When I was writing my post about New England Clam Chowder, I kept running across the instructions that it should authentically be served with Common Crackers. I had no idea what they were. After all, I grew up in Minnesota, lived in Chicago and moved to L.A., where I have been ever since. I went to Boston for a weekend once, and touched down at the Bangor, Maine, airport on my way to Europe in 1976. But I never ran into any common crackers in my travels.

And then I recalled a recipe I had filed away back in the day for some kind of New England cracker and, after a huge search in my file cabinet, Eureka! I found it and it was for the Common Cracker! God, I’m good. Anyway, there was no picture for what they looked like, so I looked on-line and discovered that Common Crackers were first made in Vermont in 1828. Over the years, nationwide, they became the standard symbol of the country store. No rural store was complete without the “cracker barrel” near the cheese counter where people would have casual conversations and idle talk (I think it’s called gossip). Families would buy these crackers by the barrel, containing about 1,200 crackers, which would last a year stored in a handy place for frequent family eating. Common crackers were crumbled into cold milk for supper or a snack with a hunk of cheddar cheese on the side. There are stories about a game played by people waiting for the evening stage. Each would eat a dry cracker and see who could whistle first.

Julia Child once wrote, “As any New Englander knows, you can’t enjoy a real New England chowder without toasted common crackers.”

The first step was to make a yeast/flour starter which sits at room temperature for 24 to 60 hours. I didn’t photograph this step. The batter got big bubbles, doubled in size, then collapsed and separated into solid and liquid. It was also dynamic and exciting as the gas produced blew the cover off twice with a loud pop. Next a mixture was made of shortening, potato flakes, brown sugar, baking soda, lemon juice and water. You can see it in the photo above left. A cup of the starter was mixed with flour with fork and kneading,  and rested for an hour in the middle photo above. And last the shortening mixture was kneaded into the starter ball in a KitchenAid and another cup of flour added, to make a stiff ball.

The ball of dough was quartered and one part rolled out to 3/8-inch thickness.

The sheet of dough was run through a pasta machine on the widest setting and folded in thirds letter-style a total of six times. A 1 ¼-inch biscuit cutter was used to cut circles of dough and placed on a sheet pan.

The recipe made 108 little firm puffy crackers for me, a bunch of which I split with a sharp little knife, buttered liberally and toasted under the broiler until they turned a lovely golden brown color. Do not make the mistake I made by tasting these little buttery beauties, because you cannot eat just one. They are absolutely addicting. Just crumble them up in your clam chowder. You’ll be so happy you did.

The first time I ever saw a clam, I was about 5 years old, living with my Mom, Dad and little brother in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My father was very into fishing, which a lot of people are in Minnesota, as it is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. However, in this case he had been fishing on the Minnesota River and brought home this huge clam to show my Mom. It was gray, about 6 inches across, and they decided to boil it to see if they could eat it. I stood on a chair to see and I remember that poor clam bouncing around in the boiling water, opening up and becoming more rubbery by the minute as my twenty-something parents poked it over and over, poking each other and giggling, “Do you think it’s done yet?” Well, obviously it was a failed experiment and the whole mess got thrown away.

The first time I ate Clam Chowder was thirty years later in about 1980 at a little dive restaurant in the Redondo Beach Marina, a seaside town in Los Angeles. You know the kind, 10 tables made from hatch covers, wrap-around picture windows to see the ocean, fishing nets hanging all around over the windows decorated with shells, starfish and little buoys. My friend insisted I try the clam chowder and that was the beginning of a great love affair. With clam chowder, I mean. Has anything ever been so creamy, buttery, clam-y and potato-y. Melt in your mouth with those little pieces of clam that taste so good. You can add homemade toasted Common Crackers for a special treat. Heaven in a bowl. And just the thing to warm you up on these cold wintry days.

