Greetings from chef Laura

Bonsoir cuties! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend whether you cozied up by the fire with a loved one to escape the cold or wandered out for an adventure. I pretty much only left my house to consume copious amounts of chai lattes a la Starbucks. Yes, I was horridly lazy and it felt so completely wonderful.

In order to ease my (barely existing) guilt over being such a sloth for 2 days straight, I had to accomplish something. So I tapped into my domestic skills and took to the kitchen. I didn't quite fulfill last week's resolution of cooking three times, but I got close. I prepared two meals that I had never made before, and that is 2 more meals than I have made in months so I did feel slightly proud. I alluded to Friday's cooking venture already. After a successful afternoon of ball gown shopping with the bestie, we were quite ready to refuel with something warm and delicious. And what better meal to enjoy with a friend on a frightfully cold evening than the classic favorite: grilled cheese and tomato soup. I have never actually made homemade soup before and tomato soup is my all-time favorite meal. It seemed high time to branch out from the lackluster Campbell's version and try my hand at it myself. I had been wanting to try out a recipe that Mara had posted back in December and all I have to say is oh.my.goodness. It was absolutely the best tomato soup I've ever had and I know that had way more to do with the incredible recipe than the chef. Try it for sure if you are a fan of tomato basil soup. Saturday night I just couldn't quite fully shake the laziness and decided to go with comfort food and make un petit déjeuner to cap off my evening. Yes, you are probably wondering how it would be possible for me to have never made breakfast before and that most certainly would be a lie if I tried to pass that off. But, it is fully truth to say that I have never made French Toast before which is exactly why I chose it. Well, that and I had all the ingredients. I added amaretto coffee creamer to the egg and cinnamon mixture just to glam the meal up a bit. And at the last minute I decided scrambled eggs would be the perfect side. Voilà: a classy brinner if you will. Not exactly what you would call cooking genius but I thoroughly enjoyed both of my cooking ventures this weekend, and hopefully I won't wait months to cook again.

This week's resolution is partly to please the mother and partly to reassure myself that I still enjoy it. Sadly, I have not read a novel since graduation. Reading has always been a favorite pastime of mine, but lately I have put it on the back burner, much to my mother's chagrin. So this week I will challenge myself intellectually and set the goal of getting at least half way through a novel. I won't say all the way finished, because I know I have a super busy week, what with being in NYC at the end of the week and moving my almost-roomie down to DC! But, I will make major progress on a novel this week. That is my resolution.

Bisous!