easter soup to warm me up!

I have been nearly drooling for almost a week, thinking about that dish!

Ever since I realized I had all the ingredients, I've had a taste for it.

Ham to dice up? Yes, indeed!

Sauerkraut? In a can in the pantry!

Boiled eggs? Two left in the bag of 6!

Horseradish? Just the white, not the pink, but it'll do just fine, thanks!

Polish sausage? I've got some pepperoni that should suffice!

Sour cream? Bought it on the way home from the double feature at AMC!

I finished up my A*List, leaving it as a trio since the weather tomorrow is gonna suck, yet again, barely to reach 50 F.

Here's the interesting thing about that movie list.

The first was in Big-D, the second was in 3-D, and the third was regular... but not actually watched, as I'd seen it yesterday.

I just wanted AMC to know that I deemed "Shelter" worthy of watching.

(smile!) 

In fact, all three of these were very good!

"Send Help" was not akin to "Romancing The Stone", as I'd mistakenly guessed from the previews. 

I should have known that Sam Raimi would have more twists embedded in the darkness of this comedy!

Kudos to Rachel McAdams - I hadn't known she had such ice in her blood!

Bwah ha ha!

The Chris Pratt film, "Mercy", was the one I'd really looked forward to, as I knew it would be science fiction.

What a superb look at the capabilities - and limitations - of Artificial Intelligence!

I already knew of its worth as a search engine... but I also knew that not all of those search results might be true.

I already knew of AI's speed with finding and retrieving information... but I also knew it could not find data that was on the dark web.

I loved the message of the movie: Everyone makes mistakes, whether human or AI.

That's true of meteorologists, too, much as I wish it wasn't. 

Just two days ago, the forecast called for a weekend in the 60's.

Now, those temperatures are to be at least 5 degrees cooler.

Poor Smitty was so looking forward to golfing on Sunday!

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the outlook might improve... but I certainly will not be holding my breath.

I think Friday will be the night for a musical... I hope! 

zuppa con chicas de dawn!

"Hey, who are all these women? Is that at Dawn's house??" 

 

Hey, good eye! Yes, you're spot on with the locale, though you should recognize Yvette, on the left, from the swap party. The other three are new to this event. They are Dora, Julie, and Bridget, and they were three of the four cheftestants this time around. Surprisingly, that's the order of their placements in the soup-judging!

 

Dora, who will be 21 in March, is the daughter of Jennifer.

Her soup was the last one in the competition, and placed second.

It was the baked potato soup.

That would be a fully loaded spud, too, and the aroma was divine!

The soup would have benefited from having a dollop of sour cream as a garnish, maybe with a sprinkle of chives to dress it up.

Julie's Italian sausage pasta soup earned her third place, though it was the second soup to hit the table.

That's pretty high ranking for a first-timer!

This photo was snapped before the shaved Parmesan came around to go on top.

Even so, it was a good-looking soup and very tasty, as she used spicy sausage. 

It was one of the two that I deemed deserving of a "5" for taste!

I would have taken some of that home!

Then there's the Escarole Soup.

As the first soup of the evening, it set the bar... and set it low.

That's okay, as this was Bridget's first try and she will be better next time.

The pieces of the veggie and of the chicken were all too large and were stranded in the thin broth.

It has potential, though, so I hope this friend of Yvette will return next year to cook again for the party.

So, where's a photo of that winner tonight?

Here it is, and ain't it a beauty with that puff pastry top hat?

The aroma was very nice, too, as well as the presentation, and the taste?

Well, as I told all, I never had a Chicken Pot Pie as good as this soup bearing its name!

That's another I would have liked to take home for another meal.

Hopefully we'll be getting the recipes.

And who was that winning cheftestant?

It was Lisa!!!
There she is, with Dawn and The Koz, who'd come down from his man-cave to do his own taste tests!

He was also curious about our soup-tasting names for this occasion and mine was the first he demanded to know.

"Captain Cheesy Garlic Gobbler!", I proclaimed gladly, as writ large on my name tag.

Hahahaha!!!

What a bunch of Ninja Noodle, Spoon Sniffer, Spud-tastic Sipsters we all were!

Now, my silly self is home after 4+ hours with these ladies, laughing and sharing jokes and soup!

Thanks, Gina, for granting me the rest of the biscotti you made for us!

Thank you, Susan, for bouncing next door to be part of this grand affair!

And thank you, too, Margaret, for remembering my Easter Soup from a year when I was a cheftestant!

Good times, good times!!!

Well worth getting out in the low forties to be in all that warmth!  

 

"Wait! Are you back to taking Sotalol for your atrial fibrillation?" 

 

Nope, I'm just talkin' 'bout that temperatures outside! My heart doc seems to have my heart back in rhythm, so I've been pushing the boundaries to see where they are now. I felt like this would be safe tonight, as I wasn't walking far, and I am doing just fine! Time to catch up with those flower sisters now...

full moon

I got No Exit
from full moon madness.
Every month it comes around,
stealing my gladness.

Flashing back to a time of jellyfish lightnin'
Watching the waves roll and baskin' in moon shine.

A missed kiss?
Hell yeah!
And then I missed another.
And now I have no recourse
but to treat him like a brother.

It's making me crazy to vacillate this way.
And every month the full moon leaves me sadly grey.

Chicken soup for breakfast
brings no solace to my soul.
The piece of my heart given away
has left a lunar hole
that fills with new shared memories in between the times
of full moon madness
and a night sky that shines.