Pea Soup

There's food and then there's food.

I got quite a chuckle the other day while eating pea soup and thought about how food has meaning in our lives and represents so many different things.

The Gleasons have special meals on so many days during the year.  We have corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day;  Grandma Kay's Easter Breakfast making sort of an eggs benedict with the hard-boiled eggs and english muffins;  Grandma Sherry's special breakfast for general conference Sundays--which is eggs, bacon and potatoes o'brien all in a electric frypan.  We have fondue on Christmas Eve.  The cheese.  The hot oil.  The fudge with homemade cream puffs full of ice cream.

One special food we like is pea soup at Pea Soup Andersen's.  Keith and I spent our wedding night there.  Let me clarify.  It's a motel too, not just a restaurant.  It has an old-fashioned windmill and a water wheel.  It's a great place.  They serve the soup with a cheesy bread and fixin's:  croutons, green onions, bacon bits, grated cheese, and ham.  It's all you can eat and it's all you need for a great meal.   That's the only part of my wedding night that will ever appear on a blog or anywhere else.

I wonder how many couples--the ones that are still married--have such a simple, happy memory.  I wonder how many couples wouldn't just turn their nose right up if they were offered pea soup.  We took Lucy and Mikey there recently and just smiled and chuckled over the table as we ate that we have such a unique remembrance of our beginnings.