Split Pea Soup

Rich in memory are those places from the past that can never be revisited. -Rilke

Every Saturday, pretty much religiously, throughout childhood and my more formative teenage years, I would go grocery shopping with my mom and dad. Mom would leave to start her day of work at the bakery at 6:30am and got off at 1pm.  Full of flour and wearing a Bread Box smock or a John’s Bakery three button polo shirt, depending upon where she worked, she would come barreling out of said bakery bearing loaves of bread, cookies, and my absolute favorite - the concha roll.  

The concha roll: A Mexican, shell shaped sweet roll topped with sugar paste.  

The sugar paste is textured and is of a dough like consistency, and it is delicious. And while my father drove - all over creation - my mother didn’t drive and still doesn’t - from one end of Brooklyn to the other - I picked on the one concha my mother would allow me to have.  One by one, I removed the sugar paste dough patches from the top of the sweet roll my mother gave me.  After 20 minutes, the roll was naked, stripped bare of it’s sugary coating.  I held a roll topped with holes, which then meant it was time to gobble up the remains of the actual roll.  I would no doubt finish my concha in 5 solid bites.

There was a lot of driving involved on these Saturday food shopping expeditions.  I didn’t spend much time with my mom and dad during the week - between my mom working at the bakery and running to hospital appointments with Thomas and my dad’s late nights as a truck driver.  I went food shopping because I wanted to be close to them, and the conchas were a serious bonus.  And there was another very alluring food item that I couldn’t wait to slurp up and I knew it would always come mid-way through our Saturday grocery shopping expedition. 

We traveled from the fuit and vegetable stands on Ave. U to 14th Ave. and 18th Ave. to make individual stops for pastas, bread (because we needed more bread) and dad’s coffee.  Queen Ann Ravioli, Pastosa Ravioli - it’s all melded in my mind as one giant flour based blur. 

After all of this running around from store to store, climbing in and out of the ‘91 Plymouth Voyager, one lone concha was not holding me over.  Shopping with Evelyn was what I imagine shopping with Mussolini would be like.  I was never on any formal sports teams, but climbing in and out of that car and carrying grocery bags in the pouring rain was aerobic and quite athletic for my very tired, very chubby appendages.

By 3pm I would crash.  Two hours of in and out of stores.  My mother hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 5:30am, I wondered:  how does she do this?  She can’t be real, she’s a machine. She was running on buttered semolina toast and a mug of milk tea.   She never ate at work.  She didn’t even touch a concha on our car ride from store to store.  I didn’t think this was normal.  I still have trouble believing this is normal.  Mid-way through breakfast I’m usually talking about or planning lunch.   My mother worked, and still works, like a machine.  

And just when I would hit my hunger wall, Dad would pull into the parking lot at Patrina’s Diner.
I knew, soon enough, I would be sated.   

Patrina’s Diner on 18th Ave and New Utrecht.  How I wish it never closed down.  

Saturday was split pea soup day at Patrina’s. I knew a cup, or a bowl of pea soup was almost in my tummy the moment we pulled into that rinky dink parking lot.  Surely my dad wouldn’t not go.   My dad had a hunger fury much like I did, so I knew we would stop in at the diner at some point, but the difference between getting that pea soup in my belly at 2:45 vs. 3:15 was epic.  My mom, dad and myself, would sit - us 3, no brothers or mean comments about my tubbiness - and each eat our prized bowls of Patrina’s pea soup.

Last Saturday, I made a large pot.  I imagined I was a kid.  I imagined myself in a cotton turtleneck and sweatpants, my Saturday best.  I sat down to soup, after racing through Astoria, buying my meat, my bread, my pasta and my fruit.  All at separate stores, just like I was taught.  As I sat down at my kitchen table, exhausted but so much stronger than I was as a child, I ate my pea soup with Nancy.

I pictured my mom and dad sitting in the empty chairs that occupied the space around the table on either side of us.

Split Pea Soup

1 bag Goya green split peas
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
8 oz. bacon or ham steak (cut into bite sized pieces)
2 large onions (diced)
2 cloves of garlic (minced)
5 medium carrots (cut into rounds, not too large) 
10 c. water
3 large sprigs of thyme 
3 dried bay leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 

-Place a large cast iron pot or stock pot over a medium flame and add butter, olive oil and bacon
-Cook for 10 minutes, add onions, carrots and garlic and saute for an additional 10-12 minutes   
-Add peas and coat with vegetables and bacon
-Add water, and herbs and bring to a boil, lower heat and let simmer with the cover on until peas are completely broken down - about 1 hour - and add salt and pepper 
-Remove bay leaves and thyme stems
-Serve hot, with buttery croutons, in tiny cups, and pretend you’re young again