Guilty pleasure (1): a stash of new peas from eaten raw from the pod after borrowing a key to one of those glorious private garden-squares as seen in Notting Hill. Butterflies and bees galore, inexplicable absence of Hugh Grant (or Julia, for that matter), whoopsie. Peas are a little long in the tooth to eat raw by now, hence the recipe.
Elderly peas need gentle treatment or they turn into cross little bullets (happens to all of us, sooner or later). Make double quantities, chill, whizz up with cream and serve with hot croutons fried in Normandy butter.
Er - that’s it for now, folks, from hot and steamy London. Midsummer musings on the gastronomy of the gardens of Granada follow shortly. Meanwhile, must get the postings properly regular before I turn on my pay-button. Intention is to keep everything free, but add an extra recipe and maybe another sketch behind the paywall. Views, please.
Interesting thought, Vicki. If you read the cartoons on a laptop, not so much of a problem, but if yr on a mobile, agreed. I don't have photo-shop which would allow me to seperate them out - maybe I should. And I'm also thinking of prints - the veg/fruit ones on my website shop are A4, but the cartoons would have to be A3, which means new equipment. Hmm...maybe I should turn on my pay-button and invest!
I love chilled pea soup when the weather is hot. It's so much work to shell enough English peas to make a decent amount of soup, so I use sugar snap edible pod peas, steamed in corncob or chicken broth with leek and a bouquet garnie of tarragon, bayleaf, parsley, and celery leaf. When the peas are tender, I remove the herbs and transfer the contents of the pot to my high speed Vitamix blender with a big dollop of creme fraiche, and my secret flavor booster--some frozen petite peas. It probably isn't essential, but I then sieve the mixture to remove some of the particulate of pods, skins, and strings that are suspended in the soup, so that it is silky smooth. Served chilled with some snipped chives and chopped tarragon. After the first sip, I know for certain that summer has arrived.