Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

Rainy days in the city are a big, wet, sloppy pain. In most other places, cars offer refuge from the dark, drippy sky, but in the city, where walking is not an option but a necessity, a rainy-day forecast lets us know ahead of time: We will be wet and uncomfortable today. We'll battle fellow cranky commuters who selfishly take up more than their fair share of sidewalk with patio-sized umbrellas. Our hair will curl and frizz and explode from the apex of our scalps like a bottle of shaken soda.

We'll wage a feckless war with the wind as it blows our umbrellas inside-out and carries us halfway down the street like fools. We'll arrive at work dripping and disheveled, and our pants will lick our ankles for the better half of the morning. Then the air conditioner will kick in, and we'll fold our arms around our middles in a big cozy hug so we can remember what it feels like to be comfortable and comforted.

And that my friends, is why we crave soup on cold, rainy days. 

As a kid, it was specifically tomato soup paired with a grilled cheese sandwich.

And because I'm now grown-up and sorta pretentious food-wise, I got all fancy and made roasted tomato-red pepper soup and an open-faced brie-honey mustard-apple sandwich for dinner last night as it rained and rained and rained.

Here's the recipe for the soup, though I must warn you: It didn't blow my hair back. And, truth be told, my apple was kinda mushy, which I now believe was God's way of telling me that nothing will ever be as cozy as a heated can of Campbell's and the melty Velveeta on white bread my mama made me. Take it easy, city slickers.