Former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo is this year’s keynote speaker for the 2022 Hemphill County/Texas A&M AgriLife Beef Conference, scheduled for April 26-27 here at Jones Pavilion in Canadian.

This base recipe is courtesy of Ina Garten, as found on the Food Network website. I liked that it had potatoes and carrots in it and that half of the peas are added in the last 40 minutes of cooking time so that they are tender but not mushy. I embellished this soup by adding two cooked strips of bacon and about a cup of kale that I had sautéed in garlic the night before, both chopped. That is the wonderful thing about soups—add what is on hand and make them even better. Enjoy!

MY LANDLORD, JORGE, is a patron of the arts. When I imagine a patron of the arts, I imagine some fabulously wealthy person in the past, supporting the creation of art in Italy or New York— someone with an impossibly luxurious lifestyle, maybe with a couple of designer dogs on diamond leashes standing at attention nearby.

Amarillo College’s compelling Art Force Piano Series will conclude with a stirring tribute to the late, great Ludwig van Beethoven when pianist David Palmer and violinist Evgeny Zvonnikov join forces in April to present Beethoven 250.