I made chicken soup, spoke at the University of Minnesota for this lovely lady, watched the weather yo-yo from the 20s to the 70s, worked on my spring mixtape (coming soon!), and got to spend some quality time with my man.

It's approaching 70 degrees outside so I'm going to go do that now. Have a great weekend!

I'd like you to meet Franklin. Isn't he adorable? My colleague Joe brings his puppy into the office each Friday and those eyes and those ears and the sound of his little collar jangling...le sigh. He really is the sweetest thing. When he picked a fight with my glove yesterday I didn't have the heart to interrupt, he was just. that. cute. Total daymaker.

I did a better job of keeping track of things I wanted to tell you about this week so let's dive right in.

• I read "The Devil In The White City" and it lived up to all the hype in spades. A fantastic read, and a quick one at that. If you're looking for a vacation distraction this is perfect.
• I'm all in on Game of Thrones and Mad Men. The highlight of my week is watching my boyfriend's response to each GoT episode, because I find it hilarious he read all the books and yet somehow remembers absolutely nothing about this season's storyline. Precious.
• Thing that surprised me this week: how delicious the strawberry lavendar latte from Victory 44 was. I kind of hate anything that tastes even a little "floral" but they got this one just right. Love everything about that place, still.
• I'm busy cooking & taking lots of food photos this weekend for Le Secret Project, which I'll tell you more about soon enough, but I was recently reminded of this recipe for herbed ricotta bruschetta and is something you should make immediately. If you make it with yogurt instead of ricotta it works well as a sauce for fish, veggies, or anything else your heart desires. This is my spring gift to you.

I'm pretty proud of myself for making (the world's greatest) chili a few days ago before this winter storm hit, because now I get to eat chili from under a cozy blanket while I watch it snow outside. Right? Yeah. I went to college!

A few other things that went down these past two weeks...

This week at work we wrapped up the May issue, which is a fantastic thing. Batman! But I secretly love the spread on Steve Wozniak the most. He's such a nerd and I adore that about him.

Had dinner and drinks at Borough, and you know? I didn't love it. It's getting some pretty rave reviews but I will likely not be back. Bleh.

I will, however, be back at World Street Kitchen tomorrow and forever because HOMG, amazing.

I finished Bioshock Infinite and it was worth every second.

Spring cleaning is on the schedule this long weekend, but if the cold weather doesn't lift I'll get to stay under blankets eating chili and playing video games for a few more weeks!

fingerscrossed!

Thing #2: Bioshock Infinite. Everything god and everybody is saying about this game is true. My weekend is all booked up for this.

Thing #3: Discovered my cable provider was taking advantage & giving me crap speeds and sorted that out. Superfast internet has returned to Chez Sopheava! I shall celebrate this evening by spending zero time on the internet or my Xbox or my iPad or with my phone's wifi or with streaming movies because I'll be playing a video game off a cd just like we did in 1994. *rollseyes*

Thing #4: I've been waiting months for it to warm up enough to make guacamole and this week it became that time. And my-oh-my was it deeeeeeelicious. Probably the best batch I've ever had the pleasure of, which of course means I didn't measure anything and made it with whatever I found in my fridge per normal. C'est la vie. You shall be missed 1st Guacamole of 2013 and My Heart!

Thing #5: I wanted to post 8 photos of Indigo tonight but chose 3. No cat in the universe ever had so much patience or posed so well. Maybe this means you'll get bonus photos this week?

I've been doing weekly posts over on Game Informer which are crazy fun (between you and me each Friday I'm ecstatic to get into work and put those together) and I wondered if I could channel that energy here too? That's why I'm going to do once-a-week photoblog posts [here] [too]!

We'll do updates on life and the universe, video games and what I ate for dinner (it was lasagna, see isn't this fun?), and whatever else crosses my brain. Yeah I know, what a treat? Let's get going.

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It's been a week since Bruno died and Indigo & I have been doing loads of adjusting. He's gone from 9 hobbit meals a day down to 2, and my sister swears he looks skinnier in the photos I've sent over. Dunno if it's possible he's dropped weight but lord knows his spring figure could use a boost.

I am ashamed to admit I haven't cooked in ages. With Bruno being sick I didn't have the time or energy to make late meals so it was 10 days of pizza, coffee, and whatever random thing I found in my fridge. Or popcorn! By Sunday it was time to make a real meal and I made: lasagna. Which I now realize is basically just another form of pizza but whatever. I chopped vegetables and I cooked and it was glorious.

Last night I finally hit Acme Comedy Co. for the first time. Our favorite comic of the evening was Kjell Bjorgen who wasn't the headliner but stole the show. I definitely look forward to hitting up one of his shows again!

Items on this weekend's agenda: hit up Borough for drinks, go for a bike ride of the weather warms up even a little, get a massage, and re-watch The Hobbit. The boyfriend and I are also re-watching season 2 of Game of Thrones on Bluray, so we better hustle to finish that before season 3 starts! It's almost time! You know what else it's almost time for? Bioshock Infinite.

