Angst hates ghosties, too

A serious cold snap hit Philadelphia out of a clear blue sky (literally). It was absolutely gorgeous throughout September and the first half of this month. In the course of just 24 short hours, the average daily high dropped 20 degrees. I'm sitting here listening to two distinct sounds - the wind howling against the windows and anything else that will help it cry like a banshee* and Angst, scarfing down his dinner so that a) I will give him more food before we go to bed and b) because he's safe from the ghosties as long as Mister and I are up to protect him. Once we go into the bedroom and shut the door, he will be at the mercy of the terrifying sounds outside the window - who knows if a ghostie will find its way in? I hear they like to eat kitties.

(*banshee reference, before I forget - has anyone else seen "Darby O'Gill and the Little People"? I can remember my sister and I being terrified in a way that words cannot describe every time the banshee made her awful appearance.)

Anyway, today was raining, windy, gray, and colder than it's been in many moons. The high was in the low 40s and it took all day to hit it, just to sink quickly back into the upper 30s. When I got out of my car tonight, a huge gust of wind tried to catch my umbrella and help me take flight. Pause - quick story: When I was a senior in high school, I was a big dork - I was the captain of the flagline in the marching band. At Homecoming, the band director thought it would be a nice touch to have me stand on the football field, holding a HUGE American flag at attention, flanked on each side by the captains of the rifle squad. Great idea, except that we were in a great valley, which enhanced the ability of wind to make a flying apparatus out of the flag I was holding and it took three people to hold all 125 lbs of me down. Even then, I could feel my heels lifting up while the drill instructor applied firm pressure to my hips and the rifle captains anchored my elbows. Fast forward back to today - the point I'm trying to make with all this is to set up exactly how perfect the weather was for a soup dinner.

So naturally, we had Seitan Chow Fun from Vegan Express.
I wanted to make my happy Isa soup, but I really couldn't muster the energy to make the soup AND the biscuits and I didn't want the soup without the biscuits. Okay, I would happily eat the soup without the biscuits, but I would really like to have them, too. Besides, tomorrow is supposed to be even better soup weather and I'll probably need something labor-intensive to distract me from the mess Mister is going to make of our living room while I'm at work.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about the Seitan Chow Fun because I made it before and used up most of my words then. I want to talk about soy sauce. That's right, soy sauce. Actually, Tamari soy sauce.
This is the best stuff ever. When you open the bottle, take a sniff - it's almost like smelling wine to understand its complexities and different flavors. It's not like your normal, store-brand or Kikkoman soy sauce - this is some serious soy sauce. Tamari is a traditional Japanese soy sauce, generally based on the fermentation of miso. It has a deeper, richer, and at the risk of sounding cliche, a more satisfying taste than regular soy sauce. Also, as an added bonus for any gluten-free friends, you can purchase wheat-free tamari.

I brought the bottle to the dinner table so Mister could add more to his chow fun if he wanted and after a thorough inspection of the bottle, including smelling its contents, he decided he was okay with it. After he read the (obvious) ingredients, he wondered aloud about whether there was a warning about soy for all the people who might sue over these things:
Indeed, there is. It's hard to read, but if you look hard you can make out "Allergen Information: This product contains soy and wheat ingredients."

Seriously? I mean, really? SOY sauce has soy in it? What's next? Wheat bread with wheat in it?