I recently undertook a quest (at Kristie's suggestion) to find a recipe
for the perfect clam chowder. Food quests are fun - trying different recipes in an effort to come up with the one. So, I looked around online (I usually start with FoodNetwork.com and AllRecipes.com), and I looked at Julia Child's book How to Cook, and came up with some ideas of what I wanted to do.
I wanted to use frozen clams, since fresh clams are nearly impossible to find in the middle of the desert, but I couldn't find any frozen clams. Maybe they don't even sell those. So I ended up using some cans of baby clams - I figured those would be the most tender of the canned clams.
I ended up combining ideas from a couple of different recipes, with a twist or two of my own, and the chowder was, well, delicious. So good, in fact, that I think I may have started and ended my quest with just one batch of soup. Kristie and the kids really liked it - so much so that they're already asking me to make it again and it's barely been two days since we finished off the first pot.
