Cooking hasn't been all that exciting lately, but tonight I made a fabulously easy, tasty and comforting creamy cauliflower soup that was posted recently on Mark Bittman's blog by Annemarie Conte. In my excessive laziness I didn't even dice the potatoes evenly, and the cauliflower florets were cut more appropriately for a hors d'oeuvres dipping situation than a soup, but it still turned out great. I even used frozen dill for the garnish, but if you don't tell anyone they won't know. Fresh herbs in November are the biggest racket going at the grocery store.

Last weekend I finally attempted the caraway dumpling soup that Cathy's mom was craving right after we learned of her diagnosis. It took two jars of caraway seeds and about three hours to make, and unfortunately wasn't all that tasty. Maybe it was being subjected to the odor of caraway for such a long time before the soup was done, or maybe it was that I didn't grow up with my mom making it when I felt under the weather, but it didn't really live up to expectations. Of course the recipe made a full gallon of soup so now I have the added joy of dumping out a lot of food.

About a week ago I got a notice from the property management that due to The Possibility of Leaks, they'd be replacing my water heater on the 18th. Not only did I need to lock up/control my pets, but I also needed to clean out my storage closet in case the repairman needed to access pipes behind the wall. My storage closet is really, really full. In a flash of paranoia I actually wondered if they were kidding about my (very new looking) water heater because they in fact wanted me to clean out my storage closet. So Tuesday night I dragged out all the boxes and Rubbermaid bins and potting soil, and on Wednesday I worked from home in case they needed me to also move the huge wire shelving unit or take the cat door insert out of the patio door.

None of the above was necessary when it came right down to it. In my case they only needed to swap out some pipes. The whole ordeal was over in about 35 minutes, during which the repairman was a) fascinated by the drop cloth I'd put down, and b) thrilled that I was watching General Hospital, and c) sorry I'd had to evacuate my storage closet for absolutely no good reason. All in all, it wasn't a bad thing I had to pull all the crap out because I ended up consolidating and throwing away about three boxes worth of stuff, and I found my purple yoga blocks. However, since the new pipes were put in my water smells weird.