Quarantining: Work Vacation Work Vacation and a Tomato-Themed Supper

I've a bit of work interfering with vacation sewing time this week. A webinar called "Teaching Your Course Online: the Essentials" at Stanford from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. every weekday and a social science council meeting in the morning midweek. Oh well. At least I continue sewing while listening to the webinar. I wondered why yesterday, I didn't already have the yellow row all stitched and the blue row stitched to it. Work even if it was just a one hour meeting got in the way of progress. But I am thinking that progress on this quilt, what has been accomplished, is HUGE. These blocks after all had been sitting unsewn for at least two years. Before I left work, I let the fabric layers hang down over the edge of the table, so I could smooth and unwrinkle before stitching and quilting the next row.

Once I got home, it was time to walk the dog at the park, and afterward we learned one of our neighbor's dog died. And so with a heavy heart, Sadie and I trekked to the drug store to buy a condolence card for Jo to show our sympathy for her loss of her BAE, Delilah. And then to the grocery store for milk and green beans and kidney beans and lunch meat. But I still had an hour to make dinner after our outing. I managed to get some kidney and garbanzo beans soaking--hubs brought home wax beans--my favorite for a 4-bean salad for the weekend. I also took out Cheddar and Swiss slices from blocks that I had broken down from the freezer (That's what one does with large quantities from the warehouse store). I slathered Dijon mustard, which was strange for the hubs on a grilled cheese. Next time, no mustard.

And poured the tomato and basil soup from the tub into the pot.

But wait. There's more. I picked some basil from the herb garden and chopped up an heirloom (Purple Cherokee) from our vegetable garden. And just for shit and giggles despite my hypertension, sprinkled a little sea salt on the fresh veggies.

And sliced a small Taxi, Green Zebra, and Costoluto tomatoes and layered them between the cheese for the grilled sandwiches. I also nuked the sandwiches in the microwave for a minute because I worried that the cheese hadn't defrosted enough for them to get all hot and bubbly in my cast iron while grilling the buttered sides of the sandwiches.

Below I showed the hubs how to plate his meal: remove sandwich from the frying pan onto cutting board and slice in half. Ladle hot tomato soup from pot into bowl and top with the fresh chopped tomatoes and basil.

Thankfully a marine layer has made our weather cool enough to eat a winter meal, but I think all the fresh tomatoes straight from the field has made the meal rather summery in theme.