Rustic squash soup with smoked paprika at Carmen's in Troy

I found myself in a booth at Carmen's recently slamming my hand against the side of a metal spice box, shaking and banging and trying get the last sprinkles of a flavor that five minutes earlier I didn't know existed, but that now seemed worth doing injury to both limb and container to extract.

Carmen, as is her way, wasn't letting me stick to the menu or to the breakfast I'd ordered. After finishing my plate of black beans and eggs with a side of sautéed spinach and wafting in the café's fine conversation and the warm feeling that a good breakfast on sunny winter morning can give you, I wanted nothing more out life or the kitchen. But then Carmen arrived with a tasting bowl of a squash soup that is her newest creation.

There is something about having just come out of the baby stage with three young children that makes me a bit adverse to traditional squash soup. (I've had enough smooth glop to last a while. It kind of gives me flashbacks to sleepless nights and far-flung food.) But Carmen's soup was hearty, the squash was tender and sweet with deep flavors, and it had texture. A beautiful thing in my book. I dug my spoon in, took a bite and smiled.

"No, no, no," she told me. "Wait, let me bring you the spices. They make the whole thing."

She brought out a plate with a small shaker of nutmeg and larger metal shaker of a spice I didn't recognize.

"It's smoked paprika," she said.

I grew up in a kitchen that usually had one 10-year-old jar of paprika shoved somewhere in the back of the spice cabinet. The tasteless red powder was pulled once or twice a year to sprinkle on top of Grandma Dora's chicken. It added color and not much else. Even though I am a great lover of all things spice, I realized that some how I'd never let go of my childhood image of paprika.

Now seemed as good a time as any. And I'm not much for nutmeg on squash.

The can was almost empty. I sprinkled the last remaining bit of powder onto my soup and tasted. This is where things got a bit Ally McBeal A large horn section burst into my brain followed by a spray of multi-layered percussion. At least Barry White didn't show up in all his baritone glory. Alas, if only this were hyperbole. My brain really is more like an Ipod than I'd care to admit.

I shook the can. More, more, more. Unlike the nutmeg, which layers sweet on sweet, the smoked paprika is like laying a hip-hop bass rhythm under a sultry soul singer, someone like Jill Scott riffing with Common.

I gathered the bit of dust that floated down onto my soup. "It kind of takes it to another level doesn't it," said Carmen.

Ah, yeah.