He Made Soup - Wednesday, December 15

I love a man that can cook!! Corn and Porcini Mushroom Chowder

Ryan surprised me with the idea to try to make a soup we discovered near Stinson Beach - Creamed sweet corn and porcini mushrooms. The only thing he let me do was peel the potatoes, I got to sit around the kitchen and point-out where things were. All while drinking wine, eating bread and butter and knitting.

For complete recipe click here


Then while the soup simmered, we put on an old black and white movie neither of us have seen, Casablanca!! We were in the kitchen so we can stir the soup watching the movie on my laptop. So during the moive when Sam (Dooley Wilson) starts playing and singing As Time Goes By - we got up and slow danced.



Such a simple magical moment. It takes me back to our first slow dance at his brother's wedding. <3

Cookie Disaster

My sister and I have been slowly making our cookies and freezing them to give away for Christmas. This morning, everyone in my household was up early and I found myself awake talking to my mom at 7. She was proud to showed off what her and my sister spent the evening doing. Beautiful sugar cookies - glazed, piped in white and ornamented with tiny little decorating balls. My mom even brought out her cake decorating tools to do the piping in. They worked very hard and got little done.

Instead of going back to sleep, I found myself with plenty of energy and figured I'd start baking the dough we had refrigerated over night. I turned on the oven.... here is the sad part of my story. Those beautiful sugar cookies they worked so hard on. We'll they stored it in the oven to dry. I knew this, I told them to put it there so my dad and the dog don't ruin them and they showed me them this morning. I don't know what I was thinking. I feel terrible. It only took a couple of minutes to melt all their work and crystallize the sugar into another form entirely.

I do have the best family in the world. I called feeling utterly wretched to confess my mistake to them. They must have heard it in my voice, they weren't even mad. I cried. My mom laughed. My sister planned out her break from work to help me replace the cookies. Ryan even went to the store to get the missing ingredients.

So if you are lucky enough to get sugar cookies. You should know blood, sweat and tears truly went into making them. I don't think I going to bake again.

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Surprise Soup!!

Lately I have been spending time in Half Moon Bay helping my grandma. She fell and broke her right wrist in four places and had surgery to rebuild it. It makes me very thankful to; one have the time to help her and second of all it allows me to reflex how lucky I am. I am spoiled because I do normal see Ryan everyday. While it is just boring stuff like the gym, errands or tv. It feels comfortable and simple. But even just being gone a couple of day out of each weeks I miss him. It makes my day to see him walk into the gym looking for me, or get a silly text during the day. Even reading books at Borders while sharing coffee is special.

This last time I came home we agreed to meet at the gym as soon as I drove into town to get it done with. He had gotten a surprise for me. For dinner we were having SOUP!! (and we needed to pick up good bread to eat with it). That was all the information he gave me - even with my whining and puppy dog eyes. I ran home to get a movie (Harry Brown got delivered while I was away). When I got to his place it was all set. Two bowls of seafood gumbo, aged imported hard cheese and root beer from Whole Foods and asiago and roasted garlic bread from Trader Joe's. I am smiling mow just thinking about it. There is a way to make everyday things special. I love him. <3