i had some vegetable alphabet soup this morning, with some toast, an avocado and an orange. i put the cucumber off until i could get some dill and yeast but didn't get a chance to get out today. so i made the cucumber soup without the dill.

i am not very nice to cucumbers. they gave me red peppers, which are good, and cherry tomatoes, which are ok, but the onions and cucumbers are (with lettuce) the triad of useless vegetables. you'd might as well just drink a glass of water. that's why i'm making soup out of it.

i enjoy pickles, but they're not really food.

here's my hacked recipe

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- melt three tsps of olive oil margarine in a large sauce pan

- dump a bulb (yes a bulb) of garlic in and cook for 3 minutes, until a little brown

- add a lime that's been segmented and with each segment cut in half and a dash of vinegar. cook for one minute/

- add 450 ml of vegetable broth (a half carton), one tbsp of cayenne and some pepper. i avoided salt. let it come to a simmer and simmer for five minutes

- dump about 375 g of yogurt into a large soup bowl. i used biobest probiotic because it has fortified vitamins and that's no longer mandatory in canada.

- the recipes call for a blending step. i would avoid this. i tried it and it wasn't pleasant.

- i would just dump the saucepan of simmerimg soup on the yogurt, which will cool it down

- add an avocado (diced)

- add hemp seeds

- add dill, if you have some

- add about 100 g of grated cheddar cheese, or more

- i would suggest adding a tbsp of nutritional yeast and some frank's, as well

i am serving with two slices of buttered (olive oil margarine) toast, a second avocado and an orange.

if i do this again, i'll avoid the blender and add the extra ingredients. adding the ingredients converts these useless cucumbers into something worth eating.

how is it?

it's bitter, but it's supposed to be. the missed ingredients could tone it down a little.

yes, this awful weather in eastern north america is climate change.

meteorologists are confused by what they're seeing - the weather is moving the wrong way. the blocking pattern isn't so weird, but the idea of the atlantic dominating weather in the midwest is unheard of.

...except that it isn't. this has been increasing for years. i posted quite a bit about this a few years ago, when it was the hot atlantic sea surface temperatures that were extending the summer here. well, it works both ways, is what we're learning.

if i were in boston or new york, or the swamps of the potomac, i'd be very worried, as it signals you're about to fall into the sea. detroit is becoming a maritime climate, and the boswas seaboard is tipping into domed status.

but what is even more concerning is that we're watching the gulf stream collapse. this was one of the most publicized outcomes of climate change, the collapse of the gulf stream. all of the factors surrounding climate change will lead to a hotter atlantic, and don't let people trick you into thinking otherwise, but these things are cyclical, and they oscillate. this will cycle out and  come back, but it's something new and different, and the patterns are legitimately novel.

this is something that has changed.

- if it made sense to build an oil pipeline to nova scotia, the private sector would do it. they aren't because it doesn't. this is an expensive boondoggle that the government should avoid.

- i actually like doug ford's tunnel idea in principle, but i want to see a serious feasibility study. the basic observation, that the 401 is brutally congested, is correct. you don't want to see more giant highways built further north. a better idea may be to try to reduce the amount of traffic moving by truck and increase the amount moving by electrified rail, and if they do end up digging, they might want to consider expanding the subway network under the 401 and pairing it with freight traffic moving parcels.