home and hearth

Baked potato soup… oh yeah baby! Carm raved and said it was as good as, if not better, than the soup on the ship. I’d like to try it again though with a fairly major change: cream instead of coconut milk. I could taste the coconut and felt that it slightly overpowered the baked potato flavour. Such a sacrifice in the name of taste testing ;-)

I subjected Pat to my experiment and while I didn’t hear any complaints from her, she also noticed the coconut milk flavour.

The weather is supposed to be a bit crappy tomorrow so it will be the perfect day to indulge in another round of rich soup.

Bella is asleep on the futon, and for the first time in ages, I cannot hear her snore or wheeze. I guess she was too hot after all! Thank Goodness as I had scoured the internet and come up with many worst case scenarios: cancer and heart failure to name but a few. She’s coming up to 14 years old so we do tend to worry.

The sun is shining with only the faintest hint of a breeze. It is easy to imagine that spring is near. It is only late February though so we know bad weather will still be upon us, but each day brings us closer.

I do have mixed feelings about winter nearing its end though: I love the feeling of being in a cocoon of sorts, life is simple with not much to do except read, and plan out food to make for friends that come to visit. So much to love: home and hearth; hot soups and biscuits; jugs of red wine and mugs of lemon, honey and brandy; hot baths in the sunshine or by candlelight, lavender or eucalyptus bubble bath scenting the air; days when the sunshine is amplified by the glistening snow; stars that twinkle in the black night; snowy afternoons with an old favorite movie; the silence of falling snow; clean white snow instead of mucky earth.

We got the order of Bully sticks and couldn’t be more disappointed :-( I knew they were only 7” long, but didn’t realize that they’d be so skinny that Spike can eat through one in 10 minutes. Next time we’ll try a 12” + stick and maybe they’ll be thicker. We bought a huge pack of 40 for $$$$$. We don’t know anyone with a teeny tiny dog.

Though it was scarcely six o’clock, the night was already pitch-dark. The fog, made thicker by its proximity to the Seine, blurred every detail with its ragged veils, punctured at various distances by the reddish glow of streetlamps and threads of light escaping from illuminated windows. The rain-drenched pavement glistened under the lamps like a lake reflecting strings of lights. A bitter wind, heavy with sleet, whipped at my face, its howling forming the high notes of a symphony whose bass was played by swollen waves crashing into the piers of the bridges below. The evening lacked none of winter’s rough poetry.

~Théophile Gautier