the friday feed: ham and bean soup

The Friday Feed needs a little revamp. I enjoy food, cooking and creating with it, but sharing recipes is getting a little old. Food is integral to our lives - for our everyday meals, for energy, for our health, for social interaction, for comfort and celebrations, for memories. 

The Friday Feed will remain but with a little twist. It will be a food chronicle with a little slant: an original haiku will accompany the story. That's going to be 52 haikus from now until the end of the year. You might be thinking, haikus are easy - three lines with 17 syllables (5-7-5) - but they're not quite as easy as you think. Typically haiku are about nature and depict a specific moment in time. Mine will reflect on a personal insight based on an observation or experience from my kitchen.

The extra gift from Christmas, bean soup featuring the leftover Christmas ham. Black-eyed peas are supposed to be THE good luck bean for a New Year's meal but when your family doesn't like black-eyed peas, you substitute and make an unforgettable ham and bean soup that warms their tummies and their hearts. New Year's day was windy, gray, cloudy, with a little spit of snow. A perfect soup day.

Christmas ham and beans

boiling in Mom’s orange pot

New Year’s comfort food.

Really good ham (Prosciutto) from Joe's Italian Deli, Little Italy, Bronx, NY. Definitely a more interesting photo than my spiral sliced ham on a cutting board.

happy world introverts day!

Did you know that today is a world holiday? 

After all the holidays from November through December 2024 - Thanksgiving, Mawlid al-Nabi, Bodhi Day, Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, Pancha Ganapati, Kwanzaa, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day (I’m sure other holidays are in there) - January 2 is World Introvert Day. It’s the day after the festivities of the past year end and introverts can (finally) get some peace and quiet to recharge their social batteries.

I am an introvert and I do love the holidays. Yesterday I fixed the “Last Supper” of the holiday season, our New Year’s Dinner filled with foods that are said to bring luck and good juju to this coming year. It was a quiet dinner, just Todd, Patrick, and me. I missed the table stretched out with two leaves, filled with 10 people, but the table for three was perfect. Actually, we sat at our new island so “the boys” could watch the Ohio State/University of Oregon collegiate playoff game. As much as I missed my people and all the busy-ness that filled the house, I did enjoy starting the 2025 on a quiet note.

Todd grilled baby back ribs that he covered with mustard and a spice rub and then cooked in the oven for a couple hours. He finished them off on the grill - three minutes per side. They were quite tasty. I think he will cook his ribs like this from now on. They get that yummy grilled flavor without getting charred. To accompany the ribs, I fixed ham and bean soup, mashed potatoes, a spinach casserole, and sauerkraut. It’s a lot of food, which means I can send some home with Patrick, but also have some good leftovers. That soup will taste good in the coming cold winter days and the leftovers mean some easy days of meal planning. Patrick headed back home, Todd finished watching the Ohio State game, and I cleaned the kitchen. It was my way of winding down for the evening, some quiet, restorative time.

“Please kindly go away, I’m introverting.” ~ Beth Buelow, The Introvert Entrepreneur

So ends my month-plus of events. Even though it was exhausting, I was so glad it happened, grateful that it happened, and though at times it was overwhelming, it was sure a lot of fun.

new year's day 2025

Kids' weddings change the dynamic of celebrating holidays. A new family member means sharing holidays, specifically Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every year since 2018 we have alternated Thanksgiving with our daughters' and son's in-laws and it works very well. 

The poem below reminds me of a Christmas celebration, when it was our year not to celebrate on December 25. We all converged at a lake house in northern Indiana shortly after the new year. The lake had frozen, ice fishermen were out in the early morning hours, and the sunrises started the days with a quiet pink hue. The very early mornings were so peaceful, so still. I could hear the ice fishermen's voices carry through the cold air as the sun crept up from its evening rest.

To the New Year

BY W. S. MERWIN

With what stillness at last

you appear in the valley

your first sunlight reaching down

to touch the tips of a few

high leaves that do not stir

as though they had not noticed

and did not know you at all

then the voice of a dove calls

from far away in itself

to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you

here and now whether or not

anyone hears it this is

where we have come with our age

our knowledge such as it is

and our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

Such a peaceful poem capturing the quiet dawn of new beginnings, blending nature's calm with the promise of renewal.

Happy 2025, friends.