Comfort Food

There's some really good chicken sausage out there. I like pork, but I'm starting to prefer the chicken, and it is much less fatty making it nicer to cook and more health. I like making a little gravy from the drippings. Yum, nice for cold damp days when you have the blues.

I decided to try making some clam chowder on Saturday. Without dairy or wheat or course. Surprisingly it came out really good. In fact, I like it better. Pretty good on the first attempt. I used my rice flour approach for thickening, and plain soy milk for most of the liquid. Pretty basic chowder otherwise, but the seafood taste was nicer and enhanced somewhat more. I've not made chowder for ages, but this was so good I'm starting to think of enhancements for the not too distant future. Like different kinds of seafood in there, for kind of a cajun chowder. And it reheats much better than a dairy/wheat based chowder.

Tonight, if I've time and appetite when I get home there's a steak waiting. At least I'm treating myself well on the culinary front. Things are kind of a pain otherwise, but warm food and the opera work wonders. I decided not to go to Canada this week. I really want to escape, but I also want to spend some time with my nephew and nieces and that is more important to me at the moment.

I saw Julius Caesar with my friend Beth yesterday. Terrific. I met the parents of Cleopatra going into McCaw Hall, and they were walking on air. I think she was the best performer of the show. There weren't any real weak performers, just some that weren't as strong. Some interesting casting, as Handel wrote that with several castratos in mind. Julius was played by a woman, as well as Sesto. The villain, Tolomeo was played by a counter-tenor and Nireno was a male sorprano. You don't see many men who have trained head voices (falsetto), so this was a particularly interesting show because of the casting challenges. I think Cleopatra's parents must have been even more proud after the show.