Winter has finally come to Los Angeles. Yea!! It’s cold and rainy, and I can finally turn on my oven and start baking. And dig out the big pot and make tons of soup to fill my freezer with little containers. There are also three big holidays coming up, which may mean you’ll be making big dinners for a bunch of guests. So here is my roundup of four soups that may help you (and me) make our family and friends happy and satisfied. I love soup!

The first thing I’m going to do is make a big pot of Aunt Ena’s Chili Soup, portion it out in containers and freeze them. I want to have this chili on hand to zap in the microwave when I’m busy shopping, cleaning, decorating and prepping the holiday feasts. I want something hearty and full of energy. I think I’ll make some Soft Sweet Buttery Cornbread to go with it and freeze squares of that, too. I’d better get busy on this tomorrow. Two weeks until Thanksgiving. Yikes!

Sweet potatoes are so much a part of the traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, usually in a casserole or sweet pie. Here is an opportunity to serve them in a Sweet Potato Soup with Thai Pesto, a beautiful starter before your succulent turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberries. Oh man, my mouth is watering already. I wait all year for this great feast of flavors.

Our Christmas feast for the last decade had been a buffet of dishes delivered from our local Thai restaurant. However, since we moved to our new house, there is no Thai place near by and we’re too far from the old Thai restaurant for them to deliver. So I am probably going to be cooking the dinner for Christmas, too. This Zucchini Soup would be a perfect way to start off, especially since I have several vegetarians in my group. Then maybe followed by a Beet Salad or Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad (or both, why not) and Eggs Benedict with Sauteed Shredded Potatoes and Asparagus. I can taste that lemony Hollandaise right now. Mmmmm. And finish it all off with some Gingerbread topped with a big dollop of Cider Sabayon. Thai food, buh bye.

My husband and I have been together for 24 years, and for the last 22 of those years, since the arrival of our son, Brian, New Year’s Eve has been a non-holiday for me. And that is because my husband is the keyboard player in a band that has had a New Year’s gig every year that I have known him. So I stayed home with the kid and watched the ball drop on TV like it was any other normal week night. The truth is, I like to stay home where I’m safe and it’s quiet. However, if the time ever comes when the husband is available for a New Year’s Eve dinner party, I am going to serve this Shrimp, Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo. This would be the perfect way to start the New year. I think I’m going to go work on my menu right now; I could need it as soon as next year!

The theme for the cooking class at Grace-Marie’s Kitchen last Saturday was Concert in the Park Picnic, featuring dishes that could be make ahead of time and eaten at picnic temperature. The menu included this Chilled Leek and Zucchini Soup, Tuscan Picnic Chicken Wings, Mini-Red Bell Pepper & Pesto Bites, and Limoncello Squares. I hope your mouth is watering, because each of these dishes was fantastic. Better even.

I am writing about the Leek and Zucchini Soup first, because I want to show you an absolutely brilliant technique for prepping the leeks that Grace-Marie showed us. I have never seen this technique in any cookbook, class or cooking show and it is so logical I can’t figure out why I haven’t seen it demonstrated someplace before.

Some of the dark green leaves are cut off the end and discarded. If you look at that end, you will see the light yellow and green core of the new leaves inside. So the tough, dark green leaves are pared away, with knife strokes away from you, until only the light edible interior parts remain. Genius!

Next the pancetta was diced and sautéed. I love these salty crispy little bits. The pan was sitting on the stove and I have to admit a few were surreptitiously tested for poison. They were ok, thank goodness.

The diced leeks, potatoes and zucchini were sautéed in the drippings from the pancetta, adding its salty porky-ness to the soup’s flavor. This smelled so good while it was cooking, especially since there was a bunch of garlic in the mix.

Chicken stock was added and the pot was left to simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes began to fall apart. Cream and flat leaf parsley were added and everything was pureed in a blender. It was a beautiful creamy soup bejeweled with little flecks of parsley. And finally garnished with brilliant green flat leafed parsley and crispy knobs of pancetta. Perfect for a picnic. Take it in a thermos and serve in plastic wine glasses. Very fun.

For additional recipes from Grace-Marie’s Kitchen, look under Categories in the right-hand column.

