Photos by {Blue Eyed Yonder}

If you make this or if you’ve had it before, let me know what you think. And I’d love to know your favorite Elvis song while we’re at it!

I can’t chomp down on a piece of crushed ice without thinking about my Dad. In fact, if you ask anyone in my family, they’d say the two go hand in hand.

For as long as I can remember, my Dad has been a huge crushed ice fanatic, dare I say connoisseur. He always knew what kind of ice each restaurant had; which ones had the “good ice” as we call it. For a while, he had a little arrangement with a local barbeque restaurant, he’d pay them to let him fill his cooler up with their ice and we’d have crushed ice at every family gathering. No one even bothers to go to the fridge for ice; the rumbling and churning of an ice machine is not a sound heard in Dad’s house. Nope, everyone knows to go out on the back porch, you see, that’s where the “good ice” is kept. Since then, my Dad has gotten a crushed ice machine of his own; a big beauty that pumps out the most beautiful, white crunchy ice. So there’s never any question, when we get together… Dad’s bringing the ice.

All this talk about ice reminds me of a funny story. When Mr. Blue Eyed Yonder and I got engaged, we had a little party in South Georgia to celebrate with friends and family. Of course, we wanted the “good ice”, so Dad packed up a huge cooler of it and drove it 4 hours south for the party.

At the end of the night, as things were winding down, I went out to the garage to get an ice refill. To my horror, I found the cooler empty! Yes, completely empty. Frantically I looked all around in the dark garage. Where in the world could it be? There’s no way we plowed through a 100-quart cooler of ice in a matter of hours. Then something caught my eye. In the driveway I saw something sparkle in the dark. Nooo! It can’t be!

Yes, the entire ice chest had been dumped out. In an effort to start cleaning up, my uncle decided the ice should be the first to go. Poor Uncle Guy, guess he had no idea how nuts my Dad’s side of the family is about our ice. I walked like a zombie back into the house. Everyone was laughing and carrying on when I blurted…

“Umm, someone dumped out all the ice.”

The room got deathly quiet, you would’ve thought they’d all just seen a ghost. “What’d you say?”

“Someone dumped out the ice.”

The room erupted into chaos. People jumped up out of their chairs and got all in a hubble to see what was going on. (You see, most parties end when the beer is gone, in our family, the party ends when the ice is out.)

Several of us went outside to the scene of the crime. “It’s all in a pile. The stuff on top still has to be clean, let’s save it!”

So, like a bunch of loons, we started shoveling the ice from the driveway back into the cooler. You might laugh, but we saved enough ice for the whole gang to get one more icy fix that night.

All I have to say to Dad is, “remember when Uncle Guy dumped out the ice?” and he gets on a roll, laughing and re-telling the story over. It’s one of those that never gets old. Good times.

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For whatever reason, I have so many fond memories involving peas. I remember sitting in the living room at my Mema’s house shelling bushels of peas. I’d sit in the floor with my legs crossed with a pan of peas in my lap listening to Mema, Mema Tanner (my great-grandma) and my two great aunts, Jane and Elva, tell stories and talk about lots of different things. It was like being perched in the hen house, and I loved every minute of it.

When Mr. Blue Eyed Yonder and I were dating, we picked up a bushel of peas at the farmer’s market. He thought I was crazy for buying peas I had to shell when I could’ve as easily bought shelled peas for a couple of dimes more. He didn’t understand the history and memories it held for me. I love sitting around shelling peas. It reminds me of slower times; days when I was little and hadn’t a care in the world.

Come to find out, Mr. Blue Eyed Yonder had never shelled a pea in his life! (Did I mention Mr. BEY is a yankee? Shh, don’t say it too loud.) I had to teach this boy how to shell peas, my mercy!

We sat on my Dad’s front porch swing and talked and shelled, and talked and shelled some more. When the bucket of hulls was full, Mr. BEY would walk them to the edge of the woods and throw them out. Each time he would leave, I would dump a little bit of the peas from his pan into mine. Little by little my pan of peas grew. I would proudly show him my peas and he would say, “Man, how do you shell them that fast?” I could hardly contain myself, I was about to burst at the seams with laughter.

I let him think that I was queen of shelling peas for the better part of that day. I also let Dad in on my little secret and he nagged him as well about being a slow sheller, “If you shell ’em that slow we’ll all starve to death!”

He’s so competitive, so it was a pure hoot to watch him walk around puzzled all day! He just couldn’t understand how I shelled them so fast. Ha! We finally gave in and told Mr. BEY about my sneaky pea-stealin’. “I can’t believe you stole my peas!” Guess he found out us Southerners aren’t as slow as you might think. {wink}

Do you have any funny pea stories? I have more where this came from, tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.

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Selecting + Storing English Peas

When shopping for fresh English peas, look for pods that are shiny, firm and very bright green. The pods should almost feel swollen and ready to burst. Keep in mind that a pound of peas only yields about 1 cup once they are shelled. You might want to consider buying a bushel of peas instead of a small grocer’s bag.


As with most fresh produce, the sooner it’s eaten the better. If you have to store the peas for a couple of days, refrigerate unwashed pods in a plastic bag that allows air circulation and store the bag in the coolest part of your refrigerator. Peas remain fresher if they’re shelled just before cooking.