It's All About the Soup

When winter rolls around, I kick into super-hyper soup mode. I make at least one soup per week. Tonight I found myself with a craving for cabbage, plus leftover red potatoes from the corn chowder last week. I looked through the cookbooks I borrowed from the library and decided on Polish Neighborhood (Cabbage Potato) Soup from Jae Steele's Ripe From Around Here. 

This soup has Tofurkey Beer Brats in it! I'd never tried the beer brats before, and they're really good. J described them as tasting like "real bratwurst, but without the grainy bits." Here here to no grainy bits! 

Apple cider vinegar and caraway seeds give this soup a tangy aftertaste. With a nice loaf of Italian bread, this made a hearty, warming dinner. 

 Okay ... you know how I wrote that I was committed to reading the new Batgirl series? Well, #5 came out this week. I read it as soon as I got home from the comic book store. And, well, it was kind of lacking. In just about everything. I've read other bloggers' complaints about Barbara's constant narration. It didn't bother me until this issue. At first, I thought the narration was charming because it showcased all of Barbara's insecurities. But now it seems like more of a cop-out. Instead of artwork that really shows us her anxieties about being a superheroine again, or a compelling plot line, we get what is basically a tepid voice-over.

I was thinking about putting together an official pull list (comics my local store will reserve for me on a weekly basis), and Batgirl will not be on it. I'll pick up #6 from the shelves next month, just to give it one final chance.

What will be on my impending pull list? Batwoman, Animal Man, Rachel Rising, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm still interested reading in Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, and Swamp Thing. Oh, and I will pick up a copy of Dial H when it comes out. DC recently announced the cancellation of six titles, and six new ones. Dial H is one of these new titles, with China Mieville at the helm. Here's an interview with Mieville. The premise sounds pretty interesting.

Despite my excitement about Dial H, the cancellations seem a bit premature to me. As Sue from DC Women Kicking Ass points out here, several of these titles feature men of color, which is troubling. It also makes me feel guilty that I wasn't picking up issues of O.M.A.C or Static Shock.

Okay, time to eat half a gigantic piece of chocolate "cheesecake" from Good Foods Co-op. Here is the cheesecake in question.