Comfort Chowder and Guilt-Free Salad

The illness has spread and the entire family is under the weather here...With a pounding headache and sore throat, I craved some serious comfort food with a bit of sweetness and lots of fatty goodness. So I dragged my aching body and forced myself to make two things: the gingerbread cake that I adore and corn chowder.

Both are from The Splendid Table book and at this point I think you can assume that every recipe I make is from this book.

There are bacon bits and tons of corn (fresh and frozen) in the soup and with big hunks of Pugliese bread, it really hit the spot. To offset the caloric overload of the soup, I also tossed together a colorful salad with radishes, red bell peppers, nectarines and greenleaf lettuce. No dressing. It was a refreshing accompaniment to the creamy soup. The salad, surprisingly, is my own creation. The combination worked wonders for me, though Kumi and MF are still a little woozy.

It has been a startling day. As I was coming back from a successful walk that got Kumi to nap, a delivery truck roared by and the driver called out "Hi Sanae!" The sweet-looking young man waving at me looked vaguely familiar, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out who he was. It took five blocks and heavy thinking for me to realize he was one of my favorite produce guys from Pike Place Market back in my downtown living days. When you see someone out of context, it's always a little disorienting.

It's also been startling because there is a strange animal on the roof. I hear scrapes like bird claws, but then they are replaced by heavy thumps as though it is rolling around and around. Do birds roll? At one point, there was a loud "bang!!!" and both Kumi and I stared up at the ceiling with trepidation. It sounded metallic and dangerous. We live on the top floor of a small brick building and I'm not accustomed to hearing noises above us. It has been five or six hours, and I still hear the occasional scrape and thump above...what could it be??