Hello, everyone! Summer is coming to a close, which means I only have one week left of posting on here. It also means that I move into my dorm next week, and will be starting classes soon after.
Last year, I definitely went overboard on back-to-school clothes and supplies shopping, but that just means I have supplies for this year and don’t have to go out and buy new stuff, so really it was a smart move in the long run, right? Turns out at college you need approximately one pen and one notebook, and that’s only occasionally.
Going back to school has its pros and cons. I mean, I can just walk to any restaurant or store in town, so that’s pretty cool. It’s like a little city, it has everything you could need close by, unlike Bradford, where you have to drive twenty minutes for literally anything. On the downside, I will be living in a dorm, which has communal bathrooms and definitely does not have my huge comfy bed in it, so that sucks. Worst of all, though, I won’t be around the cats. Sugar, Spice, Smudge, and that one that starts with a Z no one remembers. I will miss them all dearly. Another plus, though, is that Miami has therapy dog petting sessions, like, every Monday for an hour, so at least I’ll get the chance to pet some good bois.
Last year, I didn’t join any clubs. I definitely wish I had, and I plan to this semester. Miami has, like, hundreds of clubs, and one I would really like to try out for is one of the singing groups, Just Duet. I wanted to audition last year, but already had plans for when they were holding the auditions, so I didn’t. Also, I’m afraid of rejection, because who isn’t? So, wish me luck! I’m not sure what I’ll sing yet. Oh, and if you would like to hear what they sound like you can check out this video of them that I think is pretty awesome.
So, for the next week, I’ll be busy frantically packing and making a hundred checklists before setting off to Oxford. I’ll also be thinking of what my final few posts should be about.
Do any of you have kids about to go off to their first year of college? Tell me about it in the comments, and as always, have a great day!
Hey, everyone! Today I thought I’d share something important to me, that being my all-time favorite movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Though it is technically Disney, anytime someone asks me what my favorite Disney movie is, I always forget to say The Nightmare Before Christmas, and usually say Mulan or Tangled instead, because I really think of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a Tim Burton movie, which it is, but, y’know.
There’s something about stop motion that I just love, and come to think of it, my love of it probably stemmed from The Nightmare Before Christmas, since I’ve been watching it for as long as I can remember. The Nightmare Before Christmas has some of the most interesting characters I’ve ever seen, and part of that fantastic-ness comes from their design and the way they look overall. Halloween Town is an amazing setting to begin with, and all of the characters that call it home are even cooler looking.
Besides how awesome the visuals are, the soundtrack is to die for. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past several decades, Disney has the greatest songs, like, ever, but the greatest of the great can be found in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Danny Elfman is pretty much the best composer/musician/singer in existence. Though it’s difficult to choose a favorite song out of all the amazing ones on the soundtrack, I’d have to say the best is “Jack’s Lament”, which even if you haven’t seen the movie, is pretty good on its own (you can watch it on YouTube).
This movie has had merch available at places like Hot Topic and F.Y.E. for forever, and believe me when I say I have my fair share of stuff. There’s even video games that came out around 2005 or so.
The Nightmare Before Christmas has been my favorite movie for as long as I can remember, and I’m fairly certain it always will be. I wish I had been able to see it in theaters when it first came out, alas, it was before my time of being alive. Have you seen it before? What are your thoughts on it? What’s your favorite song from it? Is Jack your favorite character? Let me know in the comments, and as always, have a great day!
Hello, everyone! I hope y’all’s weekend has been awesome so far! My week has been pretty uneventful, but today I actually did something fun and exciting! I got to go kayaking at Lodi Lake with my Cali family.
I’ve only been kayaking a couple of times before, and each time my arms get insanely sore, but I always have a great time! I’ve never not had fun kayaking, it’s so great. It’s very rare that I enjoy physical activity of any sort, but it makes sense that I like kayaking so much because of my love of water.
Lodi Lake is insanely pretty. I thought it was just a little lake at first, but it actually goes on for a really long time, more like a river, really. There were wild raspberries growing along the side, tons of trees and tall grass galore, and we passed several beautiful Lodi homes that were probably millions of dollars. The water is actually much colder than I would’ve guessed, but that didn’t stop us from swimming around! We also passed people on paddle-boards, boats, jet-skis, all sorts of modes of transportation, and literally every single person waved or said hello, it was crazy how friendly everyone was out there!
I also got to see a few adorable water pups, including a German Shepard (one of my favorite kinds of dogs!), so that was super awesome, too.