Grace-Marie Johnston

For more information about the new schedule of cooking classes, visit Grace-Marie online at Bristol Farms or email her at gmj@bristolfarms.com.

The day I went to Whole Foods to buy the quinoa for my Quinoa Salad with Pistachios and Dried Apricots, I was passing by the meat department and noticed some samples sitting up on the counter. I cannot resist samples, so I helped myself to a little red-hued meatball with a toothpick sticking out the top. I took a bite as I started walking off and was stopped dead in my tracks. It was so amazing I turned right around, and after looking around to see if anyone was watching, snagged another meatball. I had to buy some of this what-ever-it-was, so with the appearance of the guy behind the counter, I asked what it was and where I could find it.

He said it was Mulay’s Chorizo, and lucky for me, he had only one package left, which was back in his walk-in frig. I have had chorizo in the past, but the kind in a casing, I think it was Spanish, and the bulk from Bristol Farms, which really didn’t do that much for me. The ingredients on the Mulay’s label are pork, water, salt, paprika, spices & garlic powder. It wasn’t over the top spicy, just enough to make you want to eat this stuff every day for the rest of your life. So if you are a chorizo aficionado you will want to try this. If it isn’t available in your neighborhood, you can mail order it from Mulay’s. It’s a family owned company and their website is quite interesting, where you can find a lot more recipes using chorizo and other sausages. I also like the idea that they use pork raised without antibiotics ever, no added hormones, vegetarian fed, no nitrates, MSG, preservatives, sugar or soy. Well, don’t I sound like an advertisement. LOL.

So I went home and had to figure out what to make with this chorizo gold I had discovered. I decided on White Bean Soup, and I’m glad I did. The chorizo flavored the broth with its spicy smoky flavor and made me really happy. I made a big pot and froze it in serving-size containers, so each time I made it I experimented with toppings. I tried grated mozzarella with a sprinkle of minced Italian parsley, which was good. But the dollops of salty, crumbly Queso Fresco cheese with minced cilantro and basil sprinkled over the top was the best. If you don’t have Queso Fresco, you could use a dollop of ricotta sprinkled liberally with kosher salt and ground black pepper. I think you could add shrimp or leftover fish broken into pieces. Have fun. Get creative.

Tale One

One afternoon last week my doorbell rang, which was a surprise, because I wasn’t expecting anyone. I opened the door and there stood a beautiful young woman with a toddler clinging to her knee, holding a huge platter piled with fresh vegetables. “Hi,” she said, “I’m your next door neighbor and I have a garden that is making more stuff than I can possibly use. So I am going door to door in the neighborhood and trying to get rid of it. Do you want some?”

Since we hadn’t met, she had no idea her new neighbor (me) was a hardcore foodie and a platter of just-picked veggies was like finding the gold at the end of the rainbow. Especially since about half of the platter was piled high with tomatillos. So I invited her in, of course. In the end I had all of her tomatillos, plus a few jalapenos and serranos, and a tour of her garden, which was beautiful and growing like crazy. She said she didn’t know what to do with all the tomatillos except make salsa, so I gave her the recipe for this Tomatillo Albondigas Soup and one for a Jicama, Mango and Fresh Tomatillo Salad. A sweet new neighbor and a bunch of tomatillos. Sometimes life just gives you lemonade, you know.

Tale Two

When I was doing my cooking internship at Campanile for culinary school, I worked every Saturday for nine months doing prep work in the kitchen from about 8AM until 3PM. Then the prep cooks would go home, and the line cooks would come in and I would do whatever they asked to help them prep their stations. From 6 to 8PM I would watch Chef Mark Peel work the grill and observe the line cooks at work, running whatever little errands they asked of me.

