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Recipe: thirteen bean soup

Okay kids, I really have been thinking of that giveaway. I believe I have settled on the prize, but I need a little more time to come up with an interesting question – something that allows me to learn a little bit about my readers. You can be sure that my questions are out of curiosity and not some bloody marketing strategy.

It’s soup season. I was going to say it is soup weather, except it wasn’t when I made this – it was positively balmy and sunny. I wanted to cry my eyes out. Where the *bleep* is my snow?! But today IS soup weather. Overcast, cooler (high in the 50s), rainy… I love it. I have been wanting to try a recipe for seven bean soup for several years. When I walked into the grocery store, I searched the bulk bins for beans. I needed a half cup each of seven types. And then I came across the bin with THIRTEEN beans, all mixed together, right there for me! It was so pretty, I could not resist.

Recipe: chinese stir-fried beef noodles

Can’t think. I’m tired and there were so many pictures and observations from today that I wouldn’t know where to begin. So I won’t just yet.

But there is a recipe…. because it is my dad’s birthday today. I think most people associate birthdays with cake, but I associate birthdays with noodles per the Chinese tradition.

My dad is the CEO of the house and my mom is the CFO. Dad likes management speak, because he was a manager as well as an engineer. When I was in college, they sent me a check for my birthday one year. My father told me, “I have authorized Mommy to release some funds for your birthday present.” What a hoot.

Recipe: shredded beef tacos

That phrase is the first sentence I learned in Spanish way back in high school, from a bunch of friends who took Spanish. I took French, see. So when I headed down to South America to do field work for graduate school I was all, “Guys, I don’t speak a lick of Spanish.” Well, except for por que tu eres un taco grande? Everyone assured me I’d pick it up.

I did pick up some Spanish, all with an Argentine accent. That got me a lot of funny stares when I flew across the Andes to Chile for work on a field project with Jeremy and a team of astronomers. When Jeremy met me at the airport in Santiago and we caught a cab, he was amazed while I chattered away with our driver in my Argentine Spanish explaining the geophysical research project I had been working on for the past month. Jeremy speaks Spanish. When he saw me off at the airport in the US, the only new Spanish I had learned was No me molestes! and Chupacabra (from an X-files episode).

When I say Jeremy speaks Spanish, I really mean that he knows a lot of Spanish, but the guy hardly speaks much in English and even less in Spanish. He actually *thinks* before he speaks. That’s why when he finally says something, everyone listens. It’s usually something quite good. But me, I run my mouth all the time and let my jabbering find its way around until I say what I wanted to say. I don’t hesitate to speak. Same goes for my Spanish.

**Jump for more butter**