Beautiful Soup — Inside A Black Apple

Lately, Josiah has been making a variation on the Neely's corn chowder that I am just nuts about.

The recipe he uses comes from their book, and looks to be just slightly different than the one linked up there (bunches of paprika and sweet potato are in the book recipe). I impulsively bought the book for him as a fun, out-of-left-field Christmas present, and while we're not really barbecuing or deep frying people, we are most certainly soup people. He leaves out the bacon and adds browned + shredded chicken, and it becomes this extremely hearty, warmingly spicy dinner. It is also fantastic a day later, after everything has been commingling in the refrigerator overnight.

Also on the local eats front, we went to Dove Vivi a few nights ago with the B's, and...boy - their specialty cornmeal crust pizza is pretty otherworldly. I've always assumed that regular ol' pizza was already as comfort food-y as it could get, but their buttery, almost quiche-like pies turned the comfort factor up to 11. I got leeks, red pepper, pesto and feta and it was outstanding - although very rich. Just one more excellent Portland eatery...we are some of the luckiest ducks as far as restaurants go.

And thank you so much for all the excitement and kind words about the upcoming show! I hope everyone local (and semi-local) can be there...and of course, I'll keep everyone posted as we get closer to June 4th.