My boss during the day was the head prep cook, Eloy. He had the kitchen manager’s to-do list hanging over his cutting board station, and crossed off and assigned the various tasks to be accomplished. The four or five other prep cooks had their cutting boards down the counter to Eloy’s left and I had my cutting board on his right, where he could show me how he wanted everything done in minute detail and keep an eagle eye on me. Since I had no restaurant cooking experience and rudimentary knife skills, I was pretty much the comic relief for the whole prep crew. Eloy didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Spanish, so communication was by sign language, pointing, elbowing my arm, grunting, laughing, and when necessary having someone act as translator. We chuckled a lot.

Eloy was about forty, not much taller than my five feet, but stocky and barrel-chested, with forearms like Popeye. I have never seen anyone with such amazing knife skills as this man and I am still trying to emulate him. With those strong wrists and hands he made quick work of every task. Perfectly.

One morning, as I was working away, Eloy gave me an elbow in the arm and pointed down at his cutting board. There sat a big clove of peeled garlic. At this point all of the other prep cooks were jostling into position so they could see what he was going to do. They all had big grins on their faces. Eloy looked at me, raised an eyebrow and looked down at the garlic. He picked up his chef’s knife and with just the up and down movement of his hand from the wrist, reduced that garlic clove into about 30 paper thin slices in 3 seconds. The knife was a blur. This would have been an amazing feat in and of itself, except that he was looking over his shoulder in the opposite direction from the cutting board.

Next, Eloy picked up another garlic clove and put it on my cutting board. He gave a little lift of his chin and pointed at me and the garlic. Everybody was really grinning by now. So I got my chef’s knife and slowly sliced it into about 10 slices. This time Eloy had the big grin on his face as he patted me on the back, like, nice try kid. So we all went back to work with little smiles on our faces.

On my last day at Campanile, all the prep cooks had gone home and I was cleaning up my cutting board station. When I turned around, the clean stainless steel counter behind me held nothing but a bowl of soup. None of the line cooks had arrived yet, so I was alone with that bowl. I had no idea whose it was or what kind of soup it was, but it looked really interesting. I got a spoon and looking around to see if anyone could see me, surreptitiously ate a spoonful. Oh my gosh, it was one of the most amazing and delicious things I had ever tasted. I had never tasted a tomatillo in my life and had no idea that was what I had eaten. But there was no one around to ask. At that point it didn’t occur to me that Eloy had left me a parting gift. I had no way to get the recipe, so I just filed away the delicious memory.

A couple of years later, I was at a book store and was paging through the new cookbook The Food of Campanile. There on page 80 was the recipe “Eloy Mondez’s Albondigas Soup”. I almost started jumping up and down! This was the recipe for the soup he’d made! Tomatillos. So that was what that mysterious ingredient was. The notes said Eloy made this soup for the staff meal and it was so popular they ended up putting it on the menu when they opened for lunch. I immediately bought that book and have been happily making this soup for the past 14 years. I hope you make this soup, too and enjoy it as much as I have. Thank you, Eloy!

A couple of days ago there was torrential rain in Los Angeles from morning til night that scoured the dirt off my car and bruised the flowers on the plants in my yard. When it finally cleared up the next day, I went out for a tour to check the damage. It wasn’t too bad, just a little debris from the palm trees and a few small branches from the dollar eucalyptus. But this was made up for by the new growth on my two rosemary bushes. I have two rosemarys, one in the front and one in the back yard. They looked so beautiful, I just had to take their photos.

This is the rosemary in the front yard. It is obvious that the gardener has convinced this one that it is a shrubbery, for decorative purposes only. Which is probably a good thing anyway, because its flavor is bland and uninteresting. Notice it has not one blossom to mar its box-like shape.

And this is my free range rosemary, a wild and wooly thing occupying the back corner of my garden. It is seventeen years old and has never been trimmed, except for what I take to cook with. It is covered with blossoms, with bees busily buzzing amongst the branches. If you run a branch through your fingers, they come away smelling so rich with resin-y promise. Which is what happened on my tour. I stood there smelling my palm, inhaling that pine-y aroma, and I just had to cook something using rosemary immediately.