After kayaking, I went to Habit Burger, per recommendation of some commenters on my In-N-Out post, and I have to say, it’s good, but it’s no In-N-Out. Although, their tempura green beans were delicious!
My arms feel fine as of right now, but I doubt I’ll be able to say the same tomorrow morning. Hopefully you all have an awesome rest of the weekend, I certainly intend to!
Hey, everyone! Welcome to another edition of “What You Should Be Watching”! And, yes, it’s another YouTube one because, hey, there’s a lot of good content on YouTube, and it’s free, unlike Netflix or whatever, so.
For this edition, I have chosen another cooking channel, mainly because I have only posted like one cooking related thing during my time here because I literally never cook, even though I love it. Aside from that, though, this channel is amazing and I’ve been watching it for a while now, and I think it is super awesome and worth sharing!
Basically, this dude makes specific food that has been shown in certain movies or TV shows, like Matilda’s chocolate cake, the Ultimeatum sandwich from Regular Show, the Michael Scott Pretzel from The Office, burgers from Bob’s Burgers, even a whole episode of foods from Harry Potter. Aside from those videos, he also has Basics With Babish where he teaches actual cooking skills and basics in the kitchen.
Even if you don’t like cooking that much, he’s very entertaining and it’s interesting to see him make things from famous shows and movies. Also, I think he has a nice voice. Check out a couple of my personal favorites:
He also has a cookbook out that you can buy here! Anyways, I hope you give this channel a chance, personally it’s one of my all-time favorites on YouTube. Have a great day!
One perk of being in California is I get to hang out with two cool cats, or rather dogs, Diego and Lola! I know it’s only Tuesday, but, hey, it’s been a long week! You deserve these dogs! Lola is younger than Diego by two years, and has the black stripe pattern. Diego has more grey on his muzzle.
The real reason I have come to California is for one thing and one thing only: In-N-Out. A.K.A. the greatest burger place ever. No burger place, nay, no fast food place can compare to the glorious burger joint known as In-N-Out. It is truly a shame that they are only on the Western part of the country, but that makes them all the more special when I get to come to this side of the country.
Their menu is small, only a couple of items to choose from, but each item is perfect in every way. My personal favorite thing to order is a cheeseburger, animal style. Their sauce is amazing, an absolute revolution in burger technology. Yes, I know it’s pretty much just Thousand Island sauce, but it works, and it’s amazing.
If you haven’t had In-N-Out before, and you have the opportunity to, DO IT. And get a cheeseburger. If you don’t get the cheeseburger animal style, at least get the fries animal style. Or both! Both is good.
To be completely fair, though, the fries are generally undersalted. This is why I recommend them animal style. They’re really good when it comes to texture and done-ness, but yeah, needs more salt. HOWEVER, this is the only fault I have found with In-N-Out.
So, yes, try all you wish to convince me that Whataburger or Five Guys is better, but you shall ultimately fail because I know in my heart what is true.
Hello, everyone! Tomorrow is Monday, and that is always a bummer. So I thought I would bestow upon y’all this song I recently found to help you make it through. Also, it’s been in my head for about a week and I want others to suffer the ear-worm with me.
I heard this from the Season 7 trailer of Voltron. If you haven’t seen my post on the amazing show known as Voltron, check it out here. You can also see the Season 7 trailer here.
Anyways, this song is fantastic, definitely a new favorite, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Hello, everyone! Today I will be sharing a short story I just wrote the other night for class. It had to be two and a half pages long, no more, no less, which was kind of difficult to make it fit perfectly into that amount of space, mostly because of pacing issues. This is also a very dialogue heavy story because I wanted it to be more about the interaction between the two characters than anything else.
If you’ll remember a couple weeks ago I posted about what I imagine Death to look like, and how he’s a character in one of my stories. Well, this is not that specific story but I decided to use the same Death character in this piece because I love him.
Anyways, here’s the story, I sincerely hope you enjoy it. Please let me know if you have any questions about Death or anything, I love talking about him! And as always, have a great day!
Instead of going to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Meg and I went to the Brooklyn Museum because it was a hundred million degrees outside and the museum had air conditioning. Though I was stoked to see the gardens, the museum ended up being super awesome! They have this exhibit there right now called “Infinite Blue”, and it’s a huge collection of blue artwork. Paintings, vases, jewelry, so much blue stuff everywhere! Blue is an excellent color; the only way the exhibit could’ve been better is if it was purple.
