Dream Soup

Sunday, in the early morning hours, I had a dream so very real that I woke up in a cold sweat.
I was riding on the Shinkansen from Los Angeles to Mexico (the first sign that this was a dream, which I realized even as I was having it) with my family. The other people on the train were mostly migrant workers, returning to their homes from a hard day in the fields. A few of them played cards on the floor, taking swigs from warm cans of Tecate and a dirty bottle of mezcal. They were kind of loud and obnoxious as drunken card-playing migrant workers on trains tend to be, but I really didn’t notice them at first.
I was speaking to my mom when my brother Adam suddenly stood up and started singing “Me So Horny” like a lounge singer (this part of the dream was clearly influenced by the Richard Cheese album I discovered recently) and leering at the senorita (muy bonita) sitting next to him:
Sittin’ at home with my dick on hard
So I got the black book for a freak to call
Picked up the telephone, then dialed the 7 digits
Said, “Yo, this Addy, baby! Are you down with it?”
I arrived at her house, knocked on the door
Not having no idea of what the night had in store
I’m like a dog in heat, a freak without warning
I have an appetite for sex, ’cause me so horny
I was horrified and shouted at him to shut up while eyeing the card players, who were just starting to notice to my brother’s impromptu serenade:
Girls always ask me why I fuck so much
I say “What’s wrong, baby doll, with a quick nut?”
‘Cause you’re the one, and you shouldn’t be mad
I won’t tell your mama if you don’t tell your dad
I know he’ll be disgusted when he sees your pussy busted
Won’t your mama be so mad if she knew I got that ass?
I’m a freak in heat, a dog without warning
My appetite is sex, ’cause me so horny
By now, the poker hombres had pulled out knives and were yelling at him. “Hey Ese, we gonna cut your worm off and put it in our mezcal!”
I jumped into their midst, swinging, but my punches in dreams never seem to connect and they swarmed over me. My last act, before fading out, was to scream “You can’t hurt him… He has HOT PANTS!”
Cue waking up in a cold sweat.
I called Adam later that day. He said he was at Osaka castle with some friends, so although I told him about how he had been singing 2 Live Crew on a train to Mexico in my dream, my heart wasn’t into telling him that his worm had probably been harvested and consumed with a slice of lime.
Also, I was still very much befuddled by the meaning of the dream and especially the concept of HOT PANTS. I have no idea what they are.
So I kept this all bottled up inside until Monday night, when I set out to create a dish to commemorate the dream and partially actualize its existence. There was a pot of leftover Tom Yum Goong soup stock left on the stove, so that’s what I started with.
Recipe for AWAJI ISLAND HOT PANTS SOUP
1. Add the following into a pot of day-old Tom Yum Goong stock:
Fresh-picked button tomatoes, halved
Chicken broth
Chicken meat cut into strips
Daikon, cut into paper thin rounds
Tofu from overpriced & snobby Kyoto store, whole
Onion, sliced
Fresh habanero pepper from the garden, sliced
Dash of bourbon, for lack of mezcal
2. Season to taste with black pepper, white pepper, and Sriracha hot sauce
3. Top with diced green onions, fresh coriander, and slice of lime
//
So how was it?
Pretty damn good. Also, pretty damn spicy. Eat a couple big bowls of this and the secret of HOT PANTS will be revealed to you, too!