Only the Soup is Gray Today

I began to notice that I seem to have a gray theme going here. As usual, Friday is about Shabbat dinner. Since there was a tremendous amount of mac and cheese and bread pudding left over, I decided to make a dairy dinner. Trusty Costco came through with some gorgeous wild tuna steaks from Senegal to put on my charcoal grill. Is that terribly un-eco of me? Am I helping fishermen in a third world country to make a living? Is the fish from African waters clean? So much to worry about these days other than “is it fresh?”

The soup is actually grayish-brown chestnut soup. Bear with me on going far afield on this one. I hate flying. It frightens me, but I do it anyway. When Ari lived in California, I took Atavan every time I flew there. I always thought I felt quite normal when I took it except it kept me from getting panic-stricken. Once, I went to Trader Joe's from right off the airplane. Among other things, I bought an enormous number of packages of peeled chestnuts. When Ari asked me what had possessed me to buy so many, I couldn't even remember the shopping trip! The chestnuts moved to Washington with Ari and a few months ago, I brought them home to Philly. He recently saw them in the closet and commented on the fact that they expired a few months ago. In keeping with my theme of cleaning out before Passover, I decided to use them today. The soup is actually quite delicious. If there is any interest, I will post the recipe.

The rest of the menu is spinach salad with warm non-bacon dressing. I also bought beautiful fresh strawberries to go with the bread pudding. If I ever finish writing this, I am planning to make some chocolate chip cookies (of which we will probably eat a few tonight) to take to Jamie's housewarming. Her invite said no gifts, but I feel funny going to a housewarming empty-handed.

Beth is coming tonight and possibly Megan, who is taking the PE exam today. We had the funniest coincidence last night. After working for hours on the garden, we debated whether to go out for dinner. It was already 7:15 p.m. when we were done showering, but I felt like having a salad. We decided to go to Pumpernick's. I remembered that I had a coupon. We found it after several minutes. We also needed to pick up a prescription for mom at Giant.  We left our driveway and found ourselves behind Beth's car at the corner. She noticed us and waved us alongside. It turned out that she and Megan were stopping at Target to buy a battery and then going to Pumpernick's for dinner. We wound up having dinner together, needless to say. Great minds not only think alike, they seem to act in unison.

Shabbat Shalom, all!