I am currently in the midst of the most strange situation of my life.  Three of my roommates and I are sitting in the dark (our light is 15 feet up in the air and burnt out yesterday) talking to our landlord about how we can give our kitchen more counter space.  He is now hovering over my roommate Brittany‘s shoulder, interrogating her about apps for her iPad.  There are awkward jokes flying left, right and centre and he has started to tell us stories about his wife and children.  Heavenly.

Since the weather here in Ottawa has cooled right down, I decided it was time to make my first warm soup of the chilly season.  I’ve been waiting the entire summer to make this carrot and red lentil soup, one of the very first entries in my Canadian Living Everyday Favourites cookbook.  Contrary to the cookbook, which said I only needed to stew this soup for about 20 minutes, I had this soup on for nearly an hour and a half, as I quickly and messily rushed to make the cornbread which I can so easily describe as the best in the world.  Definitely worth waiting for.

This dinner also marked the start of my “indoor photo season” trials.  For reasons you will see below, I am less than satisfied with the results of this little experiment, and am quite concerned as to how winter foodie pictures are going to turn out.  I took these few pictures in my kitchen as well as my roommate Ariel’s room (only because she has more lamps than any reasonable person should have).  Despite what my roommates said (“soup is a cozy food, you want the lighting to be darker!”),  I was so disappointed with my pictures that I plated a whole other meal the next day and took pictures in the mid-afternoon sun.  I am quite confident I have some strange case of OCD.

And now for the re-plating…

Perhaps next time I will set up a little photo studio in my kitchen.  More to come.