OH GOD THERE IS SNOW WHAT DO WE DO

OH GOD IT WILL SNOW HERE

IT IS TIME FOR PANIC!

Seriously, ladies. There might be two feet of snow. It will get plowed, don't worry. You don't need to buy out the entire Cost-Co of bread and toilet paper. It will be okay.

...That said I'm planning on going out tomorrow and acquiring the important things in life. Since I am not living in a den of heathens prone to panic attacks, we are adequately stocked on all the little things, and will be able to eat and poop without fear. No, I am thinking of something much more important.

Alcohol.

Yes, we are tragically low at the moment on wine. The Boyfriend and I did pick up a twelve pack of Sam Adams Winter Ale and a six of the Noble Pils after skiing left us a deep craving for beer. I've got to say, the Noble Pils is really worth it. It's light and citrusy, very limey without that bitter fake taste that the +LIME lite beers tend to get. It's not what I really want in the winter, though maybe I don't know WHAT I want, because I sucked down three bottles of it within two hours of buying the six pack, leaving The Boyfriend and Mother to fight for the other three. The Boyfriend won by distracting Mother with a Sarah Palin book.

I have also had the opportunity to taste a really great Sauvignon Blanc. I've been hating on Sauvignon Blanc a fair bit on this blog. There's a taste in the grape, sort of ammoniac, that I'm just not digging. This wine, called Angelique or something equally precious, did not have that "off" taste at all. It was very good, very refreshing. I intend to buy a couple bottles of that on Operation: PANIC BUY, along with the C2H3M.

Tonight, while watching Iron Chef (Top Gear wasn't on), I was drinking Chateau L'Ermitage, a red rhone wine comprised of Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache. It's a toasty wine, if that makes sense. It has an almost burned smell and taste to it that I really kind of like.

It was not the best thing to pair with my re-heated leek and potato soup, which was a disaster in its own right. I (and Bitches) LOVE soup, I love making it and I love eating it, and I usually do an okay job at vegetable soups. However, I made the mistake every novice cook makes when they do potato soup: I put the damn thing through a blender.

For some SCIENCE here: putting taters and other starchy things through a blender, especially the crazy rocket-powered one my dad bought, crushes the cell walls and releases a lot of water. What you end up with is a gooey mess flavored vaguely like watered-down potato. I knew this, but thought "oh how bad can it be?" and went ahead and did it anyway. This is why I'm an idiot and Chef doesn't allow me to do anything in the kitchen. This failure was only heightened by my complete lack of leek knowledge. I had never worked with this particular oniony thing before and had no idea what the right sizes were, so I ended up buy a bunch of *really tiny* leeks and not using all of them that I could, since I had no idea where to stop chopping them.

 It was the worst kind of cooking failure: the edible kind. No, seriously put that eyebrow down. When you truly cock something up in the kitchen, you can at least throw your hands in the air dramatically while pitching it into the woods and call out for pizza. When it's edible, just not good... you feel almost obligated to eat it. Luckily, the Boyfriend swooped in and saved the mess with some Old Bay, which is a staple of every Maryland kitchen.

Cooks Illustrated Magazine solved the science struggle of leek and potato soup in a recent issue. They also have a recipe for brownies with the texture of box mix and the flavor of homemade. My god. It's the best magazine ever.