The next day, my final full day in New York, Meg threw the most amazing party for me. A pie party! She spent a whole day baking numerous pies, including a guava cheesecake, a Goblin-berry pie, a sugar cream pie, and a stellar brownie cake sort of thingy with cream cheese frosting. I had, like, nine pieces of pie that night, and got to talk with tons of awesome people.
My time in New York was well spent, in the company of spectacular people.
Oh man, my flights were crazy though! On the way to New York, my direct flight got cancelled, so I had to go through Charlotte to get there. Then, on the way back, my direct flight got cancelled so I had to go through O’Hare and I arrived six hours later than I originally planned on. Reminds me of my post on my love-hate relationship with travel. Cancelled flights are seriously the worst.
So, now I’m home. I hadn’t posted sooner because I’ve been decompressing and catching up on homework. The city can really wear you out! Next week, I’ll be travelling again, this time to California, but for now, I’m just going to kick it at home.
Hope you all had an amazing week as well, and hope you have a great day!
Hello, everyone! I hope you have all been having a fantastic week, I know I have been! New York has been awesome so far and it hasn’t rained nearly as much as I thought it would, so that’s a plus.
Honestly, I haven’t done too much. I’m generally a pretty lazy person, so I might go see/do one or two things a day, but I’m not one of those people that wakes up at 8am to cram in as much activity as possible. So far, I had spaghetti at a friend’s house, went to Battery City and saw the Hudson and Brookfield Place, had some awesome crab cakes at a place on the waterfront called Miramar, and took a ferry to Williamsburg, where I tried the Republic of Booza’s ice cream.
The ferry ride was great, I love traveling by water. The unsteadiness of the boat makes it fun to walk around, and the sun was setting when we rode it, so I got an awesome view of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I also got to see the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg bridge while on the ferry, which was a super cool perspective of them.
I saw a video for the Republic of Booza on Facebook like, two days ago, and really wanted to try it. In fact, that’s the only reason we even went to Williamsburg at all. Sadly, I didn’t like it that much. Ice cream is my favorite food, but I just didn’t like their ice cream that much. It was a cute little shop and the employees were super nice, it was just not the greatest ice cream I’ve ever had, y’know? So, kind of bummed about that, but the trip to Williamsburg was really cool, so it was worth it.
I also saw finally saw Ocean’s 8. I just have to say, that movie was so flippin’ awesome! I didn’t know what to expect from it, since I haven’t seen the other ones, but it was so much better than I ever expected. The cast is amazing, the plot is great, it’s super funny, not predictable at all, and the characters are all badass! It makes me want to watch the other films of the franchise, but I doubt they’re as good as this one. I highly recommend this movie. Also, the movie theater I saw it in was more than one story! Wild stuff.
Anyways, like I said, I haven’t really done too much, just been chilling and hanging out, which is really what I came to do. Today, I’m going to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and other than that, I’m not really sure, but I guarantee I’ll find something! Have a great day!
Who doesn’t love traveling? Everyone loves a good vacation; so many amazing places to go, spectacles to behold, adventurous things to do, traveling is enriching and can be super awesome! Unfortunately, traveling is also expensive, and tiring, both physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Personally, traveling is one of my favorite things to do. It’s so nice to get away from Bradford, and in most cases, the farther the better. But one thing I loathe is packing. I don’t know why, but I seriously struggle to even function as a human being when packing is on my to-do list. After managing to pack, the stress of the airport comes next, and that’s really everyone’s least favorite part, I think.
Which is worse: waiting in line at security, waiting in line to board the plane, or waiting in your seat to take off? Trick question, they all suck. Even after you get off the plane, your stresses aren’t over yet, because then you either have to take a bus to the car rental place or get a taxi, and then check in to your hotel, blah blah blah, when does the fun part start?!
So, yeah, I can understand why someone wouldn’t like traveling very much, but I believe the stress is beyond worth it. It’s worth it when you’re standing at the top of the Freedom Tower, looking out over New York as the sun sets, every window gleaming and golden. And it’s worth it when you’re parasailing over water clearer than crystals, or when you see a 2,000 foot tall waterfall. It’s worth it when you try foods you’ve never even heard of before; at least, that part is important to me, maybe not so much to someone who isn’t totally obsessed with food.
The point is, there is so much to see in this world. There’s oceans and mountains and everything in between, and I intend to see as much of it as possible.
In case you didn’t know, I’m in New York right now! Brooklyn, specifically. I’m so happy to be here, but it’s also super overwhelming. Does anyone else have the problem of everything looking the same? There’s a million different shops and buildings, but I feel like every deli or corner store looks the exact same, it’s very disorientating. I can’t figure out the subway, the traffic is terrible, and there’s a thousand people to move out of the way of on the sidewalk. But I’ll be darned if I don’t enjoy every minute of being here!
