Ya Shudda Been Here Last Week

In case you don't know it, I love the heat. As a kid growing up in Cleveland I delivered the morning paper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer. In the dead of winter, I would get up at five in the morning and freeze my ass off. With the wind howling in off of Lake Erie, it was enough to make me vow to get the hell out of that out-door freezer and head for a warmer clime.

When I arrived at LAX one February evening and it was eighty degrees as I deplaned, I knew I was at my new home.

Well last week, I was working in Watertown So. Dakota, a very nice place with very nice folks. But let's face it, it aint a beach city. The weather was almost nice in SD, it rained half of the time and it was still September so the cool mornings were just that, very cool, but not freakin' cold.

Back at the marina however, it was a very different story. Last Monday the all time high temperature record was broken. Not for that particular date, but the all time record. How does 113 sound? Sounded pretty good to me.

Here it is now exactly one week later and the temp is less than half of that 113.

I know, I know, all of those Clevelanders are wondering what the hell am I bitching about, it's still thirty degrees above freezing. Well after living here in La La Land, thirty degrees above is cold.

There is one thing however to take the sting out of being so cold. Grandma Kochberg's home-made matzo ball soup.

It's about the only thing worthwhile about being cold. So here we go again. The days are getting shorter and colder, so light off the soup-kettle cookie and make us a pot. It's real complicated.

You get a box of Manischewitz Matzo Ball Mix. There's two packets in the box. For one or two hungry sailors make only one packet. Blend two eggs with two tablespoons of oil and mix in the packet of he Matzo. Put the mixture in the fridge to firm up.

Bring four cups of water up to a boil. Take one of the two boxes of the Mrs. Grass' Chicken Noodle Soup mix and pour the contents into the pot. There will be noodles, powdered chicken broth and the ever so lovely Golden Flavor Nugget swirling around the pot.

After the soup comes back to the boil, take the Matzo mix out of the fridge and roll into balls the size of golf balls and drop into the soup. You should make four. At this point, I like to throw in about a 1/4 cup of rice because I like the chicken and rice combo.

Cover the pot, turn down the heat to a simmer and take smell as the galley starts to take on the aroma.

Now be patient and wait twenty minutes because as Alton Brown likes to say, your patience will be rewarded.