Lemons, Canned Peas, Pumpkin Pancake Mix, Applesauce & Cheers

Some people like to quote the phrase: "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

In my case, we got a food bank donation which included 40+ cans of peas, 30+ cans of applesauce & 30+ boxes of pumpkin pancake mix.

Canned peas; I can't think of anyone who cheerfully eats a single can of canned peas, much less 40+ cans. So I did the only thing I could think of - I made split pea soup. 20 cans went into this week's dinner resulting in about 8-9 quarts of soup that was pretty well received. 2 boxes of mix 2 cans of applesauce, 2 eggs 2 diced apples another can of water & a handful of raisins went into a 13" x 9" baking pan mixed to moisten everything and in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes produced a relatively moist & tasty pumpkin apple raisin cake.

Corn chowder, anyone?

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for whatever reason, i've never developed the habit calling people by name. it might have been influenced by a TV character on family ties nick (who actually got his own spinoff that didn't get past the pilot) whose trademark line was a taciturn greeting: 'hey." which i notice is how i typically start emails & facebook messages. this is in contrast to the  90's TV show Cheers about a bar where everybody knows your name - and they all greeted you by name.
finally i have a friend who: when he's greeted by someone whose name or voice he doesn't recognize (and he knows he should), he typically responds: 'hey you". and the reality is that i typically don't do a good job of remembering people's names.


We were getting to the bottom of the soup pot giving out seconds and thirds (they *did* really like the soup) when a stranger came up asking if we had anything left. He had a bowl of soup and was starting on seconds when two more people showed up. Upon hearing that there was only one bowl of soup left, he offered the rest of his seconds which was accepted and he struck up a conversation. He commented more than once that i seemed really happy to be there (the fact that i was and that it was readily discernible probably deserves its own blog) and just seemed to be really grateful that we were there at the park. Out of all this, the moment that sticks in my mind most vividly, was as he was leaving and i said" "good night leonard", he actually stopped, turned around and said "thanks for saying my name."

is it too late to teach an old dog new tricks, like learning to greet someone by name?