Thank you to everyone who commented on my previous post about New York, your recommendations were super fun to read and I will definitely take some of them into consideration when planning what all I’m going to do while here. I will be sure to post about any amazing restaurants I try or spectacular things I see throughout the week.
Where’s the best place you’ve ever traveled to? Do you hate flying or several day long car trips more? Anyways, hope you all have a great day!
Hey, everyone! Hope you all had an awesome weekend. This weekend, thanks to my friend, I got to try virtual reality. More specifically, I played Beat Saber for like, three hours, and my arms are extremely sore.
Beat Saber is this awesome rhythm game where you basically have two light sabers, red in the left hand and blue in the right, and boxes fly at you, and the goal is to slice the boxes with the correct saber in the correct arrow-direction. It has mostly techno songs, as those are generally the fastest, craziest songs with the most intense box-slicing.
If you’ve never tried VR before, it is a whole ‘nother experience. In Beat Saber, there are obstacles sometimes, like walls you have to dodge, and let me tell you, when the first wall came at me, I almost screamed. You really feel like you’re about to get hit by something, it’s so immersive!
I know it sounds kind of lame, just hitting boxes, but watch these videos and I guarantee it’ll change your mind.
Those are all on expert, by the way, so don’t be daunted if it looks too crazy to be physically possible.
Anyways, if you get the chance to play VR, you should definitely try it, if not for the game, at least for the experience.
Hello, everyone! I’m here today to tell y’all about my upcoming travel schedule. On Tuesday, I leave for New York City, where I will be staying with my wonderful friends, Meg and Will. New York City is such an awesome place and I’m so happy to be going for the third year in a row. My last two visits there were so amazing, from doing tourist-y stuff to kayaking at a lake house, I had a seriously awesome time and cannot to go again.
I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures when I was there the past two times, but here’s a couple I really like.
Here’s a view of Manhattan from the Flatiron:
Freedom Tower:
Skyline across the water:
And here’s me and Meg splashing around in a waterfall!
So, after New York, I’ll be back home for a couple of days before I leave to visit my family in California. We went to Tahoe for Easter, and I visited them in January, so even though I’ve already seen them twice this year I just love them so much that I’m willing to make the five hour flight to Cali to see them yet again.
While I’m traveling I’ll be sure to post all about my adventures. This time, I’ll be sure to take a few more photos than I did the last couple times. Have any of you been to New York before? Or maybe you live there? What’s the best place to eat? What’s the most fun thing to do? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
One thing about me you should know is that I love anime. If you’ve seen any of my “What You Should Be Watching” posts, you’ll know that I love cartoons, too. Anything animated! Artists are amazing! But that’s a separate thing entirely.
So today I’m going to tell you about my all-time favorite anime, Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji). It was the first anime I ever watched, when I was twelve, and only because my friend recommended it so highly that I couldn’t resist. Also, it was on Netflix at the time so I didn’t really have an excuse not to watch it. I’ll admit, I was skeptical. I had never watched anime before, not even Dragon Ball Z or Yu-Gi-Oh! when I was growing up.
Despite my skepticism, I watched it. And I absolutely loved it. My twelve year old mind was blown. It was like a cartoon, but so much darker and violent. A little bit about Black Butler, it’s about a thirteen year old noble boy named Ciel Phantomhive in late 1800s England whose parents were murdered, so he forms a contract with a demon in order to get revenge on the people responsible. The demon poses as Ciel’s butler and together they solve mysteries, bust illegal drug gangs, find Jack the Ripper, etc., all while Ciel runs the company his parents left him in charge of and tries to maintain his appearance as a normal noble.
Black Butler is one of those “mainstream” anime, the kind that has merch in Hot Topic and F.Y.E, and you’re guaranteed to see at least a dozen Ciel cosplayers at any anime convention. Like I said, it was on Netflix at some point, so you know it’s pretty popular. Not only is the show popular, but the manga has sold around 25 million copies.
It has so many awesome elements to it. It’s action-packed, mostly because Ciel orders his demon to massacre the bad guys, but there’s more to it than just pure violence. Although, to be fair, it is pretty dark. I mean the whole premise is that a child who has lost everything sells his soul just to avenge his parents. The only person in his life who protects him and takes care of him is eventually going to devour his soul. So, yeah, it gets heavy sometimes, but it’s also really funny at times! The characters each have their own unique personalities, you’re sure to have a definite favorite. Another great thing about it being so popular is that the English dub actually has really good voice acting, and the demon, Sebastian, is played by one of my favorite voice actors, J. Michael Tatum.
