Do You Miss Me Yet?
I love pea soup, smokey, thick, hearty, ham filled pea soup. I love club crackers and seasoned salt on top cause that’s how I grew up eating it. I am obsessing about pea soup lately because my mother keeps asking me to dinner. She is making soup.
Now I don’t live near my mother. As a matter of fact I live several states away. I feel badly when I tell her I won’t be able to come by for dinner but it sounds lovely and I hope they enjoy it. Then I hang up, walk away and feel empty. Mom wants to have dinner with me.
My mother is having issues with her memory. She often thinks I am married, to whom I am not sure, and for some reason I don’t dare ask or correct her. I think I like the idea myself. One evening she asked if i would spell fibromyalgia for her so she could write it down and look it up later.
She wanted to learn about her granddaughters pain. It was actually difficult. The letters don’t make sense or the word doesn’t make sense, anyway after 5 or 6 tries we decided to let it go. On a pretty day last spring she was lost for 6 hours before finding her way home. We were all scared, after all she had only gone to the local hairdresser, but if you ask her she had a delightful afternoon.
As i hang up I find myself contemplating the lessons i have learned over the last year about joy, loss, strength and the depth of friendship. I learned that home really is heart not timber. People may only be in our lives for the briefest of moments and yet we overlook them in order to survive the everyday that we have created for ourselves.
We, specifically I, need to become more conscious of the magic they bring to my life. I want to learn from it, share that magic with others, not waste away the whisper of my time on busywork.
My mother always wonders when and if someone misses me...Maybe it’s because she does..... I bought the ticket and am headed home for soup.
Pea Soup Ingredients
2 1/4 cups dried split peas, (1 pound), sorted and rinsed
8 cups water
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
2 medium celery stalks, finely chopped (1 cup)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 ham bone or 2 pounds pork shanks, a smokey ham hock is amazing
3 medium carrots, cut into 1/4-inch slices (1 1/2 cups)
Steps
Heat peas and water to boiling in 4-quart Dutch oven. Boil uncovered 2 minutes; remove from heat. Cover and let stand 1 hour.
Stir in onion, celery and pepper. Add ham bone. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 1 hour 30 minutes or until peas are tender.
Remove ham bone; remove ham from bone. Trim excess fat from ham; cut ham into 1/2-inch pieces.
Stir ham and carrots into soup. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes or until carrots are tender and soup is desired consistency.
It just that easy. Don’t forget the cornbread with some honey butter or club crackers. Enjoy with someone you love.