# 306: A Basket Full of Memories
A basket full of folded linens brings me back to my young years. Our first ever community poll plus recipe for a hearty Tomato Garbanzo Soup.
I don’t keep to any housekeeping schedule…but there have been occasions when I do find myself stripping beds on Mondays. If I do it on Sunday night and put clean sheets on, too, I feel like I’ve gotten a jump on the week…not that it matters a whole heck of a lot because as a writer, baker, cook, gardener and dog mom, days of the week kinda roll into one another and Baking Day can be ANY day of the week in my cottage. But, there was something about seeing this basket with folded laundry on my bed yesterday that took me back to when I was a little girl and ironing was my after school chore.
When I came home from school there would be pillowcases, tea towels, and handkerchiefs waiting for me…all the flatwork. I set up the ironing board in my parents’ bedroom. With their dark mahogany full size bed frame, which was vintage even back then, a tall dresser, a mirrored dressing table with low chair on which I sat in the morning when my mom combed out my unruly hair with her rat-tail comb, a B&W TV, and her hope chest there wasn’t a whole lot of extra room
The iron didn’t have a steam valve so everything had to be made damp to get the wrinkles out so I would sprinkle them with water from the little plastic container with a yellow sprinkle top. I looked online but the ones I saw were all much taller than ours. I recall my mom and grandmother saying how they really liked our small one because “it fits right in your hand.” Some used soda bottles with an sprinkler insert. The top on ours was smooth and roundish like a cheese sprinkler but the picture shows how we did it in the days before there were steam irons and permanent press fabric. Just writing about this memory makes me smile as I truly did enjoy my chore.
One friend tells me of dampening and rolling up the fabric and vividly remembering the smell of the damp fabric and the iron. I remember the steam that would waft up when I put the iron on the linen setting. My mom advised me not to set it on linen as I might burn my fingers but the high setting really got the wrinkles out.
I liked smoothing out the tea towels, matching up the corners and getting sharp creases. Hankies were the easiest because they were small but I couldn’t get the corners to match up on the ones that weren’t cut square. And while I ironed I watched Shirley Temple, Amos and Andy, Buster Keaton, and Laurel and Hardy. I was never a fan of the 3 Stooges. I dutifully kept the sound down as on the other side of the wall was the living room where my mom taught piano and organ.
Our First Community Poll
Of course this now begs the all important question of do you iron?
When reading Jubilee by Toni Tipton Martin I learn that “leftover ham bone from Sunday dinner made Monday red beans and rice day,” and on more than one occasion I’ve dipped into the freezer to pull out a ham hock from a local farmer to make her recipe, and don’t you just love it when a book falls right open to the page you’re looking for like it did today for me.
But, today I don’t have red beans or a ham hock. I do have dried garbanzo beans, a can of tomato sauce and a pressure cooker so I make Tomato Chickpea Soup instead. It’s good with a little Parmigiano-Reggiano grated on top and I think soup is always better the second day, too.
Recipe: Tomato Chickpea Soup
What You Will Need
2 cups dried chickpeas
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 large onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped fine
2 carrots, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon seasoned vegetable base (I used Better Than Bouillon)
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons salt (or more to your taste)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
How To Make It
Pressure Cooker
Place chickpeas in Instant Pot or pressure cooker and cover with 2 inches of water.
Add all the rest of the ingredients.
Pressure cook at high setting for 30 minutes and let steam release for an hour.
Remove the bay leaf. Taste and add more salt and pepper if you like.
On the Stove Top
Soak chickpeas overnight. Drain and rinse. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook over medium heat for 30 minutes so and then add all the other ingredients and continue cooking for another hour or until chickpeas and vegetables are tender.
Remove bay leaf. Taste and add more salt and pepper if you like.
NOTES:
If you don’t have dry beans, you can use 2 15-ounce cans garbanzos and cook until veggies are tender and flavors are blended.
When it gets towards the end, I’ve been known to fry up an egg, place it on top and serve it breakfast, too.
And remember that the older dry beans are, the longer they take to cook.
Nice Things To Do
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I love to iron. The short story I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen began my own pattern of ironing when I was all in my head thinking of an old memory. The rhythm of the ironing helped me process my thoughts.
Hi, Kate! I love ironed sheets, so long as an ironing enthusiast has done the work, not me. 😂 I know, I know, utter laziness, but I figure not ironing gives me the time to make, say, that lovely-sounding tomato and chickpea soup. 😀