Hearty Burgundy Lamb Soup is one of my favorite recipes that is flavored with rosemary. Please use Gallo Hearty Burgundy the first time you make this recipe, so you can get the full effect of its deep winey flavor. I know Gallo used to be for the cheap seats, but this is the wine I use for all my red wine sauces and in soups. I don’t drink it because it has sort of one big note, with no complexity. But that one note is the perfect flavor for dishes where complexity is created by all the other ingredients. I have tried other burgundy and red wines in this recipe and I ended up with a pale imitation. Trust me, use the Gallo.

Last week, when my friend Michele and I were done with our afternoon Country Western Line Dancing Class, she said, “You’re coming home with me and I am going to feed you leftovers for dinner!”

“Oh goodie! Count me in!” I replied. Because I LOVE LEFTOVERS.

We proceeded to set the table with a cold rotisserie chicken from the Manhattan Beach Farmers Market from the day before and some jasmine rice sprinkled with olive oil, salt and pepper. The salad from the day before had fresh spinach and roasted cauliflower, to which we added more spinach, tomato and radishes. She offered a creamy bottled dressing and I said I’d rather make an oil and vinegar one from scratch, which I did and the whole meal was divine. We were very proud of ourselves for our creations.

There is nothing I like better than leftovers, of every kind. I treasure my frozen containers full of homemade chili and pieces of cornbread individually wrapped. That wedge of pizza that is waiting to be microwaved until the cheese is molten. The cold grilled sirloin or meatloaf which will make splendiferous sandwiches. Just think about that Thanksgiving turkey, stuffing and gravy waiting for you the day after.

And then there are the leftovers that come in those white boxes from restaurants. Oh, I love those especially. Some chef toiled for hours making something really delicious, and all you have to do is heat it up for a couple of minutes! I live with two people who sometimes bring home little white boxes filled with surprises. I love to open the refrigerator and look expectantly inside. It’s like Christmas. And they share.

So, two weeks ago after our dancing class, Michele and I went to The Kettle in downtown Manhattan Beach. This place has been there since the mid-1960s and was the first restaurant I went to when I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1971. It has great beach atmosphere, with booths of dark wood and red leather. The backs are quite high, so when you sit down, you can talk in privacy. The food is American comfort food – burgers, pasta, salads, pancakes and eggs. They have the best bran muffins I have ever eaten. And you can see the ocean.

We were hungry, so for some reason I ordered fried chicken with mashed potatoes and country gravy. Usually I get a Chinese chicken salad, but that chicken sounded good. When it arrived, it was ok. I was hungry, I ate the chicken, then I wasn’t hungry any more. Mission accomplished.

So the next day, when I opened the refrigerator, I had forgotten about the leftovers. There were those white boxes, which I opened, looked at the contents, and thought to myself, I really didn’t want to heat up that hard blob of mashed potatoes and the congealed gravy. The cheese and broccoli soup was hard like a hockey puck. But I didn’t want to throw anything away either. So I decided to do the logical thing under the circumstances: make soup.

I heated up two cans of chicken broth in a big pan and mixed in the mashed potatoes, gravy and cheese soup. They dispersed beautifully into the broth. Then I cut up the chicken into bite-sized pieces and added it to the soup. That cheese soup must have been full of parmesan because the cheesy, potato-y broth was really, really good. I sopped up the broth with the garlic bread. Yum. And I had made enough to create more leftover containers to freeze, like money in the bank. Yes!

Last year for our October birthdays, my friend Michele and I went to Osteria Mozza to celebrate. This year we went to a Pork n’ Beans Rooftop BBQ put on by the Cube Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Cube Café and Marketplace. The proceeds will benefit the Cube Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to improving dietary habits and clean-food access by nurturing minds and nourishing stomachs of underprivileged Los Angeles-area children and their families. They have a team of master gardeners, food experts and educators that are working to establish a variety of programs, all based out of their downtown rooftop garden.

