I've been corresponding with Wayne DeWald since around the time Richard Nixon was president. He just sent me this message. (That is to say Wayne sent it…not Nixon.)
After 39+ years it's not easy for me to impress the good Mrs. DeWald, but yesterday a flyer arrived in the mail announcing the opening of a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant just up the street — the first in this area. I quickly made the connection to your rapturous posts about the Creamy Tomato Soup and insisted we had to eat there soon. Tonight we visited Sweet Tomatoes and as luck would have, it still being March, Creamy Tomato Soup was indeed available — and delicious. My wife had two bowls which she thoroughly enjoyed. She was impressed — perhaps stunned is the better word — by my amazing culinary expertise. Thanks, Mark!
Many of you have written to say that the most valuable service this weblog has performed in the ninety-some-odd years of its existence has been to tout you onto the creamy tomato soup being served during the month of March at Souplanation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants. There are over 100 of these establishments in fifteen states and if there's one near you, you might want to hurry there in the next few days. The Creamy Tomato Soup will probably disappear from most of them, some time this weekend. (At least at the one near me, they use a loose definition of when one month ends and the next begins. The March soups could be gone as soon as Sunday or as late as Tuesday. Whatever, you don't have long.)
But do us all a favor. If you like this soup even a tenth as much as I do, call the Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes customer service line and tell them. Here's the number. There's also a way to send e-mail comments there but it's been my experience that companies pay more attention to phoned-in suggestions. Tell them you'd like to see the Creamy Tomato Soup become a regular selection there…or at least something we can have there more often than one month a year. I'm going to get a few "to go" orders and freeze them to eat in April but that's not good enough.