Dear Customers,
This is the time of year when winter really begins to weigh on me. Sure, we’ve made it through January and most of February, but Spring is still just a distant dot on the horizon. My mailbox is jammed full of seed catalogs nearly every day, but it’s way too early to start any seeds in a sunny window. Glancing at the calendar, I’m dismayed to count at least 12 weeks between now and when I can plant the garden – and that’s the best-case scenario-mid May, depending upon the possibility of frost!
There is no more football on Sunday afternoons, despite what Duane “the Rock” Johnson would have us believe. The UFL is like watching the NBA B-League. There’s some talent, just not enough to earn a spot on an NFL roster. So why bother?
My wife and I are both, technically “retired” but I still am either at the supermarket or on my home computer dialed in pretty much seven days a week. Heather retired from her career at teaching math two or three years ago, but she took a part-time job here at Costa’s because she literally cannot sit still! Which leaves us Sundays as the only day we are able to spend any quality time together. We often make a big kettle of soup this time of year to simmer and bubble on the stove even if we’re the only two who will be home. It’s just something we started doing many years ago and have kept it up even though we often end up with leftovers for the rest of the week.
Yesterday, into a large pot, I cubed two flatiron steaks, (could have used hamburger, but didn’t) a medium sweet onion, several tablespoons of crushed garlic, a can of diced tomatoes, several carrots and ribs of celery, a small can of tomato paste, a box of beef broth, the prerequisite sliced mushrooms, 3 large russet potatoes, cubed, two cans of Navy beans and several seasonings. After browning the meat, onion and garlic, I stirred in the rest of the ingredients in no particular order and turned up the heat till it reached a boil.
Leaving the lid cracked open to keep the soup from boiling and burning to the bottom of the pot, I turned the heat down to a simmer and let the flavors marry for about an hour. And as my stepmother, Mary, used to say when she threw several unrelated foods into a pot, “It come good!”