Soup's On!

I can cook. If I have to. While I'm no gourmet chef I don't turn out too many plates of mush that everyone refuses to eat. I prefer to take the easy way: my butter tarts are pretty decent, but they'll always be made with a frozen tart shell. I would serve you a Chicken Cordon Bleu from Costco's freezer, but I'd never pair it up with instant mashed potatoes. Some easy food, just doesn't qualify as food. My spaghetti sauce comes in a jar because I wouldn't begin to know what spices would create that sort of flavour.

When I was first married, 25 years ago, each payday I would buy one or two spices to stock up the cupboard. 2 years ago when we moved into this house I threw out things like Cream of Tartar, Paprika and Meat Tenderizer which had no bar codes and little 89 cent price tags on them. I guess I never did figure out how to use those things. If you want a tender steak, buy a tender steak, that's my theory. I managed to pare my spice rack down to 3 things: garlic, ginger and cinnamon.

Barbee has always harassed me saying things like "What do you mean you don't have thyme?" I got time but no thyme. I was at Costco yesterday and look what I found for $15 bucks:



It has 16 jars filled with different spices. There are things like caraway, marjoram, and coriander. I am absolutely clueless as to how a person might use such things. There are even things I'd never heard of. Like Romarin. Just for fun I thought I'd taste it. Hmmm - tastes like grass just like most of the rest of them. When I replaced it on the rack I put the English side out and realized it was actually Rosemary. Ooops, I guess I have heard of that. Although once again, I am clueless as to how to use it.

For now, it looks impressive sitting on my counter and it will give me something to throw away in 20 years when we move into our new retirement home.