PEA AND PARSLEY SOUPER

Endless blue skies and bluster meant there was no escaping my hankering for the reassuring warmth of a cupped hand around a bowl of steamy soup. Id been weeding in the garden until I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t freezing anymore and sought shelter and chit chat with Ali in the seedling greenhouse. It’s the most grounding of them all, so full of life in its earliest stages, theres a chair in there and a table stacked twice its height with tools, salad bags, old radios and redundant scales. I propped myself on the bendy bin rim, again trying to pretend to myself that I was comfy, and we talked all things we had mused on since seeing each other the day before. As we chatted I inched the green house doors gradually closer to one another in the hope of shielding us from the wild wind, only to turn them into a united beating sail as the whole bottom took off, flying and beating against the floor with every gust.

The need for soup seemed to descend (as always) like a heavy sea fog, one moment Im balancing my bot on the bin, happy as can be to find myself of a Tuesday morning, sheltered in a wild green house, nowhere to be, drenched in mossy humidity and chit chat, then one resounding clang upon the last, a rogue gusts of cool air zips down my neck, all about my ears and nose, stray pots flying along the ground and suddenly Im flying too. Out the doors to the nearest patch of abundant green which lands me at the parsley bed, a happy accomplice.

My sole purpose now is to be cloaked in the warm fuzz of a bowl of hearty green soup. Soup to fill my tummy with warmth and muff the wind about my head.

Its to be pea and parsley in equal measure, great handfuls to strengthen my body and address the parsley tsunami reigning large in the garden. Parsley seems overlooked as a vegetable in its own right. When you’re lucky enough to have it in abundance, not caged in a micro packet, you are welcomed to treat it like any other leafy green.

This was a really simple soup, just a little sliced onion, chilli and fennel seeds warmed in olive oil, then some celery and garlic, cooked slowly together until they had given up their form and moved about the pan with a united limpness, then a splash of wine instantly steamed away. Then water to cover, and some, a little vegetable bullion, then to a simmer, frozen peas pilled in, back to simmer for 5 or so minutes. I really wanted a silkiness so the skins of the peas needed a little more time than usual so they gave away fully when I blended them.

Then for great hand fulls of flat and curly leaf parsley, crammed in and lid on to steam down and soak into the soup body. Really they are only in there to gently flop, to cook enough to eleaviate the very raw green flavour and impart their mellow sweetness to the broth. The peas may have dulled in colour but the parsley, only cooked momentarily will hold its grassy green and make your soup look vital

Blended to a silky cream and in my chosen vessel I piled on flax seeds, chilli, black pepper, salt and cold pressed sunflower oil. Patches of flavour ready to be caught by a decisive swipe of my spoon and dunked into by the stiff shards of seedy crackers by my side.