Big Guy and I love soup anytime of the year, but especially on chilly days. With our recent dip in temperature, I have been working my way through our selection in the freezer.
The soup of the day was our baked potato soup with bacon. I am always amazed how well soups do freeze, and often, tend to taste better the second time. Big Guy says it is because the flavors meld together. I say it is because I did not stand up and cook it for two hours. Either way, it was terrific and the cleanup was easy!
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 I totally forgot I still had some Brunswick stew in my freezer, so it was an easy grab when our weather got a little chilly! It is such a hardy stew with chicken, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, corn, and butter beans. I still have one more container which I may save for the Kentucky Derby.
Many years ago, our family was always invited to a Derby party. It was great fun with outrageous hats and friendly betting on our favorite horses. My parents always bet on a horse with a fun name, usually with some sort of alcohol theme. Think Butterscotch or Temperance! I went for Hot Rod Charlie in honor of my dad and his belief he was hot! Do I hear an amen from those who knew my dad?! The main dish each year was the Kentucky burgoo which featured chicken, stew meat, pork shoulder and many of the same vegetables as in the Brunswick stew. I opted to do the stew first since the recipe only served ten, or three frozen containers later for the two of us! I do promise to be traditional and make burgoo one of these years! I guess I better have a Derby party!
Red Lobster was always a special outing in my family as it was perceived to be an expensive restaurant. I think my dad was relieved when the cheddar bay biscuits arrived at the table since the kids would jump right into them and not want to order a big meal!
The sad part is the biscuits were my favorite part of going to Red Lobster. My nephew loved them so much he worked at Red Lobster for a short time during his teen years to learn how to make those magical biscuits. Obviously, the translation of the recipe was a little rough since he was making hundreds of them at a time. Fast forward to today and check out the seafood area in your local grocery store. The smart people at Red Lobster have boxed up the ingredients for home use. The mix is complete except for cheddar cheese and butter. The cheese is added to the flour with water to create the biscuits. The butter is melted with their garlic and herb mix to be spread on the baked biscuits. Big Guy and I ate ourselves silly, so it is a good thing I only bought one box!  Big Guy and I often talk about how childhood foods taste different today. The need to keep products on the shelf outweighs freshness and taste to the bottom dollar of providers. For example, my FIL used to deliver bread. He had to remove the bread from the shelf after three days. Now it is several weeks. I believe this example alone explains the strong movement to shop locally and buy your food as needed to assure you are providing fresh quality food to your table. I have embraced this in my retirement years which is also supported by Big Guy and his annual urban garden. Despite our efforts, I still long for some childhood favorites. My quest has me on the lookout for windmill cookies. I remember the taste of them and always celebrated if I got the cookie with the sliver of almond. I appreciate my recent order from Vermont Country Store, but I fear I am still longing for the taste of my childhood. Sigh!   I love living in Carondelet. We have fantastic neighbors and so many wonderful people who work and pass through our streets.
We are fortunate to have the best letter carrier in the world. Ms. Lisa reminds us daily about kindness, love, and giving 100% to her work. Recently, she shared that she has a major crush on Kevin Bacon, and would I share my People magazine with her when I finished reading it. How could I say no, especially when she told us she placed a heart around his picture and put it on her headboard to see how long it would take her husband to notice it. True story, he was more worried about the tape harming the wood than he was about her love for Mr. Bacon. So, who was your crush? I dug up this good old photo of my first crush, Shaun Cassidy. As I got older, it was Patrick Swayze until I met my own cowboy and garden philosopher, Big Guy. Lucky me!  I am constantly amazed how many products keep appearing on the shelves at my grocery store that were made when I was a kid because buying the real product was deemed a luxury. My parents founded a community theatre, so I vividly remember my mom trying to make different dips and cheese balls for their frequent cast parties following one of their productions.
One that was a party favorite was her faux Win Schuler cheese. I think she liked to make it because it made a lot and could feed a lot of people. I still have the recipe which included Velveeta cheese, hot sauce, mayo, horseradish, and bacon. It seems there was some microwave action to make it all come together, but I was never in the kitchen for that part of the prepping as my mom was convinced it was dangerous for children to be exposed to the “waves” coming out of the machine. I guess it was ok since she lived to be 90! I find it ironic that mom saved money making the dip in her day whereas it would cost me more with today’s prices. My appreciation to Win Schuler for packaging their cheese products at a reasonable price!  Do you have a unicorn in your life? I never thought I would say it was a certain bottle of scotch, but anyone observing Big Guy and me last week would have recognized the signs. Is it? Could it be? YES! We found a bottle of Springbank. As a bonus, we even found a Glen Scotia Double Cask.
Our boy bought Big Guy a book of scotches years ago as a gift. It has been fun steadily working our way through the book tasting and comparing the various scotches. We have been on the lookout for Springbank knowing the story about the five generations of one family making these Campbeltown single malts. The amount sent to the States is extremely limited and finding one becomes a treasure. We enjoyed a tasting of our beautiful new scotches that very evening. As the Irish toast goes, “My friends are the best friends. Loyal, willing, and able. Now let’s get to drinking! All glasses off the table! Slainte!  I enjoy television programs that tell a story. Showing my age, I eagerly awaited my appointment TV to watch M*A*S*H. To my surprise, I just bought a copy of Life magazine celebrating the show’s fifty-year anniversary. Holy smokes!
It seems the show has been a big part of my life. I used to watch the reruns in the morning before going to work. Then, the entire series came out on DVD. I know I can watch it on Hulu now, but I still have those DVDs as a reminder that my FIL gave them to me annually for Christmas until I had the entire set. It all came full circle last week when we stopped at Merb’s Candies and chuckled at the poster on the wall of the famous candy making scene from I Love Lucy. The poster had the names of the employees who were most like each person in the poster. It made me remember when my staff started calling me Colonel Sherman T. Potter knowing my love of M*A*S*H. It was a crazy time at my job, but I was comforted knowing my team trusted me to be their fearless leader and that is no “horse hockey!”  Do you ever feel like you cannot find the perfect book to read? I tend to be the person who has three or four books going at the same time. I like to think it is because I am savoring each word, but it honestly tells me that the book is not captivating me. It is only recently that I could allow myself to put a book aside and not finish it.
To my delight, I tripped upon The Golden Spoon by @jessamaxwellauthor. I admit the cover caught my eye since the artwork was a spoon with a house on top. As I started to read the description, I knew it was a book for me. In her endorsement of the book, Janet Evanovich, said the book was a “delicious combination of Clue and The Great British Bake Off.” I find myself reading this book late into the evening with the promise to Big Guy he would have it to read soon. While it had great twists and turns, it also talked about baking which made this Carondelet Kitchen gal happy!  Wine Review:
2021 Commuter Cuvee Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Grochau Cellars Cost: $23.00 Alcohol: 13.6% We are determined not to spend more than $25.00 for a bottle of wine, but still find outstanding quality. This Pinot Noir from Oregon certainly fits the bill. The Grochau Cellars Commuter Cuvee Pinot Noir is exactly what we were looking for in a bottle for pizza night. A pure delight with a nose of lavender and fresh spring flowers. A lingering of dark berries that still contained a nice fruitiness balanced with good acidity. This is definitely a repeat buy for us here in the Carondelet Kitchen. Added benefit: A portion of the proceeds from each bottle of Commuter Cuvee goes to the charity: No Kid Hungry. A really nice wine from a generous company. Win-Win! |
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