Soused on ... Soup?

... alternately titled, "How I Almost Accidentally Got My Kids Drunk."

Folks, I'm a pretty smart girl (usually) and a pretty decent cook (usually). But you won't believe either of those statements by the end of this post, I guarantee - because what I did last night should qualify for some sort of Stupid Chef Award.

Let me start out by proclaiming how much I love soup ... especially in the fall. I could seriously eat it every night and then reheat the leftovers for breakfast. And last night I decided to make one of my all-time favorites: French onion soup. Oooh la la.

Should I have been forewarned by the fact that the recipe came off the back of this bottle? Probably.

It's cooking sherry, which I rarely use. But I cook with regular drinking wine all the time - some of my favorite recipes call for it. I always have a bottle of cheap Chardonnay stashed in the back of my fridge, exclusively for swilling on extra-stressful nights recipes. And it always evaporates away - as it's supposed to when it cooks - leaving the flavor, but not the "oomph," if you know what I mean.

Anyway, seeing as my husband Curtis and I are gluttons enthusiastic eaters, I decided to double the recipe. Which meant double the sherry. I was thinking there was a lot of sherry in there anyway, before I doubled it, but who am I to argue with a recipe? I mean, that recipe was legit. Printed on a bottle and stuff.

While the soup was cooking, I decided to put some fish sticks in the oven for my kids, just in case. I literally never cook a separate meal for the boys - they always just eat what we eat - but last night, for the first time ever, I decided they might like something else better than what I was cooking.

... Little did I know what a great decision that would turn out to be.

I dished out the soup, giving the boys little bitty bowls alongside their main course. Cameron didn't touch his, opting to eat the fish sticks instead. Colin sifted through his with a spoon, but only to dig out the melted cheese at the bottom. Meanwhile, I scarfed down delicately emptied the contents of my Jethro Bodine-sized bowl.

About three-quarters of the way through, I noticed my face was starting to feel flushed. Not an "I'm-eating-hot-soup" type of flushed, but an "I'm-drinking-an-alcoholic-beverage" flushed. The exact same feeling I get when I drink wine, which incidentally goes right to my head. Soon after that, my thighs began to feel warm: also a hallmark sign of alcohol hitting my bloodstream. (So yeah, maybe that's a weird reaction - but I never claimed to be normal, y'all.)

And then it dawned on me. OMG: my soup was getting me drunk.

I pounced on my kids' (virtually untouched) bowls faster than Paris Hilton can leap in front of a camera. "Let's just take these," I said nervously to Curtis, shuttling the bowls to the sink. "I'm pretty sure that sherry didn't cook out the way it should have."

"I noticed it tastes a little strong," Curtis admitted.

I can't even convey the crazy level of relief I felt at the fact that my kids hadn't eaten their soup - and that I hadn't, heaven forbid, fed any of it to the baby. Can you imagine?! (I mean ... they're hard enough to handle when they're sober.) And I also couldn't believe I had made such a rookie mistake. Cooking FAIL.

Okay, so maybe my soup could've put people over the legal limit. (Or landed my boys in the custody of Child Protective Services!) But it tasted good.

So good, in fact, that after I threw out the kids' portions ...

... I had another bowl. *hic*