One of the best things about Black Butler is the art. Though, this can’t really be applied to the first two seasons. The art is truly extraordinary in season three and the two following films, but the first two seasons are just average. I’m sure this is due to animation budget, as the show made more and more money after it got popular and whatnot. But the difference really is stunning.
I think my favorite part, though, without a doubt, is Sebastian. The greatest anime demon of all time. I just want to a take a moment to appreciate all of THIS:
Anyways, one thing you should know about Black Butler is that even though it’s my favorite anime, it has a ton of flaws. Like the second season. The ENTIRE second season. It’s terrible, and I hate it. Basically, they stopped following the manga and did something completely different for the second season, and then when the third season came out, it was back to following the manga and acted like the second season never happened. So, yeah, season two is basically not canon and like, never happened. There’s also a lot of episodes in season one that are different from the manga, and the second half of season one is basically as nonexistent as season two, canonically speaking. So, if you’re going to watch Black Butler, I recommend to stop watching season one after episode 15, and then immediately go to season three. However, if you want to stick strictly to how the manga goes, then you should watch episodes 1-6, and 13-15, and then onto season three.
I know that’s like, really confusing, but if you watch past episode 15 or any of season two, you will more than likely just be confused and unhappy; I know I sure was. And season three plus the two movies are so worth it! They are amazing.
To top off this post, I’m going to share some of my favorite Black Butler AMVs. I’ve actually posted one before to show where I first heard a song I recommended, but I’m going to post it again because it is a killer AMV! Of course, these AMVs contain spoilers, but they’re cool to watch if you don’t care about spoilers.
So, while this anime might not be the best anime in existence, and it certainly has its flaws, it is still my favorite and has a very special place in my heart. I’ve seen dozens of anime, and it remains #1, and Sebastian is still my favorite character of all time.
If you get around to watching this anime, let me know what you think! If you’ve seen it before, do you have a favorite character or a favorite opening? Openings are like, a key factor in any anime. Anyways, have a great day!
Hey everyone, you all deserve a flower! What for? For whatever you think you did well on this week! Maybe you cleaned your room for the first time in months, maybe you did really awesome at your job recently, or perhaps you drew a really pretty picture. Whatever small or big thing you accomplished this week, I just want to say good job! Please enjoy this complimentary flower, and have a great day!
Hello everyone! Today I’m going to tell you about this awesome comic that a reader of this blog told me about (when I posted about Death as a character). It is a comic about the personification of death, otherwise known as Dee, befriending a teenage girl named Emily! They become besties and she teaches Death all about society, people, and life in general.
This comic is adorable and funny a lot of the time, and is mostly pretty light-hearted, a real slice-of-life sort of thing. Though there are times where it’s serious, and morals about the order of the universe come into play. There are also scenes that are very serious involving actual death, not just Death as a fun, awesome character.
I think my favorite thing is when Death and Emily talk about philosophy. They bring up a lot of good points and debate well, and it’s really interesting to hear what Death’s opinions on things are.
The Bright Side is ongoing, and has 580 some pages so far, so it’ll definitely take you a hot minute to read, but it’s been great so far! You can read it here (I linked to the first page of the comic, just hit the flower that says “next” on it to go to the next page).
You can also buy the first thirty chapters of the comic here! And you can follow the author/artist on Twitter.
I hope you enjoy this webcomic, I know I have been. And thank you to Michael for recommending this to me! Have a great day!
In other words, Smudge update! This little guy has been living it up here in the Scalzi compound and is being an adorable pain in the neck! He is the most playful kitten we’ve ever had, Sugar and Spice as kittens don’t even compare to how crazy this dude is. He loves chewing on cords, which is kind of an issue, especially since we have a lot of different chargers in this house. And he loves attacking literally any part of your body, not just toes, as most kittens do. He will straight up attack your hair or your thigh, totally unprovoked. He’s a real wild child.
But, as you can see, when he’s sleeping, he’s a little cuddly angel who does no wrong. He is also a major explorer! If you leave a door open, he will not hesitate to venture forth into the unknown. Smudge is also very unafraid of the other cats, even though they still largely dislike him. They hiss and bat at him, and yet he still charges at full speed towards them. He doesn’t take hints very well.
Well, anyways, enjoy this adorable picture of Smudge, and have a great day!
