More Snow, Medical freezing, Ostende.

Happy St. David’s Day.
Wednesday night it continued to snow although not all night, by the time we got up on Thursday everywhere looked quite beautiful. I took some pix but they really don’t do it justice.




As you can see from the shot above, the road had already started clearing so the driving wasn’t be bad. Sadly these pix don’t give you a true idea of just how lovely it was. The last is the best. The sun wasn’t out, but there was a beautiful light which I just haven’t managed to capture.

If you read sci fi, you might find the story of this frozen baby interesting. Immediately made me think of cryogenics. In fact the baby wasn’t frozen, but before he was born his mother found out he had excessively fast heartbeats and once he was born, (they performed an early caesarian) the doctors, having established he had supra ventricular tachycardia, tried to reduce the rate by giving all kinds of medications. Eventually they tried cooling the baby down and reducing the heartbeat that way. They then warmed up the baby but once he was back to a normal temp, the heart started racing again. They cooled him right down again and then warmed him much slower the second time. The heartbeat stayed normal and eventually he was allowed to go home. Quite a story. Seems like the parents had a pretty rough time of it too. This all took place in the UK by the way.

My bowling at the travel league was pathetic, but I had great fun with my friends. Matt had one really good game but then nothing good at all. I was with the wild bunch, noisy, but we had lots of laughs. Bowl again today, bit hard on the old legs. Saturday we are expecting friends to dinner but it turns out one of them isn’t too well so there is some doubt about this now. Hopefully we will know after bowling.

I haven’t made French Onion Soup in  years, I came across a recipe in a blog someone sent me, and decided to look for one. This soup takes me back many years. We used to sail to Ostende, Belgium, when I was in my 20s and we youngsters would go to the Kursaal which was both a concert hall, casino and dance hall. We used to quit there around 2 in the morning, not 100% sober, and call into a restaurant on the way back to the boat to have some French Onion Soup, yes at 2-3 in the morning. In the season, the Belgians would stay open as long as there were customers. It was great soup too.

French Onion Soup

4 servings
AllRecipes.com
"The best onion soup you will ever have!!!!!" — chefbuzz

• 1/4 cup butter
  
• 3 onions, thinly sliced
  
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
  
• 2 1/2 cups water
  1/2 cup red wine

• 2 (10.5 ounce) cans condensed beef broth
  
• 1 French baguette
  
• 8 ounces sliced Swiss cheese
  

Directions

1. Melt butter or margarine in a 4 quart saucepan. Stir in sugar. Cook onions over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
2. Stir in flour until well blended with the onions and pan juices. Add water, wine, and beef broth; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover soup, and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Cut four 1 inch thick slices of bread from the loaf. Toast the bread slices at 325°F (165°C) just until browned, about 10 minutes. Reserve the remaining bread to serve with the soup.
4. Ladle soup into four 12 ounce, oven-safe bowls. Place 1 slice toasted bread on top of the soup in each bowl. Fold Swiss cheese slices, and fit onto toasted bread slices. Place soup bowls on a cookie sheet for easier handling.
5. Bake at 425°F (220°C) for 10 minutes, or just until cheese is melted

Have a great day