Soupy

We are on our last few days of our stay in Illinois with my family. I have not been posting much this past week or so mostly because I purchased a new laptop and I don't have any of my software installed on it for the Nikon. Right now I have to load any new photos on the old Toshiba and then transport them to the new HP and it is just a little more than I usually feel like dealing with. Beside all that the fact is I really have nothing to show you but pictures of soup. Behold....






We have been eating some seriously fancy soup up in here. Number one up top is a carrot soup Billy made a few nights ago. My Mom announced that it was the best soup of her life. It really was insanely good. Billy is feelin' it in the kitchen and it shows. It took him like three hours to make it. There are only 4 ingredients... carrots (and carrot juice), cream, honey and a pinch of curry. You blend it and then strain it to achieve the end result which was a soup so fragile it felt like you had to be really careful eating it. The second one is a red cabbage soup my Dad made. It was really good too... but you have to love cabbage as it was mighty cabbagey, very intense flavor. The last one was a Thai coconut mushroom and tofu soup also made by my Dad. Good stuff people.

While on the subject of food I may as well mention the BEST SALAD..... we had it the other night with the carrot soup.



I made this salad with super fresh roughly chopped romaine. In the mix there are pistachio nuts, roasted red peppers, California navel orange segments and then fennel bulb and asparagus cooked in orange juice and a teaspoon of honey and a pinch of sea salt. We dressed it with Bragg cider vinegar dressing which is a favorite of mine because it allows the true flavors of the salad ingredients to shine through. All of the produce came from The 320 store downtown in Rockford. I love the 320.... and HEY! A shout out to all you Rockfordians... don't forget it is down there. It is well worth the drive downtown to shop for produce there. They have a better selection and better prices than most all of the big stores.

In other food related news, I have officially hit my Rockford 5 pound mark. This means it is time to go before 5 pounds turns into ten. When we get back to California I have to get my ass movin' and stick to foods that do not involve butter, flour, sugar and cheese as their main selling points. I really feel it for people who live in this climate. It is so hard to stay motivated and eat right when it is 12 degrees outside with the wind blowing at 30 miles per hour. You know the weather sucks when your dog does not even want to go outside.

So we will hit the road on Monday and we are taking the southern route through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to get back to California. We will have to drive up 5 to get back to Fairfield where the AS awaits our return. It feels like we have been away much longer than we actually have been. We start our gig in Mendocino on March 12th. We are really excited to get rolling with it! I can't wait for Mendocino!