichyssoise, which is French for "fancy soup". If you're unsure of how to pronounce it, remember this little rhyme: "The squishy squaw served Vichyssoise to Yo-Yo Ma."

Since we're getting all fancy in here, I'm bringing in my chef-in-training Fauntleroy to assist in my fancy soup-making efforts.

It's a good idea to wash your paws before assembling the ingredients of this creamy potato-leek soup.

Oh my freakin' god! I accidentally bought super mutant green onions! (I'm joshing... those are leeks, dumbass).

Next you need one medium-sized funnel.

"Excuse me, Mister Jack. I believe the recipe calls for fennel, not funnel, dumbass."

Right you are, my good dog-sir. So take one fennel bulb.

"Y'know, Jack... ancient roman texts mention the value of fennel for its aromatic seeds and succulent edible stalks. The ruler Charlemagne promoted its use during medieval times, cultivating the herb on his imperial farms. Fennel root was one of the flavorings used in Sack, an alcoholic drink featuring mead that was popular during Shakespearian times."

Enough interesting facts about fennel, Fauntleroy. Let's get to choppin'!

Slice up the leeks, mostly using the white ends.

Then chop the fennel bulb up, pausing to reflect that your first two ingredients have made your cooking 75% fancier than what you normally cook.

"Haven't you forgotten something, Jack?"

Oh yeah, we're also going to slice up a clove or two of garlic (do NOT make the mistake of slicing up a garlic or two of cloves!)

I also forgot to mention that you really need to wear a tie or fancy sweater when making (or even saying) Vichyssoise.

Next we take a spoontable of butter and melt it in a big soup pan over medium high-low heat.

Don't scorch the butter, even though "scorch" is a really fun word to say. SCORCH! SCORCH!

Now add the leeks, fennel bulb and garlic. It's a good idea to recite French poetry during this step.

Cook that mess for 10-12 minutes; by then it should look a little something like this...

Now stop what you're doing and peel three Yukon Gold potatoes. You can use regular baking potatoes if you want, but have you checked out the price of gold these days?

Dice those mothers up!

Now open a bottle of white wine and drink all but a fourth of a cup or so.

Pour the remaining fourth cup in with the leek-fennel-garlic mix.

Add five cups of water along with the diced potatoes.

Add a sprig of fresh thyme if you have it, or a little diced thyme if your wife isn't home and you don't know which one of the herbs in the garden are thyme and which ones are poison ivy.

Cover and cook on low heat for 40 minutes. It should look like this...

Let us take a moment and admire my color-coordinated kitchenware.

Wow! That was a fast 40 minutes!

When the potatoes get soft, scoop everything up in batches and blend until smooth.

If you lost the top of your blender like I did, use a small plate and don't put setting on "turbo". And make certain that you're assistant doesn't fall in!