Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Soup

As I noted yesterday, the weather has been rather warm of late. It hit 92 yesterday, smashing the old record by six degrees. Fortunately, the weather broke today and we’ve returned to the sunny, but not-too-hot, California coastal weather we’ve all come to know and love.

Of course, I didn’t get to experience any of the great outdoors today, hot or not. After our usual battalion “individual races” for PT this morning, I spent the rest of my time inside. First, I had the oh-so-exciting pre-field exercise (FEX) brief to attend. Thankfully it was over a good thirty minutes early; nonetheless I spent my entire morning sitting in the base theatre learning absolutely nothing. I had two slides to brief which I managed to do briefly. Not all chaplains/preachers are long winded!

After a short break for lunch, I headed back to the office to check my email (literally the only work I did today) before heading up to the skipper’s office to practice the FEX confirmation brief that we’re going to present to the two commodores tomorrow. For this brief, I have but one simple easy slide, yet I had to sit through the practice. Oh well. After that, we all headed back over to the theatre to hear the new skipper address the combined wardroom and chief’s mess for the first time. Game. Set. Match. That was my day—spent in meetings and briefs!

The one highlight for the day was lunch. Melissa was awfully hungry and so was I, so we made grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for lunch. Melissa thinks I’m silly for taking this so seriously, but I am very particular about the whole grilled cheese sandwich and soup combo. First, the sandwich MUST include: bread (lightly buttered), processed American cheese slices (usually four), two or three strips of bacon (depending on the size of each strip) and a handful of olives with pimentos. This combination makes a lovely sandwich. Now I know that some of you probably wonder why a cheese freak like me doesn’t use real cheddar cheese for the sandwich. What you don’t know is that the above sandwich combo is a classic from my childhood—just the way mom and dad made it. Tradition. You can’t change it!

The second half of the tradition involves making tomato soup out of a can. Again, I’ve made my own tomato soup before, but soup out of a can, loaded with sodium is part of my childhood. I INSIST that my tomato soup contains an extra can-full of milk, not water, lest it be way too runny and not at all creamy. Now that’s what I call a lunch!