The temperatures in MKE have been ridiculous as of late. I can't even remember the last time that the temperatures here were above freezing. Hell it didn't even get above 0 degrees for several days straight last week. I'm normally ok with the cold--heck if I wasn't, I wouldn't still be living in Wisconsin. But surprisingly, almost 25 years of living here have not yet made it any easier to acclimate oneself to random brutal cold snaps that occur every once in a while. It's the type of cold that causes your chest to hurt with every breath despite your 20 layers of clothing and your shoulders to permanently tense up, creating a city of people who look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame going on an Everest expedition. Not to mention the freak snow storms that spring up out of no where. Because this is what every person wants to see when they come home on a Friday night after a long day of work...

It's enough to make you want to run back inside and burrow back into a warm, tropical cave of sheets and blankets and comforters and not come out until Memorial Day.

But today there was a heat wave. It was a whopping 20 degrees, which in my mind was warm enough to walk out to the garbage dumpster in only jeans and a t-shirt. Today was apparently also warm enough for my brain to thaw and allow me to reach my "if you can't beat it, join it" moment in the battle between myself and the cold. And how did I celebrate my surrender? With a nice big pot of made-from-scratch baked potato soup. Stupidly simple soup. Make a few baked potatoes in the microwave and then squeeze the insides out into a pot of milk, butter, a bit of flour. Add a couple handfuls of cheese, some green onions, two baggies of sliced up baby carrots, a few tablespoons of sour cream and a couple of pieces of crumbled turkey bacon and VOILA! Baked potato soup.