Three Beautiful Things 03-09-2023: Nuts About Hot Milk, Clam Chowder for Dinner, Lt. Columbo Crushes the Colonel

 1. I've been kind of nuts about hot milk lately. When I fix coffee in the morning, I heat milk on the stove in a saucepan (we don't have/don't want a microwave). I make pour over coffee and fill my mug about half way up and finish filling it with hot milk. I'm hooked. (I'm making myself Cafe au Lait.)

Today, I decided that rather than make my oatmeal with hot water, I'd try hot milk. 

It was awesome, especially when I added a little granola, a bunch of blueberries, and some peanut butter to my bowl. 

2. Today, I suddenly remembered that Debbie had ordered a package of tins of clams some time back. I had been pondering what to prepare for dinner this evening and it came to me: let's have clam chowder.

So, I chopped four slices of bacon, cooked them until crisp, removed the bits, and melted a slab of butter and cooked a chopped onion and a couple cloves of garlic. I seasoned the onion and garlic with ground thyme. 

While the onion and garlic cooked, I drained two cans of clams, keeping the juice. 

Once the onion was soft, I added flour and whisked it for a minute or two and then added clam juice, milk, a bay leaf, and chicken stock to the pot and stirred all this over heat until it began to thicken a bit. 

I had chopped up some potatoes and I added them to the pot, brought it all to a boil, and immediately turned the heat down low and let this bubble away until the potatoes were tender, not mushy.

Once the potatoes were about right, I added half and half and the clams. 

I finished this project about three hours before we'd be dining, so I poured the chowder and the bacon pieces into the slow cooker and kept it warm until dinner time.

I bought a couple really good artisan bread rolls at Yoke's and they were a perfect compliment to the chowder. 

Debbie enjoyed the chowder a lot. 

The only thing I enjoy more than cooking is when Debbie enjoys what I've fixed. 

3. I mixed myself a gin sidecar (two parts gin, one part Cointreau, a squeeze or two of juice from a lemon) and Debbie and I watched Columbo turn an arrogant colonel heading up a paramilitary think tank inside out. Columbo nailed him not only as a murderer, embezzler, and adulterer, but as a pompous ass who gravely underestimated Lt. Columbo's savvy, persistence, and intelligence. Admittedly, Lt. Columbo wears his shrewdness lightly, making it easy for smug and conceited egotistical characters like the colonel to think they've outwitted Columbo, but in the end, Columbo, tonight, prevailed.