Yellow Split Pea and Bacon Soup

I’ve been working my way through a soup recipe book.  It has a recipe for every day of the year.  I’m not cooking every recipe but February 4th is “the best yet” according to my progeny.  And February 4th happens to be Yellow Split Pea and Bacon.  It doesn’t sound very inspiring, except the bacon bit.  Everyone loves bacon.

It’s such a simple recipe, and very tasty, so I thought it was worth sharing.

Ingredients

• 170g yellow split peas
• 1 potato, diced
• half an onion, diced
• pinch of white pepper
• 375ml vegetable stock
• 40g celeriac
• 1 carrot, diced
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 bay leaf
• pinch turmeric
• 500g cooked, smoked bacon, diced

Method

• In a large saucepan place 100g of the yellow split peas and all of the other ingredients except the bacon.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes
• Remove the bay leaf and blend until smooth
• Add the remaining yellow split peas and bacon and cook gently for another 20 minutes, or until the peas have softened.
• Enjoy.

Can be frozen and defrosted/reheated

Feminism should die

I recently read and shared a Spectator article about the isolation of Sweden’s “feminist foreign minister”.  She’d been outspoken about the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia.

It’s been sitting uncomfortably with me.

The political isolation is wrong, but the way she was described also seemed wrong even though the article was supportive.

She was described as a feminist because she wants women to have fair treatment in Saudi Arabia; isn’t that what every fair-minded individual would want?  

Does that mean that the norm is that everyone is a feminist? 

I’ve decided that feminism is a redundant term.  It’s definition is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of the equality of the sexes.  What reasonable person wouldn’t advocate women’s right to equality?  Those who wouldn’t want this are the misogynists.

If feminist beliefs are the norm then perhaps the term is no longer needed.  So instead of the general population, feminists and misogynists, we should just have everyone and misogynists.  And ideally we wouldn’t have the misogynists.

Does this make sense?  Can we get rid of the term feminism?