Inspired by all the grilled cheese talk here, and the terrible weather outside, tonight's Dinner and Downton meal is homemade tomato soup and sort of fancy grilled cheese.

Nice.

My mom never turned the heat on in our Connecticut house unless she couldn't bear it. The living room was warm because of the fireplace (metal enclosed, not open) but the rest of the house was frigid. So as a result I am a total delicate flower who can't handle anything under 68. In fact, our California bungalow is so damned drafty and poorly insulated that I usually have to turn it even higher in order to maintain some level of warmth. We turned our heat on for the first time during the rainstorm on Halloween; mock me if you must, but it made me very happy. And the cats? Oh yeah. We have floor vents, and there's pretty much a cat on every vent.

Oops. Didn't need to be said twice.

It's grilled cheese on bread, just not a sandwich -- yesterday I look the last of a baguette I had, split it, and then sliced some white cheddar with pumpkin and put it on the baguette and ran it under the broiler. SO GOOD.

Quick question: I have not gotten to the house in Frederick to turn on the heat yet. Tonight there is a freeze warning. How much trouble will I be in if the heat is not on?

Our California bungalow is not only drafty, it has neither central heat nor air, and it is mostly uninsulated. There's usually only a 5-10% difference between inside and outside the house. I can handle the too hot house in the summer waaaay better than the house that's 40-50 degrees in the evenings.

I made a big pot of chicken noodle soup yesterday, so I shouldn't need to cook anything today, but now I kinda want to.

Maybe after I hit the grocery store and Toys R Us for an Elsa tutu dress. We're having a combined birthday party for Niece 1 & Niece 2 this coming weekend and I'm trying to get the rest of my shopping done this afternoon.

I also get to have my performance review on Friday right before I leave for the weekend. If it's awful, at least I don't have to be at work the rest of the day?

A solid hour+ of typing up notes and updating the database seems like enough.... of course, it's not nearly done, but whatever.

I made a big pot of veggie chili last night to welcome the Fall. Latest innovation was to liberally sprinkle the faux ground meat with Smoked Paprika as I sauteed it with onions and mushrooms in olive oil and butter. That gave it a good kick. Then I used my usual Moroccan seasoning: allspice, cloves, cinnamon and cayenne. Then decided I needed something sweet and acidic to balance it so I put in a couple ounces of Tangerine Juice, which was (surprisingly) just the thing.

All pleasingly alchemical. I'm getting much more conscious of how to balance flavors with acidic elements now - citrus, tomatoes, vinegar. Helps a lot with those richer dishes.

In other news, my downstairs neighbor Pete - who is disabled on two canes - fell and could not get up! Fortunately we share an air shaft and JZ heard him calling while she was in the bathroom. Poor guy had fallen under his computer desk with this chair on top of him, and a painful lump under his back. He had his phone on and had called the paramedics but I was able to get the chair off and roll him on his side for some relief.

He's been getting more back spasms as he gets older and I'm worried he won't be able to stay in this building where he has to climb a flight of steps (arduously) to get to his room.