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"  Amidst the strains of Ke$ha, Black Eyed Peas, and Miley Cyrus inexplicably pumping through the air, the line that started forming in front of Al Yeganeh&amp;#039;s (original) Original SoupManTM storefront at 5am this morning snaked around the corner of 55th and 8th Avenue. Battling my way through, I &amp;quot;flashed my press pass,&amp;quot; so to speak (there were no actual press passes) and was ushered over to the crowd of journalists waiting for their chance to capture images of the new storefront and of Reggie Jackson, the official SoupManTM &amp;quot;Special Advisor to Strategic Relationships,&amp;quot; aka spokesperson, who would be cutting the ribbon...with a cleaver. Bizarre scene, yes? Almost as bizarre as serving up hot soup on a 90-degree day in July. After fighting through the crowd himself, Mr. October chopped the ribbon and exclaimed, &amp;quot;Soup&amp;#039;s on! Let&amp;#039;s go!&amp;quot; While I didn&amp;#039;t get a chance to interview the Yankee champ, I did get to speak with the President of The Original SoupManTM, Bob Bertrand, about Al, his soup, and that forbidden nickname that prevents Jay Leno from ever getting a chance to interview the SoupManTM himself.    &amp;quot;First things first, why now? It&amp;#039;s 90 degrees right now and one of the hottest NYC summer&amp;#039;s on record,&amp;quot; I asked. &amp;quot;Soup has no season,&amp;quot; Bertrand replied. He went on to explain that ever since they bought the rights to the company from Al Yeganeh in 2004 and the storefront closed in 2005, he knew they would re-open one day. Not willing to wait for the cold season, they opened as soon as the space was ready. He goes on to describe how involved Mr. Yeganeh still is in the process. &amp;quot;Al is the heart of the company. He signs off on all the [newly developed] soups.&amp;quot; As for his original famous recipes, Bertrand insists they have not changed a thing, except for making them in much, much larger batches for the franchise branches, a development process that took the company two years.   And last, but certainly not least, I had to ask about the Seinfeld connection, gracefully tiptoeing around that four-letter &amp;quot;n-word,&amp;quot; as Bertrand called it. While Seinfeld drove by the storefront on Sunday to remind Bertrand to take good care of Yeganeh, Yeganeh doesn&amp;#039;t seem to share the same warm feelings towards the comedian. Bertrand tells me that Mr. Yeganeh has done interviews with David Letterman and Oprah, but refuses to be interviewed by Jay Leno who apparently is such good friends with Jerry Seinfeld that he will not agree to leave Seinfeld or the Soup N--- moniker out of the equation. &amp;quot;This is not a joke,&amp;quot; Bertrand states, his once smiling face frowning pensively, &amp;quot;this is his [Yeganeh&amp;#039;s] life.&amp;quot; For more warm-weather-appropriate chilled soups, try our refreshing watermelon and crab gazpacho and this chilled cucumber soup.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/a21484/the-original-soupman-returneth/?src=shelter_footer>