This year the Rooftop BBQ featured food from two artisanal producers, the Fatted Calf Charcuterie of San Francisco and Rancho Gordo in Napa. The dishes were prepared by Executive Chef Erin Eastland and they were set up in buffet style, so you could help yourself to as much as you wanted. The menu was hearty with Grilled Fatted Calf Sausages, Fatted Calf Garlic Brined Pork Shoulder, Nopales Salad with Rancho Gordo Midnight Black Beans and Charro Beans (Ranch Gordo Cowboy Beans Cooked with Fatted Calf Bacon & Beer). Plus Cornbread, Coleslaw, Grilled Sweet Potato Halves and Collard Greens Braised with Ham Hocks.

The rooftop was covered with straw and sunflowers were everywhere. It was HOT. But there were a lot of umbrellas. It may have been a BBQ on a roof, but we had big white china plates and cloth napkins. No paper plates for these guys. The Fatted Calf Sausages were fantastic, along with a Roasted Red Pepper Aioli.

We were on a rooftop and the skyscrapers from downtown Los Angeles were all around us.

I did meet Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo and he talked about his newest products, Organic Oregano Indio, Mixteca Salt and Banana Vinegar. These are products from little producers in Mexico and he was very excited about the quality and being able to bring income to them.

We took a tour of the rooftop garden while the band played.

We were stuffed, and hot and it was time to leave. But we were happy we could contribute to such a worthy cause. On the way out we were given a goodie bag from the Cube Café Marketplace, which contained, among other things, this package of Rancho Gordo Yellow Eye Beans.

So I made soup. I make my bean soup quite lemon-y, so it goes very well with the crispy browned fish. If you don’t like the fish idea, I think Swiss Chard would be great in this soup. Or cut a ham steak into cubes and add it. The soup recipe is below.

Please take a look at the Rancho Gordo, Fatted Calf  and Cube Café websites. Very interesting.

Right around this time of year I start trying to figure out what I am going to serve for our Thanksgiving Day feast. As I explained in my post about Thanksgiving 2009, my guests include a bunch of vegetarians, so this is a big challenge for me. So I thought I would take that old holiday standby, sweet potatoes, and make something different with them this year. Not that I don’t cherish my memories of those canned, sticky, sweet, orange chunks baked with brown sugar and miniature marshmallows. I do. My Mom made them every year throughout my whole childhood. They sat right next to the Green Bean, Cream of Mushroom and Fried Onion casserole. But I think I’m going to go the whole Southeast Asian route this time. Sorry Mom.

This is a great starter with the pureed sweet potato and coconut milk soup flavored with red curry paste and topped with a dollop of Thai pesto, which is chunky with peanuts and minced basil, cilantro and mint. I love this pesto because it is flavored with palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice, the quintessential triumvirate of Thai cuisine. Plus grated ginger, green chile and garlic. Oh man. When the pesto is swirled into the orange soup, the melded taste is just sublime. Ok, I talked myself into it. This is definitely going on my Holiday menu.

The theme for the Saturday Tea class this week at Grace-Marie’s Kitchen at Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach was Back to School Autumn Tea. This week the menu was End of Summer Zucchini Soup, Smoked Salmon Tomato Cups, Apple and Cheddar Bread, Caramelized Onion and Brie Croissants, Autumn Harvest Brandy Pear Cake and Autumn Berry Tapioca Parfaits. This is Part Three with the last two recipes from that class. I wanted to post about all of the recipes because all of them were wonderful.

I have to tell you, I love Bristol Farms Market. And no, they’re not paying me to say so. The store is five minutes from my house and I have been shopping there for about 20 years. They have all the items I can’t find anywhere else, for instance, within recent memory, Red Pepper Jelly, Sriracha, lamb shanks, Harissa, Red Current Jelly with Port, jarred chestnuts, apple smoked bacon and Parmigiano-Reggiano. They have the most marvelous cheeses. And if they don’t have what you need, they will get it for you. Recently I wanted to have some Mexican achiote paste, so I talked to the grocery dept manager, and he said he would get it and call me when it arrived. He has a little notebook in his pocket for this purpose. And sure enough, a couple of weeks later, my phone rang. Don’t you just love it when people follow up?

