Saturday, March 26, 2011

Hole in the Wall Lunch

 Discovered this amazing, hole-in-the-wall kind of place for lunch. In a seedy strip mall in Willow Point...well, not that seedy, but very non-descript. "Sundance Java Bar", with a facade that so orange it could have been an orange...... Inside, cozy sofas, wood chairs, everything mis-matched. A beta swamin a tall cylinder filled with bright beas and a bamboo stalk. Everything on the menu was homemade, the kind of homemade that makes you feel warm and  fuzzy.
    The sandwiches were made of long caraway seed studded bread, stuffed,, and I mean liberally stuffed with everything from shredded carrot to pea pods, julienned peppers and hand sliced cheese. Fresh, fresh, fresh.
And then there was the Pea Soup. Not salty, not greasy....just about the best pea soup. Thick and rich and  hot. You could sense it in the store....smell it bubbling and burbling in it's big black pot on the counter...... this is the pea soup my friend, Jane, would make. I met her at Cornwallis, a few years ago. She used to make her own bread every week, and then soup. It would go something like this:

"Put a quart of dried peas into five quarts of water; boil for a couple of hours; then add an onion, two heads of celery, a few carrots, two turnips, all cut up rather fine. Season with salt and pepper. Boil two hours longer, and if the soup becomes too thic add more water. Strain through a colander and stir in a tablespoonful of cold butter. Serve piping hot with with small pieces of toasted bread in bottom of bowl. Will feed  large crowd. Good for freezing."

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