Ramblings of a Line Cook

The bag of peas sat in the back of my fridge and stared at me. The last I’d worked with fresh peas had been at a restaurant with a rather uninspired chef at the helm where the garden-fresh peas weren’t exciting, they were just another obligatory vegetable to find somewhere to put. They went onto the haphazard crudite platter, that no one ever ordered a second time, and into the risotto to add some color to the beige, flavorless mass.

The peas were a drudgery, they were possibility not recognized, a thing that could be extraordinary forced into the mundane lineup along with everything else. I’d spend an hour or more in the morning with a pairing knife and a pile of peas, snapping and peeling the stems off to prep them for a fate of being pushed to the side of a plate.

Today, I walked to the fridge and picked up a pea. I bit into it and the exterior popped with a crisp sweetness that reminded me of a piece of candy and a cool drink of water all at once. I snapped the stem and split open the pod between my fingers, knocking loose a single pea from its silken thread. I caught the single pea before it could roll off the counter and gave it a taste as well - It was also sweet but carried more depth to it.

I boiled a pot of water and a nagging voice in my head condescendingly declared that I should snap the stems or fall into the category of cooks too lazy to properly prepare a vegetable. I ignored it, the rapid boil of the water brought me back to the present and I tossed some salt into the pot and plunged the peas in. They turned bright green almost immediately and less than a minute passed before they began to pop and I quickly plucked them out of the water and onto a dry towel.

While still warm, I put them into a bowl and drizzled them with oil and then sprinkled on some large flakes of salt. I snapped the stem, peeled it away in a ribbon that curled like I’d zipped it down the side of some scissors for a present. Oil covered my fingers and I bit into the pea and salty sweetness touched my tongue; It was perfect.