The End of summer Zucchini Soup started out with diced onion, chopped garlic, diced zucchini and chicken stock, with Italian Dried Herbs. This smelled so good when it was simmering away on the stove. I took lots of photos of it so I could get close and let the aroma waft into my nose.

While the soup was bubbling away, more zucchini was sliced into little thin strips and sautéed for the garnish. Grace-Marie sliced the zucchini into ¼-inch slices lengthwise, then turned the stack over flat and sliced them into ¼-inch lengthwise strips. These were sautéed in olive oil and butter until just tender.

When the zucchini and diced onion in the chicken stock was tender, the basil was added and it was pureed with an emersion blender until smooth. It smelled soooo good. And when I finally got to eat, it was so perfectly creamy and zucchini-y. *sigh*

This is an Afternoon Tea and the different treats are put on trays in the metal stands. There is every kind of tea you can think of in the baskets – I had Chamomile – and boiling water is poured out of thermos tea pots. The tea was really good with the Apple and Cheddar Bread.

Next Grace-Marie prepared the Smoked Salmon Tomato Cups. The filling was a tasty mixture of cream cheese, mayonnaise, Thai sweet chili sauce, horseradish, smoked salmon, cucumber and sundried tomatoes. The Roma tomatoes were cut in half, the seeds scooped out and the filling spooned in.

This filling is very adaptable and I think you could substitute the salmon with chicken, ham, shrimp, crab, cooked egg or leftover fish from last might’s dinner. Add your favorite herbs. Be creative.

For additional recipes from Grace-Marie’s Kitchen, look under Categories in the right-hand column.

Grace-Marie Johnston

For more information about the cooking classes visit Grace-Marie online at Bristol Farms or email her at gmj@bristolfarms.com.

I wasn’t planning to do this recipe today. At all. But I was busy and I went into my freezer to grab a container of something to heat up in the microwave. When it was heated up I saw that it wasn’t what I thought it was. It turned out to be this container of Yellow Split Pea Soup, of which I had only one container left, and which I was saving to blog about on a day when I didn’t have time to cook something. Like an insurance policy, you know?

Well, it was heated up, so I had to photograph it, and because I didn’t have a chance to write about what I was going to write about, now I’m writing about the Yellow Split Pea Soup.

You see, I was going to write about the amazing day I spent at the studio of the world-renowned food photographer, Jon Edwards, watching a photo shoot for an international food market chain. And photographing Denise Vivaldo, Cindie Flannigan and Jeff Parker as they did the food styling for the photographs. I took 340 photos and I was planning on going through them all, sorting out the unusable ones, and choosing the ones to tell my story. Then photoshopping and maybe even finishing the writing. I had been procrastinating over the last week, but today I felt was really the day I would get that post done.

But noooooo…. I had to heat up the wrong container.

So – this is an easy, wonderful soup that is so tasty and filling. Something happens about half way through the cooking: the broth turns so sweet and becomes infused with the flavor of the parsley and basil. Sort of a magical transformation. This recipe didn’t start out with shrimp initially – that was something I added one day when I had some extra shrimp that I needed to use up. Well, it was so good, I have made it a permanent ingredient in this dish. It’s interesting how recipes evolve over time, isn’t it?

Today was a day that I had a lot to do and I needed something fast to eat. I had this head of cabbage with no fixed destination, so I decided to use it to make a quick cabbage soup. And when I say quick, I mean 15 minutes or less. There is no recipe, it’s just one of those simple things you throw together. Cut up some cabbage, put in a sauce pan and pour in  two or three cups of milk. A pat of butter, some salt and black pepper and simmer over medium heat until the cabbage is soft. That’s it.

The result is so much more than the individual ingredients. The cabbage gets soft and buttery. The milk reduces a little and gets sweet with the flavor of the cabbage. I used 2% milk and the result was perfect, but you could use any percent milk you have on hand. Just try not to let it boil, as the milk might separate and get little curds. It will taste exactly the same, but look like it has…well…little curds. However, if you actually want curds, boil away. I prefer no curds, myself.

