So, the most important lesson I learned with this week’s The Souping Dead is to read the fine print. It is now 8pm in the time zone around which all others revolve. My show is presently starting. And my stew is going to be in the oven for another two hours. Le sigh.

But let’s rewind. For this season’s set of soups, I’ve made a lot that I’ve been really happy with, but though the recipes have been diverse, the flavor palate keeps veering into familiar territory. That concern, in conjunction with a recent conversation with a friend about Belgian beers, lead me to Carbonnade a la Flamande, pulled from the Cooks Illustrated website. It’s a beef stew, but unlike my usual gravitation pull, it’s got a beer base instead of wine. But, like so many Ruxin’s that have gone before me, I just couldn’t help but tinker.

Carbonnade a la Flamande is cited as a beer, beef, & onion stew. And as we’ve discussed, I’m so-so on the onions right now. So I halved the amount called for and tossed in some mushrooms in their place. As a serving suggestion, it recommends the stew be portioned over egg noodles or mashed potatoes. And while that’s all well and good, you know what I really like? Potatoes stewing in meat juice for a couple of hours. So out went the notion of mashers, and into the stew pot went a mix of yukon gold and baby reds. To accommodate this extra allotment of thirsty veg, I also included an extra half cup of broth, just to maintain its soupy integrity. Now it’s just a waiting game to see if all that tinkering paid off. In the meantime: zombies.

On that front, in attempting to stay as vague as vague can be, “Dead Weight” had some great moments, but ultimately served no purpose than to all-too-swiftly return us to the status quo. While not entirely surprising, I would have liked to have linger in some of those new dynamics that have been introduced. It was still expertly done, but it felt rushed, and given how very well they’ve paced out the rest of the season, I felt a little bit cheated by the way this played out.

But hey, it did the trick in happily helping me pass the hours waiting for my stew. When I finally dug in, I found it to be well-worth the effort. I’m not sure I successfully took the road less travelled with this one, but it made a great opportunity to correct some sins from a beef stew last year that did not turn out as well as I had hoped. The beef in this one was melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the beer gave the broth a caramel rich depth.

Next week, the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, and with it, The Souping Dead. We’re faced with cliffhangers on all fronts. Stay tuned.

With a title like that, I guess I should have looked into a cioppino, but instead, I decided to try my hand at chili. Once again, I went for Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter, where I’d long ago flagged her recipe for a vegetarian chili. But after looking at it, it just wasn’t resonating. One of the things I love about soup, however, is that a lot of them aren’t an exact science. You can keep basic ratios the same and swap ingredients in and out and still wind up with something delicious. So I started my plotting, and in the meantime, went about looking something up for later in the week in her other book, It’s All Good. I failed to find the swiss chard recipe I was looking for, but I did stumble on a different chili recipe that was tackling the dish with a bunch of the substitutions I’d been planning! Clearly, it was meant to be: Chicken + White Bean Chili.

The recipe was pretty straight forward.. the two main ingredients are right in the title. Add in the standard couple of cans of tomatoes, red bell pepper, onions & garlic (I halved what was asked on the latter two, since as we’ve established, that’s how I roll), along with the usual suspects from the spice rack. With one exception, that is. I shambled from aisle to aisle, slack-jawed and seeking without finding, like the zombies I enjoy so much. What the hell was sweet pimenton? And where could I find it? The folks working at the store were no help and my confused wandering lead me nowhere. Lucky for me, it only took me ten minutes to remember that I had the internet in my pocket. With an assist from my good pals Siri and Google, it was revealed that sweet pimenton is another name for sweet, smoked, spanish paprika, which, as it turns out, was remarkably easy to find.

And as it turns out, it was worth the effort. The sweet pimenton had a strong (but not overpowering flavor) and combined with the cannellini beans, and the big, juicy chunks of chicken, it resulted in a chili that felt more Spanish than southwestern in origin. I paired it a 2004 Torre Oria Reserva, a nice Spanish tempranillo, and the whole meal really just came together. I topped it off with yogurt and cilantro, and it may well be my favorite soup so far this season.

As for the show, you know, I don’t want to spoil anything. But let me just say, I’m a person who generally watches a show for the main character. I know all the cool kids on the internet are more into the secondary, tertiary, or even quaternary characters (the more obscure the better, in some circles), but if I can’t get attached to the primary, I never get far enough to meet the rest. Buffy, Jack, Rick.. these are my people. These are the characters that make me tune in every week. So when it became apparent that this episode wasn’t going to highlight my boy Grimes, I was definitely dubious. But once again, they knocked it out of the park. The turnover in The Walking Dead showrunners has always been a point of concern for me, but Scott Gimple may just be The One. Big high fives from this camp.

Last year I found myself standing in my kitchen with a crisp, cool October breeze wafting in through the window, contemplating, as I often do, the notion of pairings: what does one serve with The Walking Dead? I mean, it’s my favorite show. It’s funny, it’s violent, the soundtrack kicks ass. Its premiere always falls around Halloween, officially kicking off the holiday season, and giving October that much more of a foundation for its permanent status as the best month of the year. The time had come to start cooking with intent; Rick Grimes deserved better than frozen quiche and leftover pad thai. And then it hit me: SOUP. It was perfect: warm for the chilly nights, comforting for the dismemberments and other miscellaneous carnage, and served in a bowl for easy eating from the sofa (or bed, because sometimes, that’s just how I roll).

Like that, The Souping Dead was born. Each Sunday when The Walking Dead airs sometimes new recipes, sometimes old favorites, but always hot and fresh, made that day and from scratch. I did it for the duration of the show’s third season and started up again with renewed vigor this year. They haven’t all been winners, but there’s something to the ritual of it that makes it worth it either way, settling in with my apron on, some good jams or the latest episode of Comedy Bang Bang playing, all three dogs underfoot, filling the house with good smells as I run between my tiny kitchen and the dining room to check the recipe, and then collapsing at the end with a glass of wine and some post-apocalyptic awesomeness with which to enjoy the spoils.

So circle back on Mondays during the season for a report on the night’s progress. I’ll share recipes when I can, or how you can track them down when I can’t. (For a sneak peek, check out my failed attempt at a cooking blog where I covered one of last year’s efforts.)