It was very sad, I am still very sad, but the whole family was there for her. Even Indigo (who had already been scheduled for his check-up) and my boyfriend (who the doctor thought for a short time was a homeless man peeping through the window). There are lots of happy memories of the day and those are the ones I'm trying to focus on. She wasn't in pain. She was cozy in her bed, her bed. She purred in my arms the entire time. We took selfies together. And she purred and purred and purred for mama.

Indigo refused to leave my arms to get weighed until the doc put catnip all over the scale. Smart doctor! He growled and hissed as he lapped up the nip. We all laughed. Bruno squinted her eyes and purred as if to say, "Ohmygod my brother is such a kitten!" She was always a lady.

I will miss her sassy little meow, how she herded me into the bedroom if I stayed up past midnight playing video games, how I chased her around the apartment every morning before work (and then let her chase me), how I caught her playing with Indigo's toys when she thought nobody was looking, how she liked to crawl under the sheets to spoon, how she would headbutt me for a snuggle if I was sad or crying, and about 10 zillion other things that made her the best fucking cat in the universe.

I love & miss you Bruno.

And guess what? Since we did all these winter photos today that means you can expect another round of lovely Leslie photos in the spring when things warm up!

(I haven't told her we're doing that yet, but we definitely are.)

I can't tell you why this dish has vexed me so (but it may have something to do with my aversion to oil and not owning a wok), but nevertheless I am vexed. Thankfully I have friends to help me through these tough times and am happy to report that today, today I conquered the fried rice.

Mark Bittman comes to the rescue with this fantastic and elegant recipe.

The end.

Not pictured: the soy-ginger roasted salmon I served it with. Mmm.

Pictured: my art director keeping a sharp eye on things.

Note delicious adapted things:

First) I'm playing this new game in 2013 called, "Is there too much garlic in this?" Nobody says that. Nobody has ever said that and especially about roasted garlic. The recipe called for one head but I roasted 4. Next time I'll do 5 because I like to break rules.

Second) Mini-lie about the vegetarian thing. I found some organic, clean chicken sausage and browned that and stirred it in at the end. I say stuff like, "I added the sausage because I know my boyfriend will like it better this way," but the truth is I like it better this way too. A little went a long way.

Third) Italian seasoning mixes are a mystery to me (and blergh), so I put in however much of my favorites that I wanted: oregano, sweet basil, parsley, lots of spicy stuff, and fennel because I don't get to use fennel enough.

Fourth) Spend the 7 minutes making the cashew cream (with 4 heads of roasted garlic). It's worth it in spades and your body will thank you. I didn't actually adapt anything here, just wanted to make sure you didn't skip this step.

RECIPE: Creamy Tomato-Kale Bisque

PS: Isn't my dutch oven lovely? Leslie gave it to me as a birthday present and I've felt bad not photographing it until now, especially that time I made curried pumpkin soup. Everything is more fun in a brightly colored pretty thing!

Bruno continues to thrive, albeit frail as can be. You can't see because she is laying on it, but I caught her playing with a little mousie toy this past weekend. She might be old and frail, but she is happy and sassy as ever. Love these two.

I'm happy to report: goal achieved! There's more room in my life in all the best ways possible.

My 2013 goal is a little different: I want to celebrate a year of gratitude. I want to fall asleep each night and wake up each morning with a heart full of love and thankfulness for the magical life I get to call mine. The most incredible man by my side, a job so fucking cool I never could have dreamed it would be mine, and a group of friends and family that let me be me. What more could a girl ask for?

Hopefully this means taking more photographs as I'd love to have that record of a life well-lived next NYE.

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's too, and thank you for hanging around this site for the past 11 years. We've made a lot of memories together with lots more magic yet to come!

xoxo

NANA'S PARTY MIX

1 1/2 lbs. butter
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp. garlic powder

Melt butter at bottom of large pan or roaster. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder and mix well. Add the following in the order listed:

1 box Cheerios
1 box Corn Chex
1 box Rice Chex

Mix well to absorb butter, then add:

1 bag pretzel sticks
1 bag Fritos
optional: 1 small bag cashews
optional: 1 bag of salted peanuts

Mix thoroughly and bake 4 hours at 200 degrees (or 2 hours at 250 degrees). Stir well every half hour. Store in tightly covered containers.

*Ok that's not totally true. The first year I was gluten free I didn't get to have any (which made me very, very sad). Now I buy GF Cheerios and GF pretzels at Whole Foods, the rest of the ingredients are already gluten free! Tastes exactly like the recipe I know and love.

I picked up a new video game for myself last week, one that had been on my radar for a quite some time: XCOM. My co-workers were going on and on and on and onnnnnn about how amazing this game is, and while I'm not the biggest fan of strategy games (or even turn-based games for that matter) I caved and needed to find out for myself. This game will be on everyone's Top 5 Video Games of the Year lists and for good reason: it is AMAZING. Don't believe me? Read one of our reviews for yourself. So good. So, so good.

I took this photo from the couch yesterday, XCOM in the background and Bruno with the photobomb in the foreground. Nothing super exciting, just life stuff.