Soapourri Natural Bath and Body, LLC

Best Ice Cream in the World

If you are ever in Kansas City, MO, you simply must go get some ice cream at Murray's in Westport.  I have been eating it for 24 years, no lie.  I lived near there 24 years ago when Murray opened the store.  Over the years I've been known to bring home quarts and quarts of the stuff - which I did yesterday - and horde it in the freezer for as long as I can!  And by the way, the only flavor that I eat is the Chocolate Flake Fromage - it is so incredibly unusual - cheesecakey even.  (Can you see why I wasn't hungry for breakfast this morning?) ;)

Me Like Cookie!

That was my best Cookie Monster imitation - what do you think?  I recently got a dozen
chocolate  chip cookies from Baby Boomers Cafe.  I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  These, after all, were the cookies that Barack Obama took a shine to when his Iowa campaign headquarters was next door to Baby Boomers Cafe.  It is just a tiny place, but I understand that they are now shipping 4,000 cookies a week all over the world.  And they furnished 5,500 cookies for the inauguration.  As a small business owner, I love these kinds of stories.  What luck for them to be in the right place at the right time, with a great product.

Anyway, I tried them.  And they are ALL THAT.  Wow.

Mmm, great ham recipe

Yesterday we had ham for Christmas dinner.  I had gotten a brand new Taste of Home cookbook for Christmas, and so we looked in it to see if they had any great recipes.  We took two different recipes and combined them and boy, was it awesome.  The most important thing was that we used our crockpot.  We also made a "gravy" that was made from the apple juice, ground mustard and maple syrup that the ham cooked in.  After it cooked for about 4 hours, we removed the juices and cooked it up with cornstarch to thicken.  It was so darn tasty!  I think I'll go eat some more right now!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

The pain, the pain!!!

If you are old enough to recognize that quote, raise your hand and tell me where it's from!

Yesterday, I contracted a case of "Hunan Hand".  This is actually contact dermatitis from exposure to chili peppers. 

I've never experienced anything like it in my life.  In the afternoon, I started cutting up vegetables.  I started with about 8 or 10 red peppers.  Then came onions, garlic, eggplant.  Then a bunch of different kinds of chili peppers, which I roasted and then froze.  When I started peeling the yellow zucchini, I noticed that my hands were sort of slimy.  Hmmm.  Then I finished up with some tomatoes. 

I spent a lot of time chopping these up.  After I was done I noticed that my hands had some kind of weird coating on them.  In retrospect, I think maybe that it was dried skin that had started to come off before?  Kind of felt like dried glue.  So I scrubbed all that off. 

A little while later, it felt like there had been a couple of tiny cuts that had gotten salt in them.  Oh well, that happens, right? 

Well, it got worse and worse.  It started out as stabbing pains.  Then it turned into intense heat.  I spent the hours between 3 and 8 with my hand in a bowl of ice water.  After that, I turned to the "internets".  Google is my friend. 

I tried all their remedies - diluted bleach, oil, vinegar, Ibuprofen, rubbing alcohol.  Nothing worked.  Until the Neosporin.  That stuff was a miracle!  It knocked the burning right out.  Before that, it felt like my hand was on fire. 

Today, I am so grateful - some of the stories that I'd read said that their Hunan Hand lasted 3-6 days!!!