Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

"something feels disconnected when a chef has to buy a machine costing tens of thousands of dollars to cook"

Like... a restaurant output stove? Like a walk in refrigerator?

I feel like, more and more, every party I go to features a Costco or Safeway or similar cheese and/or meat and/or veggie tray (not always provided by the host: sometimes a guest shows up with one of these in hand). Living in the Bay Area, with nearly unlimited access to amazing food, I find this incredibly sad.

Ok, a little off topic but: I am always astonished when I go to people's parties and there isn't any ice. And I always think it's truly gauche when the host hasn't considered non-alcoholic beverage options (score an extra point if the inconsiderate host is drunk when you arrive). While I drink alcohol, I frequently have to drive, and so digging through someone's fridge for the last swig from an old, flat bottle of Pepsi Zero (or One? Or two?) is super irritating.

I feel like hosts must consider that their guests' time is valuable. If you throw crappy parties with bad food, you are essentially wasting the time of your guest, who might have instead thrown their own party, or who might have declined another invitation to attend your event.

We've made this several times now, it's fantastic. The chorizo we have access to is fairly large in diameter, so we now cut it smaller so that there's chorizo in every bite or every other bite.

Also, we've taken to scooping off some of the beans/turnip/potato mixture, and pureeing it with a stick blender. This gives the soup a little more body and made for a slightly more modern variation.

The first time we made this we were lucky enough to actually have some turnip greens, which were pretty amazing-- they stayed bright green and had a distinct lemony flavor, adding another layer of flavor. In contrast, chard (which we also tried) tasted OK but turned dark green and was less interesting. We've had trouble finding turnip greens subsequently, but we discovered that sorrel (if you can find it!) makes a fine substitute, because it too has a lemony flavor.

This pairs (somewhat obviously, I guess) with a nice Spanish Red wine. Finding a really nice loaf of crusty bread is worth the effort.