X-New York Gal

posted by Evi on Jan 22

It’s been kind of chilly here in Southwest Florida and that got me to thinking of soup. Just recently I had made a pea soup from scratch which turned out really delicious, if I must say so myself. You can basically use the recipe on an 8 ounce bag of dried peas and then add your own touches.

I cooked mine in the crock pot and added a ham bone and small pieces of cut up ham, a parsnip (which gives it a real nice flavor), carrots, an onion, some leftover cooked potatoes, one and a half Knorr’s vegetable broth cubes, parsley, and some black pepper. Be sure to cut up everything into really small pieces. Then you let it sit in the crock pot for the next 7 – 9 hours. (For the first hour I put it on high, then turned it down to low.) About a half hour or so before serving, I removed the hambone and cut off any remaining meat. This soup, along with a buttered dinner roll, is a complete comfort meal.

I used to love making soups from scratch, even though I’m not much of a cook. Unfortunately Bill, my husband, is not a soup eater so I ended up giving some to my Mom.

I remember back to when I worked in New York City for a life insurance agency on Madison Avenue. One of my favorite ways to spend lunch time on a dreary, rainy day was to run a few blocks over to the Chock Full ‘O’ Nuts coffee shop on Fifth Avenue between 35^th and 36^th Streets and grab a hamburger and Manhattan clam chowder to go. I would then find an empty office in which to savor my greasy hamburger and delicious clam chowder in peace. The most comfortable office was the vice president’s office, so when he was out I would curl up in one of the comfortable old leather chairs along with the New York Daily News, sip at my soup and watch the rain drops streaking down the windows. (In those days I got an hour for lunch even though I only worked from 8:30 to 4:30. This constituted and 8 hour work day unlike those of today.)

I decided to Google Chock Full ‘O’ Nuts before writing about it. I figured they were all gone by now. Boy was I wrong! Apparently there are about 16 shops located in the New York area and one in Jersey. But it seems they went the way of Starbucks and coffee shops of that type with their lattes and other specialty drinks. I’m sorry to say I couldn’t find any mention of their Manhattan clam chowder and hamburgers, my favorite comfort lunches of days past.