Note:

Potage [pronounced poh – tahzh] is a noun from French Cookery, meaning soup, especially any thick soup made with cream.

Not to be confused with:

Pottage [pronounced pot – ij] meaning a thick soup made of vegetables, with or without meat.

This story is one of my most precious food memories. I am one of those people who remember the first time they ate a particular ingredient or dish, who gave me a recipe or with whom I was eating. The smell or taste of a dish can transport me right back to that place and time. I have been making this Chili Soup for about 45 years now, and every time I make it I relive this poignant memory.

The summer that I was 19 a friend and I drove from Minneapolis, where we lived, to the middle of Iowa to visit his Great Aunt Ena and Uncle Harry. I had never been on a farm before, being city born and raised, so I was unprepared for the vista of rows of corn that went to the horizon in every direction. Their small two bedroom white clapboard house sat beside the two lane road on a little knoll under a huge shade tree. When we got out of the car I was immediately struck by the silence. There were no sounds of the cars, trucks, airplanes and people that were the background din I was used to hearing.

Aunt Ena and Uncle Harry were in their late 60s; she, gray, plump, in a house dress with an apron; he, a two day grizzled growth of white stubble, white T-shirt, blue denim overalls and the most twinkly blue eyes I’d ever seen. While my friend went in the kitchen to talk to Aunt Ena as she prepared lunch, I chatted up Uncle Harry in the living room.

He offered to give me a tour of his little farm, so we went outside, where he showed me the small weathered farm building that housed their one cow and the few chickens running around. His old worn tractor sat in the yard not too far from the kitchen garden, where he pointed out the tomatoes, beans and onions growing there. He had been working this land all of his life and I could tell he loved every blade of grass and stalk of corn.

Back inside, he told me that at my age he had enlisted in the Army. It was at the end of World War One, 1914, and he got as far as basic training at the nearby Army base when the war ended. He asked me to wait a minute and he strode off into the hallway, where he opened a closet door. He rummaged around for a minute and came back with a photograph, which he handed to me. It was one of those brown-toned photographs of a beautiful young man in a World War One Army uniform, form-fitting jacket, jodhpurs and knee high black boots. Ruddy cheeks, a thatch of curly blond hair and those twinkly blue eyes. “This is you,” I said, “Your eyes haven’t changed a bit. Look how handsome you were.”

I started to hand the photograph back to him and he said, ”No, you keep it. I want you to have it.” I felt overwhelmed to be honored in this way. Thanking him, I put it in my purse.

At that moment Aunt Ena called us into the kitchen for lunch, which included this Chili Soup. It was so delicious, I asked her for the recipe. When we finally said our goodbyes, I watched them through the rear window of the car as we pulled away, standing in front of their little house, waving their hands in the air.

So now, all these years later, I am still making this Chili Soup. The recipe hasn’t changed at all, except for the addition of the ancho chili powder. I usually have some containers of this on hand in my freezer and every time I eat it I am transported back to that visit. And now you, too, if you make this recipe, can share my memory of Uncle Harry every time you eat it.

I have been getting some questions about the photos in the slide show, like, did I take the photographs; are there recipes for them; and am I going to post the recipes? The answers are yes, yes and yes. The first photo is of Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, then Cold Cucumber Soup, Mini Corn Muffins, Crostini with Kalamata Olive Tapenade and Ricotta, and Moroccan Carrot Salad.

I chose the Cold Cucumber Soup for this post because all of the other recipes in the slide show have a story about them, and this Cucumber Soup has no story. It’s just a really good recipe.

You can serve this soup as a starter at a formal dinner, or in a rustic bowl in the afternoon for a pick-me-up on a hot day. You get the tang of the yogurt, the zing of the lemon and lime juice, and the crunch of the cucumber, with notes of garlic, mint and basil. Topped with sweet tomatoes and salty pistachios. Perfect.