Three Beautiful Things 08/25/2021: Heel Test, That Bagel is Everything, Vegetable Soup and Noodles

1. Yesterday I felt flat. Today I was round! Much better day. 

I wanted to give my sore heel a not too demanding test today before the shoe insert I ordered arrives on Friday.

I parked the Sube near The Bean and walked a few blocks to the Avista bill pay drop box, deposited my payment, and walked back. I had taken the shoe insert that came with a pair of New Balance shoes I don't wear much any longer and put it the left shoe of my regular shoe for added cushioning. I'm not sure if it helped, but my walk was nearly painless and, as much as a short walk can be, invigorating.

2.  Back at The Bean, I ordered an Everything Bagel toasted with cream cheese. My discovery a few weeks ago that I find The Bean's Everything Bagel tastier than any Everything Bagel I've had in my past is a boon. In addition, the baristas who toast the bagel and apply the cream cheese put a perfect amount of cream cheese on the bagel. I've ordered bagels other places that applied a thick layer of cream cheese and I enjoy a more moderate amount -- and that's what they do at The Bean without me saying, "And a light amount of cream cheese, please". 

I brought the bagel home, enjoyed it with some club soda, and, indeed, my mood and my waist became a little rounder.

3.  On Monday evening and then again on Tuesday morning, I put the leftover bones, the carcass, from Sunday's chicken into the Dutch oven along with onion and celery with the purpose of making soup stock.

Well, I didn't have the lid all the way on the pot Tuesday morning, the liquid boiled dry, and my stock was ruined -- and I had a messy Dutch oven to clean up.

Today, with the temperature staying in the high sixties and lower to mid-seventies, it was cool enough for me to make vegetable soup using Kirkland chicken stock from a box.

I sautéed onion and celery together in our smaller Dutch oven, poured a box of stock over it, and cleaned vegetables out of the refrigerator: mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli, frozen corn, and frozen green beans. I cooked it all slowly. I had a half a box of stock in the fridge, poured it in a pot, added some water, brought it to a boil, and then cooked a small batch of Amish Made Wide Egg Noodles.

This soup brought me great pleasure, not only because it was delicious, but I love it being cool enough that I can prepare and enjoy eating soup again.

Footnote: When the noodles were cooked, I spooned them out of the pot. In the pot, then, was a rich blend of starchy egg noodle chicken broth and I poured it into a canning jar and drank it. 

I was ecstatic that I didn't pour the water and noodles into a colander and let that golden starchy broth go down the drain. 

Drinking a glass of this liquid felt fortifying.