Boy do I love soup.

The last week has been real soupy for me.  Last week I made an obscenely endless pot of chicken noodle soup, which is one of my very favorite things to do. Extra parsnip please. Then a couple days later I made my first ever beef stew (thanks, America's Test Kitchen!).  And last night I made pea barley soup.  Rhiann was skeptical, but then tasted it and was like yum yum. Cats love it, too. Binky closed his eyes and licked some off of his papa's finger, which was obviously precious.  I really like this kind of soup.  My mom always used to make it for post-Yom-Kippur fast-breaking.  It's so easy.  You just bring dried barley and split peas to a boil with some onion, garlic, chicken stock, and a bunch of bay leaves and let it summer till the peas have sliquified and the barley is tender.  So good. Arya and Jon and all my other friends in Westeros are grateful to sup on, like, thin onion broth with a sad little sliver of carrot.  And I'm like, you guys, you would flip your shit for this pea barley soup.

And don't even get me started on Chicken and Dumplings Day.  Every Wednesday is Chicken and Dumplings Day at the deli across the street from my work, which is a Big Ass Deal in my world. One time I got there too late and they were out of Chicken and Dumplings and I was visibly upset.  So now the sweet folks at Pamela's know to save a cup for me.  They can spell my name however they damn well please.  Oh man.  I love Chicken and Dumplings Day.  Akin to pea barley in its visual homeliness and overall nomnomness, this ish is always piping hot, perfectly peppered, rib-stickingly viscous, and generously dumpling-ed.  Wednesday rules.

 

This is where I get The Soup.

Another (non-soup) item of note: Honeycrisp apples.  They are really great right now, especially when perfectly sliced with my neat appleslicer.  I had a really strange moment yesterday while taking the first bite of one at my desk.  It was pretty much a perfect apple in my book, but it was more than the quality that struck me.  Something about the distinct taste and texture of this particular apple gave me a really vivid flashback to what I am pretty sure was third grade-- munching on such an apple slice while listening to my teacher read The B.F.G.  For real.  This isn't a memory I recall thinking about much... I really think it was the apple that did it.  I've had a few taste- and smell- induced flashbacks like this before, which is both strange and sweet.

                                                            Also, The B.F.G. is great!