As I have mentioned in the past, it has been my tradition for many years to cook up a big pot of [link|http://www.clovegarden.com/recipes/pov_sauerkraut1.html|Sauerkraut Soup] on the first really rainy Saturday of Winter.

Unfortunately I had to skip the last round - no Winter, no rain.

Who could have known I'd be making up for it on the last day of Summer? But who could have known that here in Sunny Southern California we'd be having a balls-out thunder and lightning hailstorm in the middle of the day on the last day of summer? Global warming works in mysterious ways!

The storm started last night (but no hail until afternoon). A little after 11 pm my house was illuminated by several flashes of electric blue light like 1,000 arc welders and streams of molten metal fell from the pole across the street.

My electricity failed for only a few seconds but SC Edison soon came around and turned off power to the circuit I'm on. It was out for almost 15 hours but a crew from Riverside arrived in the morning and put a new transformer on my pole (not the one with the flashes - it didn't have a transformer).

They told me they were putting me on a different circuit because the one I had been on was fried beyond immediate repair.

. . it has a link to the more authentic Polish version with meat.

It took me some time to develop the veg version but I prefer it to the other so it's the one I always make. On the other hand, I seem to recall you're not really that hot for processed pig parts anyway.