Bena Mae’s Kitchen: In Your Dreams

Are your dreams so vivid that you wake up thinking that they were real?
Mine usually are. Sometime Freddie Kreuger is standing over my bed with a large knife in his hand. He is so real that I could reach out and touch him.
It takes me a good 30 minutes to settle my nerves. Where this comes from, I don’t know. I don’t watch Friday the 13th or Murder on Elm Street. But somehow they snuck into my subconscious.
This is the mystery about dreams. Where do they come from?
I know I’m a worrier and this may determine the pattern of my dreams. I come from the Elizabeth Rowlette Estep School of Worrying. I graduated Magna cum Laude with a phd in worrying. My thesis was “How to keep on Worrying When There’s Nothing to Worry About.” Mama was a good teacher.
Sometimes my dreams are pure fantasy. They make no sense at all and are forgotten the moment I wake up. But I have a recurring dream that has haunted me for years.
I am in a strange city and can’t find my home. I ask everyone I meet if they can help me. But I get no help from anybody. I keep wandering the streets looking for my house but I never find it. I wake up wondering what this means. Was I the child whose family moved away and left behind. Was I the unwanted child?
Hey, I knew I was adopted all along.
Some dreams stay in my mind for days. If it is a dream about a member of my family being harmed, I stay on high alert for days until the memory fades away. Many times my dreams are about bizarre situations where people I haven’t seen for years pop up in crazy scenarios. I can only theorize that everything that ever happened to me has stayed in my subconscious all my life. That teacher that opened my eyes to the beauty of literature some 65 years ago? She was there, but where did she come from?
I had a dream recently that I remember with a feeling of peace and contentment. I’m sitting with a friend in a beautiful pristine setting watching little baby ducks paddle around in a clear pond. We are relaxing on the porch of a lodge, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. Our eyes stay on the ducks so effortlessly making circles in the crystal clear water. Such innocence. Such calm disregard for the chaos happening around the world.
 The serene beauty of the moment was so overpowering that I felt a surge of contentment that I had never felt before.
I cannot analyze the dream nor do I want to. I only want to hold on to that moment forever.

White Bean and Tarragon Soup

3 cans white beans, drained and rinsed
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 scallions, roughly chopped (I use green onions)
1 medium-sized carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/4 cup fresh tarragon, roughly chopped

In a large heavy soup pot, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat until the butter begins to foam.
Add the scallions  (or onions) and stew for 2-3 minutes, then add the carrots and garlic. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the beans and stock and bring to a boil.
Add the bay leaves and half the tarragon leaves, (use less tarragon, if desired) turn down to a simmer, and cook for 15-20 minutes until the beans are falling apart.
Blend with a stick blender, pass through a food mill, or mash to desired consistency with a potato masher or the bottom of a can.
Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Serve with the remaining chopped tarragon, a drizzle of olive oil, and fresh black pepper.