no small parts...

I'm one of the least picky eaters you'll ever meet. Aside from Mexican food, chili, and peanut butter (which I do find tasty in combination with chocolate), I'm pretty much game for anything, especially when it comes to fruits and vegetables. 

Sort of.

Truth be told, I don't like celery all that much. It's not that it's bad exactly, just kind of bland and stringy and, well, tasteless. Cream cheese and ranch dressing help a little bit, as would peanut butter, I guess, if I liked it. But slather it in anything you want--celery is never going to be my go-to snack.  

So when I came home on Friday evening bearing the remnants of a project that involved turning 30+ stalks of the green stuff into the garnish for a giant Bloody Mary, I wanted to find a creative way to use it. I tried ingredient searches on sites like All Recipes and Epicurious, but soon realized that I must not be the only culinarian so decidedly ambivalent about these leafy stalks, since their repertoire pretty much peaks with Ants on a Log. There are precious few recipes in which celery is the star.

Eventually I called off my search for the perfect celery recipe and just made soup. Lots and lots and lots of soup. I'll be eating minestrone for a month:

And you know what? In my soup that celery is delicious. Because maybe, at the end of the day, celery is just meant to be a supporting player. 

After all, we can't all be stars.