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of “What You Should Be Watching”! Today I’ll be telling you about Final Space, a TBS original adult cartoon. It’s a sci-fi that takes place in an Earth where aliens are totally normal, and the Earth has a military-style organization called “Infinity Guard” that has spaceships and lasers and all that cool stuff.
There’s only ten episodes currently, but the plot is pretty interesting. Basically, there’s this super adorable planet-destroying creature (see above) that the bad guy, Lord Commander, is after. The main character, Gary, a prisoner aboard an Infinity Guard prison ship, finds the little creature floating around in space, and now Lord Commander is after Gary in pursuit of the super weapon, who is now named Mooncake. The ten episodes follow Gary and Mooncake on their adventure to save the universe and stop Lord Commander, and include a variety of interesting characters you’re sure to love.
If you’re thinking, “another sci-fi adult cartoon right after Rick and Morty?” I can assure you, the two are pretty different. And what’s wrong with there being more than one sci-fi adult cartoon out at a time? Don’t you all like sci-fi?
Anyways, not only is this show super cool because of its sci-fi technology and weapons and cool planets and aliens, but also it’s hilarious! It made me bust up laughing a good number of times. It’s not just what’s said out loud that’s funny, it’s a lot of little things, like the fact one of the characters is named Avocado, or that the main character can never obtain the chocolate chip cookies he so desperately wants. It’s honestly really funny without being that “too vulgar” or offensive kind of funny that a lot of adult cartoons seem to do.
It’s also surprisingly emotional! I actually teared up, like, three times! The characters have real backstories and emotions, and a lot of them have very realistic personalities.
Anyways, I highly recommend this show to anyone who likes funny, action-packed cartoons. If you’ve seen it, did you like it? Do you have a favorite character? Let me know, and as always, have a great day!
Hey, everyone! I’m writing a story that has Death as a main character, and it’s been really fun coming up with what I think Death looks like, what Death wears and sounds like, and basically Death’s personality overall.
In my head, Death is a guy with pale skin who wears pretty much all black, but is still somewhat stylish. He’s a little over six feet tall, and is insanely thin. His eyes are dark brown and his hair is black, and he has that fabulous kind of fluffy hair that all gorgeous immortals have. He’s quiet and doesn’t waste words; he’s a very busy person so he doesn’t want to waste time with small talk and unimportant things. Although he seems cold and uncaring, he possesses a lot of empathy but just doesn’t show it due to his field of work. Death has a big ass scythe with a blade made of obsidian and can shadow-travel. Oh, and he loves sweets! He doesn’t need to sleep or eat or anything, he just happens to love sweets.
So that’s my version of Death, and I’m curious what you all think. Is Death a skeleton with a scythe? Is she a badass goddess? Is he polite? Do they have long hair? Do they even have a form at all? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
Soup is the greatest food known to mankind. There’s so many different types, so many different flavors and endless possibilities as to what can be created. Some soups have grains, some have meat, some have cheese, it all depends. Some are chunky, some are creamy, and others broth-y. Honestly, you can make any kind of soup, it’s truly magical!
One soup I really love is butternut squash. It’s creamy, flavorful, and reminds me of my favorite time of the year, fall. Also, it’s orange. How many foods do you eat that are orange?!
So I decided to try and make some butternut squash soup from scratch. I love Food Network, so I usually use them for most recipes, and I found one for butternut squash soup here. While I was at Kroger getting the ingredients, I decided to pick up a box of ready-to-eat butternut squash soup to compare it to the homemade version. So I bought Imagine Creamy Butternut Squash Soup. It was just the first box of butternut squash soup I saw, so I grabbed it, I didn’t realize it was organic or anything. When I went to their website, it says it’s also vegan, kosher, gluten free, soy free, and dairy free! So that’s interesting. The homemade version was made with chicken stock and butter, so it does not meet the same qualifications as the Imagine one. The homemade one is on the right, store-bought on the left.
Anyways, I made both, and had my dad and friend taste test them. They both liked the homemade version better. The homemade version was much thinner, not creamy at all, weirdly gritty (like orange juice pulp kind of), and had chunks of onion in it. The store-bought was pretty thick, really creamy, definitely on the sweeter side (like a lot of nutmeg or cinnamon flavor), and overall pretty good.
So, by majority vote, the Food Network version wins, but I didn’t really like it. It was far too thin. The flavor was fine (make sure to add a lot of salt), and I liked the onions, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for in butternut squash soup.
What’s your favorite kind of soup? What’s the best recipe you know for butternut squash soup? Let me know, and have a great day!
