Welcome to Pea Soup: Recipes for Body, Mind, and Spirit from a “Kitchen Table Gourmet,” a feast of my favorite recipes—recipes full of life and love, delicious recipes you can wrap your mouth around and savor, recipes that for years I thought I couldn’t eat as a regular part of a normal life.
You see, my relationship with food was always chaotic, a constant quest to be thin—boring “diet” foods consumed on a daily basis; that little food scale and calorie counter my constant companions; rich, “fattening” foods eaten guiltily and often to excess, but only on holidays or in secret binges. As a teen, my diet obsession culminated in a full-blown eating disorder. But I was one of the lucky ones. (50% of anorexic/bulimic women never recover normal eating patterns and 10% die.) With help from my family doctor, I recovered from the worst stage of my food nightmare. But I still dieted off and on for 35 more years, losing and gaining the same 10-20 lbs. over and over and over.
Then, two years ago, I got fed up. I stepped off the scale and the diet-rollercoaster and made a pact with myself that I would never diet again, tearing up the forbidden food list, and throwing away the calorie counter. What prompted this final step in my recovery process? Where did I find the tools, the “how to” of being a normal eater? I found them in a remarkable book, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, by Ellyn Satter. With the guidance I found in Ellyn’s book I began to feed my body real-food, sit-down meals and snacks at regular, reliable times. It was such a relief to finally learn that if I was hungry, I could eat and when I was satisfied, I could stop. I began to trust my body to eventually attain its natural weight, even if that meant being a few pounds heavier.
Over the past two years, I’ve gained a few pounds and gone up a size; I’m at my natural weight, a weight that I can maintain with ease. I feel great, my health is excellent, and I have tons of creative energy. Sure, I still have an occasional “fat” day, but for the most part I am happy with my fuller figure. Added bonus—my husband loves my new curves. And it’s nice to have a bit of padding, padding that makes it extra-cozy when my 3-year-old granddaughter climbs up onto my lap, throws her chubby legs around my waist, and settles in for a little snuggle-time.
For the first time in my life, I’m enjoying my favorite foods without guilt. And that’s what you’ll find in Pea Soup... time-tested recipes from my mother and grandmother which up to now were hand-written on index cards, spattered and worn and faded—fabulous recipes from daughters and sisters, aunts and uncles and friends—family favorites that I’ve carried around in my head for years but had never actually written down—recipes that I found online, in magazines or cookbooks that I had fun reinventing—and finally, classic recipes that I decided to try in my brave and rapidly approaching old age, recipes that require a little more time (and flour) on the hands, yet yield delicious and joyous results.
Why Pea Soup: Recipes for Body, Mind, and Spirit? Because soup, to me, represents everything that is warm and healing and restorative—soup bubbling all afternoon on the stove, soup filling the kitchen with its savory aroma, soup prepared with care and time and love. And why from a “Kitchen Table Gourmet”? I borrowed that phrase (with permission, of course) from Ellyn’s book. According to Ellyn, “The great gourmets dedicate their lives to exquisite eating experiences. They take pride in their discriminating tastes and are knowledgeable about fine food.”
This type of cooking and eating need not happen only in fine restaurants or at holiday times. It can happen at my very own kitchen table… and at yours too. Every meal. Every day.
Bon Appétit!
Pea Soup: Recipes for Body, Mind, and Spirit, from a "Kitchen Table Gourmet" , a beautiful, 116 page cookbook, available through Lulu, a print on demand web-based company, so books are printed only when they are ordered—saving trees, and space in my basement—since most traditional publishers require a minimum run of 1000 books. Because Pea Soup is a P.O.D. it can take up to 2 weeks from order to delivery. But it'll be well worth the wait. Bon appétit!
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