Last night I got all excited about the autumnal weather we've been having and decided I needed something "fall" to make for dinner. So a variation of butternut squash soup it was. I learned several things while doing said activity.
Here I slave away on my butternut squash soup while Rachel takes it easy.
She was on doctor's orders to do just that, so I insisted that she could, in fact, make herself
useful by chopping the onion and reading me directions from a seated position. 

1) I'm learning to love really weird foods...for me. I spent nearly 2 hours yesterday making a butternut squash soup from scratch.  I do not usually like squash. Yet what I've discovered while living with Mackenzie and Kim is that Quinoa and Kale and Squash are simply staples in the house. Learn to cook them well and you'll learn to like them. Minnesota may have made the hipster, but California wins the award for "food hipsters as roommates who will change your tastebuds."
*Note: The butternut squash, I would later find out, actually wasn't butternut squash. I accidentally used the Acorn squash left out by Kim. Oops! Sorry, Kim!

2) Friendships happen in the kitchen. Seriously. I can't tell you how many laugh-out-loud moments and serious, in-depth conversations happen while cooking dinner or doing the dishes.

3) A working dishwasher is going to be a requirement for whenever I get married. (Ours is currently out of commission until the appliance man shows up to fix it.) That will, alone, likely cut down frustrations by 60%.

In the end, it was rather good soup! I may even make it again soon. Next time, however, I'll need to actually use butternut squash. Sorry, Kim.