Back in December one of my Facebook and Twitter friends — a birdwatcher from The Netherlands — posted that she was going to have Mustard Soup for lunch. After a bit of discussion where I expressed disbelief, then awe, she posted a recipe and when I wondered where to find Groninger Mustard she offered to send me a jar and I accepted (and offered to send her a local spice in exchange — she chose Old Bay seasoning).

Before too long I received not one, but two jars of Groninger Mustard and set them aside until after wrestling season when we could enjoy the fat and calories with Andrew.

One day, a couple of weeks ago I purchased the ingredients for the soup and followed a recipe I found online (I’d lost the link that my friend sent, but assumed all recipes would be similar).

I was sure that I was going to love this soup, it sounded so delicious (mustard, bacon, cream — what’s not to love?) and even took a series of photos while preparing it à la The Pioneer Woman.

I know enough about cooking to become concerned when I saw how much flour in relationship to how much fat was in the recipe — of course I didn’t thoroughly read the recipe before I was well into making the soup (that would have been the prudent thing to do) — but plowed ahead anyway. I also knew, as I was pouring in the cream that I had not cooked the roux enough and that the soup would taste floury.

While the soup was lovely to look at, especially sprinkled with newly sprouted chives from our herb garden, it tasted more like it should have been the base for biscuits and gravy (a dish I dislike) instead of the delicate cream soup I’d envisioned.

I’m going to assume I used the wrong recipe and undercooked the roux and maybe try again sometime. We still have a jar and a half of Groninger Mustard left. I sent a FB message to my Dutch friend, asking her if it was supposed to be so thick, but she didn’t respond. She may have overlooked the message; she has a lot of friends. Either that or I insulted her by not liking the soup. Nah — Not Gwen.