SUNDAY
           6 January 2008

    As this xanga has been temporarily reconfigured as a wedding site, the underlying theme of most posts from now until {date to be determined} will be (of course) wedding planning. As such, I am already beginning to find that preparing for this wedding in the next coming months may be a much more emotionally challenging task than I had ever expected.

    You watch people plan weddings and get married in life (and on TV) and it seems like everything just gets taken care of. What I never realized is that, most of the time, the bride must be aware of every little detail and oversee (at least in some way) those details to make sure they get taken care of. Not only that, but in taking care of the details and sense of diplomacy is so vital I am beginning to see now why the famed “bridezillas” become so distressed. I have no high-flying dreams that this wedding is all about ME–if it were, why would we invited so many other people?

    A wedding is a union of two people before God, family and friends. Essentially, God, family and friends greatly outweigh two single people….so I’m thinking that it’s not about them as much as it is about the witnesses, both Divine and human. Nonetheless, as the bride here, I am finding that my patience is going to be greatly tested in the next several months as I attempt to plan a wedding for so many different people. I may as well throw my ideas of  dream wedding out the window and start planning for the people attending…otherwise, I may find myself in the odious and growing family of Homosapiens bridezilla.

    SUNDAY   
        18 November 2007  
  
    Today’s lunch was an effort at the gourmet art of using leftovers. In the sorority house, we have a refrigerator with full-time access that is used to store the leftovers from our all-house meals. It is usually a store of delights and sometimes duds (not everybody likes spaghetti squash….more for me!). There has been a large plastic tub of red potatoes in the fridge for a couple days, and I didn’t want it to go to waste. So what else is there to be done but….potato soup!

    I searched around the internet for an interesting recipe, and came up with one that involved fennel and spinach (two of my favorite vegetables). I made a few tweaks of my own, and the final recipe is below:

Potato Soup (a la Margaret)

    4 T butter
    1/2 diced white onion
    1 tsp garlic
    1 T fennel seeds
    2-3 T flour
    3 cups chicken broth
    4 small-medium red potatoes, quartered
    1 cup fresh, chopped spinach
    1/2 tsp thyme
    1 tsp  sea salt
    1 tsp ground pepper
    1/2 c heavy cream

    Heat butter in a soup pot until melted and bubbling; add onions, garlic and fennel seeds. Cook until onion is translucent. Add flour slowly and continue stirring until mixture thickens. Stir in chicken broth, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring to a low boil. Add potatoes and heat until tender.

    When mixture has reached a boil, remove from stove and pour, cup by cup, into blender or Cuisinart. Pulse/blend until mixture is smooth. Pour soup back into pot on low heat, add spinach and cook until wilted.  Stir in heavy cream and any additional salt or pepper to taste. Enjoy!

    Serves 4.

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There is something about gray, drizzly weather that especially compels me to plan a visit to the British Isles (+ Ireland). Maybe it is because of the novels of the English sort which infer this sort of weather–The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights–that have always been my favourite. Or maybe it is a brooding curiosity for a place where sunshine is as rare as snow in Georgia.

In Italy, this type of weather was rare. When it rained, it poured–in torrents that poured like streams down the hill we climbed to reach our monastery-home. Even cold weather was often accompanied by sunshine and puffy clouds.

The weather change here in Michigan is a welcome one after weeks of stifling temperatures inside the house (even more so than the outside). With it comes the expectation of snow, Thanksgiving, Christmas and all the lovely things that seem so far off during summer….but sidle ever-closer with gray weather.

    Short of driving (rather, walking) to the nearest gas station for an English Toffee latte, my daily morning ritual is focused almost completely on making a good cup of coffee. The most recent recipe has come pretty close, but is certainly no rival to my gas-station favorite. I make the coffee good and strong (espresso would be ideal), then add 1/2 a packet of hot chocolate mix and1 or 2 tablespoons of hazelnut-flavored creamer. Voile! A somewhat frothy cafe mocha reminiscent of hazelnut–perfect for an early fall morning.
    And yes, autumn is beginning to creep into Hillsdale, Michigan. The temperature took a major dip, yesterday, reminding me what it’s like to be here for the advent of fall. Last year, I was sweating as I walked through the streets of Rome, Florence and Cortona. Fall there was much later in coming (later Oct.-early Nov.), and it was only once that we caught sight of flurried snowflakes. I hear Michigan is supposed to have a cold winter this year.