1. It was a lot of fun to go next door to Christy and Everett's house and watch Gonzaga play a tense game with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. From the outset, UNCG impressed me. They were a stout team, defensively athletic, sometimes intimidating, and played with urgency and intensity. Thanks to Zach (Snack) Norvell, Jr. fearlessly draining a three point jumper in the last minute and adding a free throw later, the Zags held on to win this game 68-64. I think the tightness of the game nearly ate up Christy's insides. She loves the Zags and gets emotionally involved with their games and this game was more of an acid churner than a nail biter for her! I had fun watching the game with Christy and Everett and, thanks to text messaging, also enjoyed exchanging comments back and forth a bit with Terry Turner, who was at the game in Boise, and Byrdman who was watching the game at home.
I also watched a lot of the Ohio State/South Dakota State game. I hated to see South Dakota State lose because I'd love to watch their forward Mike Daum play more. Now Ohio State plays Gonzaga on Saturday afternoon. It was hard for me, after watching both games, to believe Gonzaga crushed Ohio State 86-59 back in November. I'll be shocked if Gonzaga blows out the Buckeyes again on Saturday. But, Christy's anxious Zag-loving stomach would sure like it!
2. When I shopped at Yoke's this afternoon, I bought a single bottle of Scuttlebutt's Hoptopia Imperial IPA. For the first time ever, I drank six ounces of it and the complex combination of its malty sweetness and bursts of hoppiness transported me back to Eugene and the taste of a beer I enjoyed years ago at 16 Tons. For the life of me, I don't know what that beer was, but I sure enjoyed mind traveling back to those days trying out a great variety of beers, yakkin' with Jesse and Emily and Jake and Thomas and other minders of the taps, and sittin' around laughing and socializing with the group of guys I joined up with on Thursdays, figuring out what to do next in our life with the Deke, and meeting new friends, like Jay and Sherri. I love the power of the taste of beer to transport me like this and for about twenty minutes this evening, it was fun to be in our little house and in Eugene at the same time.
3. After the Zags' game, the Deke and I each ate a chicken thigh leftover from last night's dinner. I had stored the thighs in the liquid that was leftover from semi-braising the chicken last night. It was teeming with flavorful fat and many slices of onion were in it. I had nearly a quart of freshly thawed chicken stock I made last week in the fridge and I wondered if I could make an onion soup with all of this.
I sliced three onions into thin pieces and put them in some heated up olive oil in the Dutch oven. I covered them and let them cook for quite a while -- almost an hour -- after I seasoned them with salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar. When the onions were cooked through and as caramelized as I thought they'd get, I added in the thick and tasty and fat liquid from last night's semi-braise and the quart of stock, brought it to a slow boil, turned down the heat, and let the soup simmer for a while.
I didn't add all sorts of ingredients like white wine and fresh thyme and bay leaves to this soup that the recipe called for. I didn't want layers of flavors: I just wanted to enjoy the savory and sweet combination of the chicken liquids and the onions on their own.
That was, I'm happy to report, a smart move. After two small bowls of this soup, I stopped myself from eating more, but there's a quart of this onion and chicken stock ambrosia waiting for the Deke and me to dive back into when we are ready.
I hope I can duplicate this soup in the future. So much of its success depended on the way I prepared the chicken thighs on Wednesday night. I hope I'll remember how I did that -- it was a new approach and not out of a cookbook, but more out my imagination. I hope having this written record of it will help me fix the chicken and the onion soup in a tasty way again.
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