My lunch today was cheese and crackers. The crackers were from a gift basket that arrived at work today. The cheese I found in the back of the refrigerator leftover from a gift basket last week. I cut off the dried and crusted layer and ate the perfectly good cheese beneath.

A free meal!

For dinner I had a 36 cent can of chicken dumpling soup. I picked it out at the store because it was cheap (the expense of the Italy is still not quite done) and because one of the very few good memories I have of my childhood is the taste of my mother's chicken and dumpling soup that she made from scratch. She no longer makes it, but the memory lingers. I dream of the day I get to eat another dish of someone's homemade chicken and dumpling soup. Of course, the canned version left something to be desired. For one, it had green beans and peas in it! I didn't eat them, of course. However, Kashi found them quite tasty.

How fortunate that I had something left over to share with my beloved puppy dog, eh?