Pea Soup...sort of....

Miss Mary Jane Daisy Euphemia Darling Dawson is often fed some sort pea soup while staying in the wilds of Holland. Or Friesland. While acknowledging the heartiness and warmth of pea soup, she usually isn't much of a fan. I can't say I blame her. I can eat pea soup - but not too often, the flavor is a bit strong for regular consumption - and has more than a bit of a tendency to "repeat" on one. Betty Keira and I have our own version...it's hearty and warming on a chilly evening, but it doesn't have quite the burpitude that straight pea soup has. I came up with this recipe last year while recovering from The Unfortunate Incident With Roller-Skates. Here is the recipe I posted:

It's hard to get fancy with cooking when you only have one arm to work with...so my crockpots have been doing the "heavy lifting" this past week. My family, for the most part, is fairly tolerant about meals (Danny being the lesser part...). Today's effort was a little bit of a gamble. I had the leftover ham bone from Sunday's awesome ham, and I wanted to make soup with it. Usually I would use it to make lentil soup - everyone in my family will eat it - Nathan especially seems to love it. Well, my lentil soup recipe calls for some chopped onion and carrots. Chopping vegetables isn't on my current list of activities. So I tried something different.

Beanland Soup with Ham

2-3 cups "Beanland" mix, rinsed (I pick it up in the bulk section of Winco (supermarket chain in the Western US)- it doesn't have beans in it - it does have a couple of varieties of lentils, split peas, rice, barley, and maybe two or three other things)
1 meaty ham bone
8-10 cups of water (you can add more later on if it looks too thick)
3+ teaspoons "Better Than Bouillon" (chicken flavor)
small handful dehydrated onion
small handful dehydrated carrots
seasoning - I used rosemary, thyme, parsley and a little pepper
Dump it all in a crockpot and cook for 4 or 5 hours.

I wouldn't bother to post this recipe except that Daniel ate 3 bowls of it. One of those AFTER I admitted to the onions and he figured out there were split peas in it.

I'm sure you could make this with fresh vegetables, but I have to say, it's lovely to have such a no-fuss recipe. The Zombie Bride has made this soup with boneless, skinless chicken breasts (pre-cooked and seasoned with Mrs. Dash) and cooked it on the stove-top for about 1 hour (she started the Beanland stuff before cooking the chicken, then threw the chicken in with the Beanland when the chicken was cooked).

Don't Touch That Dial

In Stormy Springtime, Meg passes the time with her trusty radio. She has her dial set for Radio 3. This might perhaps explain a little of La Neels musical predilections. Radio 3 BBC features live music and the arts. The music tends towards classical and jazz. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they played works by Sibelius, Grieg, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms since those were the composers that were often featured in Betty's books.

For your listening enjoyment:

Finlandia by Jean Sibelius (in honor of The Founding Bettys brother Brian who spent 2 years in peanut butter forsakened Finland)

In the Hall of the Mountain King (Peer Gynt) by Edvard Grieg (for some reason this song takes me back to my childhood...possibly Bugs Bunny?)

Papagena/Papageno (The Magic Flute) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (the van Voorhees favorite opera)

Question of the Week

Poor Meg (of Stormy Springtime) both has to sell a home and hunt for a new one. Neither experience is very pleasant. And happily her Dear Little Flat is a refuge from the tempestuous seas of the real estate market until her implied installation at the Professor's home in Little Venice or manor house in Much Hadham.

As for the House of van Voorhees, we have weathered our own rough waters. Here I lamely relate The Short Happy History of the Lovers van Voorhees:

• First we rented. A boys' apartment in Utah. Our college campus and off-campus housing was segregated by sex and when students go home at the end of winter term, desperate newly married couples can assume occupancy of the vacant apartments. Believe me when I say it smelled of boy. Our dish-washer was the kind that you had to roll over to the sink and hook up to the faucet.
• Second was a semi-basement--the stuff of Meg's nightmares. Utah gets scorching hot in the summers so I was perfectly content to have a cool concrete wall to spoon at nights. Our dishwasher was the kind where you stood at the sink and scrubbed them yourself.
• Third was the Recent College Grad apartment. The dishwasher didn't move. Hurray!
• Fourth. Our starter home. Choosing it nearly tore the Lovers van Voorhees asunder. We discovered that here are two things the van Voorhees' don't do comfortably: Naming children and buying homes. But finally we found it. The most charming aspect of Colonial homes is that you might have a five foot window directly in front of the master-bedroom loo to provide for continuity and symmetry on the outside. No cunningly tucked away bathrooms behind wooden panels here. The motto of that home was, "Mind that the blinds are down."

We sold the house in two weeks at the height of the real estate boom. Sadly, we also bought our current home at the height of the real estate boom. We're still waiting for it to be worth more than we paid for it...

It, too, is a Colonial and we've spent the last three years eradicating every sign that the free-spirited former owners were ever here. Orange and purple elementary-school-tile floors, 9 electric colors on the first floor alone...Even now that we've covered the floors I still feel them menacing me like an ancient Indian burial ground. Heroine Meg with her cunning use of wallpaper and paint would be hard-pressed to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear.
But then, Meg didn't have Betty Debbie...

My question is: What are your adventures in real estate?

Betty on the subject of Noisy Accessories

"You're a restful companion, Meg; you don't wear jangling bracelets, nor do you whip out a mirror and stare at your face every half-hour or so."

"I expect if I had bracelets to jangle and a face to admire I'd do that too."

-Stormy Springtime

Way back in the halcyon days of my youth, I knew a couple of girls who had charm bracelets. (Before you get started on me, yes, I realize there are many other types of jangly bracelets) I was fascinated by those bracelets (and more than a little jealous of the girls who owned them). Alas, I was fated never to have a charm bracelet of my own. Yes, I've gotten over it. In fact, right about now I feel a little smug. I wouldn't want to wear one. How gauche. How tacky.

I'm lying. I still wish I had a charm bracelet (which is pretty silly of me, since I wouldn't wear it - it would jangle!).

Are you one of those girls I was/am jealous of? Do you have a jangling charm bracelet?

Here's my favorite "jangling" ditty.

British Word of the Day

She had sat down on the floor of the back lobby, the better to pull off the old socks she wore inside her boots, and at a kind of gulping sound from Betsy, she turned her head.
Stormy Springtime

Betty Neels never identifies them as wellies but of course they are.

Wellies:
The Wellington boot, also known as rubber-boots, wellies, topboots, gumboots, or rainboots are a type of boot based upon leather Hessian boots...

Once again, England has us beat hollow for simple atmospherics. It's become very posh to call them Wellingtons in the Pacific Northwest (very posh to use the word posh, come to that).

I grew up calling them rubber boots or rain boots and I suppose they were perfect for mucking about in the garden in. I was not posh enough own a pair of wellies--or rubber boots for that matter--And how I wanted them--only second to Donna Summer inspired rainbow wedge heels...Is my childhood neurosis communicating itself? Down boy!

We bought Spencer van Voorhees (#3) some green froggy wellies a few years ago. I was pregnant with the fourth and they were super handy because I didn't have to bend over and lace them up. He wore those and his reversible Batman/Superman cape every day for 6 months. By the end I had ceased making eye contact with the mommies at the bus stop.

Of course, Target has some Liberty print ones. You may fight out the slummy and un-slummyness among yourselves.

And no mention of Wellington would be complete without Napoleon getting second billing. Which brings me to ABBA...My sister Bettys taught me well.

Upcoming Reviews

Monday, March 29 - Tulips for Augusta. Egg-nog with a touch of brandy (hospital food in the UK!), Bottom(the family donkey), Augusta in tatters, and Dutch aunts.

Thursday April 1 - The Course of True Love. Fake engagement, creepy stalker girl, twitching of curtains by nosy neighbors and a small bomb in the physio department.

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

I had to pick up some Liberty print stationary on my recent trip to Target. Now, when penning awkward and stiff little notes of gratitude to the man I love, I shall rock it with Liberty.


I admit that the history of the name 'Liberty' is somewhat disappointing. I had hoped that the name derived from a subversive British paen to American Revolutionary Patrick Henry...Sadly, it is merely the surname of the founder (who in no particular way is related to the ideals of Liberty--unless you count free markets and capitalist enterprise as synonymous with liberty, I suppose). Still, they do have a fun history notwithstanding the name:

• The magnificent Tudor building (that is the Liberty flagship store) was built so that trading could continue while renovations were being completed on the other premises and in 1924 this incredible icon was constructed from the timbers of two ships: HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan
  

• In 1989, the store was the target of a bomb attack, in retaliation for Penguin books stocking Salman Rushdie's book The Satanic Verses. (A charmingly plain British girl was probably quashed flat in the protective arms of a vast dutch doctor as he threw her out of harm's way.) Responsibility of the petrol bomb , which was thrown from a passing car and injured four pedestrians, was claimed by "Islamic Concern for Banning the Satanic Verses

• They have a website ! http://www.liberty.co.uk/