Erin is doing her best to fit in and be herself

Meet Erin + Potato and White Bean Soup + Roasted Carrots and Dates + Homemade Dinner Rolls + Apple Crumb Pie For Two + Homemade Pie Crust Class!

If you’re new here, welcome to Let’s Get Lost! I’m Rebecca, a recipe developer and food photographer. You might know me from my recipe websites, Of Batter and Dough and A Little and A Lot.

My husband and I are nomads with an RV, a motorcycle, and a sailboat, so I write about life on the road, the incredible places we visit, and the experiences we have along the way. Plus, there’s recipes.

And, if you are brand new to Substack, I created this short video tour.

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In this issue:

• A beautifully illustrated story about a woman with a boat in Michigan who is doing her best to both fit in and be herself. Just like me. And just like you.

• This week’s menu with recipes: Potato and White Bean Soup, Roasted Carrots and Dates, Homemade Dinner Rolls, Apple Crumb Pie For Two

• Join me this week for a LIVE pie crust class! I’ll show you how to make the recipe I’ve been making for decades AND I’ll be joined by a co-host who will share the recipe she’s been making for just as long. Both have secret ingredients that make them foolproof.

Meet Erin

Earlier this year, I wrote about how I love to make up stories about strangers.

I give them names, spin up a history, and weave together a story. Every now and then I’ll share these made up stories with Steve… “hey babe. Let me tell you what’s happening with those people…” but most of the time, these fictional characters live only inside my mind.

Then one day, I wrote one of them down and gave the story to an illustrator, who brought the character to life in living color. Her name is Edna, and you can read about her here.

I have another one of those stories to share with you this week. Her name is Erin.

As with the story about Edna, the story about Erin is entirely fictional. She was inspired by a woman I spotted this summer at the marina where we kept our sailboat. I know nothing about the actual woman who inspired this story, not even her name.

Here’s the thing about Erin… she kinda represents a lot of people we saw at the marina this summer. This being our first summer at a marina, we noticed a lot of boat owners for whom the marina was the social center of their summer. Their boat was incidental. They were there for the people.

Erin was one of those people. And I hope you enjoy reading about her.

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Erin was really just a good midwestern girl from a good midwestern family.

Her parents are hardworking salt of the earth types who were a little bit tired by the time she came along, the youngest of 5 and the loudest baby the small Indiana hospital had delivered in decades. Erin announced herself to the world as if a foghorn was attached to her tiny little mouth and her tired mother looked down at her with love and amazement, and also the quiet determination she was known for to get this baby under control.

Erin’s mother was very good at doing what was needed and what was needed was to restore some peace and quiet to the orderly and efficient maternity ward. What quieted Erin down was attention, so attention she got.

Her other children showed independence almost from the moment they were born. They were content to lay in their crib, or play in their playpen, expelling polite little whimpers to let their mother know when they were hungry or needed changing. They slept through the night and took their naps and got along with all the other children in the church nursery on Sunday mornings.

Erin’s older brothers and sisters, two of each, had made Erin’s mother feel quite adept at mothering. She listened to the exhausted grievances of the other mothers of young children in her bible study group and thought to herself, Good grief. It really isn’t that hard. If you’re tired, just put the child to bed and take a nap.

Now she understood. Erin could not be put to bed so Erin’s mother could take a nap. Erin refused to be left alone at all.

Erin’s mother, who was tired but also very good at doing what was needed, strapped Erin to her chest and kept on doing what needed to be done. She never dreamed she’d be one of those mothers who let their children sleep in her bed, but that’s what kept Erin quiet and occasionally asleep, so that’s what she did. What was needed was to keep Erin quiet and that required never leaving Erin alone for a second.

Were there other ways to deal with a loud, attention seeking child? Perhaps.

Did Erin’s mother feel some bitterness over never for one second being without her youngest child? Maybe.

Did Erin’s older siblings start to look at her with resentment for being so dramatic and taking a disproportionate amount of their mother’s time and attention? Definitely.

Did any of that change who Erin was? No.

And also, yes.

As she got older, Erin became aware of all the ways she was being managed. She wanted to be like her older brothers and sisters and be content to sit quietly and read, or do her homework in her room, or never have to be told to practice the violin (all the children were required to learn an instrument) or brush her teeth or put on her shoes or be quiet.

But, she felt that being alone in her room was a special form of torture and she couldn’t fathom how anyone could spend hours absorbed in the pages of a book when there was so much happening in the world, and she absolutely hated the violin. She hated anything that didn’t involve some kind of interaction with another human. She hated shoes, and dresses, and clothes in general. She wanted to dance and play her music loudly and sing along loudly, and have lots and lots of loud conversations with everyone in the whole wide world.

None of this was possible in her quiet family of good people who always did what was needed and never made a fuss.

Erin loved making a fuss. It was one of her favorite activities.

So, when Erin was 18, she left. Not far. Being away from her mother caused anxiety so she chose a good midwestern university that was away from home but not so much that she couldn’t drive back in a few hours. She joined everything. She went to everything. She made friends with everyone. She dreamed and schemed and talked endlessly about moving to New York, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco. She wanted to be in the heart of a big, noisy city. And everyone who knew her, everyone except her mother, thought that’s where she belonged.

Twice, while she was in college, she took a trip to a big city. Once to New York and once to Los Angelas. In the middle of a big city, no one paid her any attention. It didn’t matter what she did, how loud she was, how many conversations she tried to start. She was surrounded by more people than she’d seen in her whole life, and she was invisible. Anonymous. Alone. She was miserable.

Erin needed an audience. And an audience is much easier to be had in a small town….

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Perfect Pie Crust with Rebecca and Betty

“Pie is my love language.” This is what Nicki Sizemore said to me earlier this week and, here’s the thing: If you say such a thing to me, we are definitely going to be friends.

If you are nodding your head because these words make complete sense, this class is for YOU.

In this class, Betty and I show you how to prepare two different pie crust recipes, the recipes we’ve been relying on for decades. You’ll also learn:

• The difference between using vegetable shortening and butter and which is better

• How to get the flakiest crust ever

• A few secret ingredients that make pie crust easy to work with and the final result, tender, flaky, and full of flavor

• How to roll out and shape pie crust dough

• How to pre-bake and partially pre-bake your crust

• How to prevent a soggy bottom (unless you’re into that kind of thing!)

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This week’s menu

Potato and White Bean Soup, Homemade Dinner Rolls, Roasted Carrots and Dates, and Apple Pie for Two

If you are a member of the Lost Supper Club (a paid subscriber), you’ll find downloadable pdf’s of these recipes and every recipe in the recipe index.

From now through the end of the year, each week’s menu includes a new recipe that’s easy to make and won’t break the bank.

• Last week’s cheap and easy recipe: Skillet Chicken and Potatoes

• The week before: Meatless Stuffed Peppers and Stuffed Peppers with Ground Beef

This week, we’re eating creamy-without-the-cream bowls of potato and white bean soup, which is warm and nourishing and delicious and less than $2 a serving.

→ Find more cheap and easy recipes here.

Potato and White Bean Soup

Hello. My name is Rebecca and I am a soup person.

I have met people who wrinkle their nose at soup. Who say crazy things like, I don’t like soup. Or, Soup is not a meal.

To me, this is like saying, I don’t like water. Water is not a drink.

And yes, I realize some people actually don’t like to drink water but it is essential to our survival, and here’s where I’m finding the connection.

Soup is essential to our survival. Ok, ok... soup is essential to MY survival.

The thing about soup is that it can be anything you want it to be. Thick and hearty, rich and meaty, creamy, brothy, filled with vegetables, or packed with grains. Soup is what you make it so if you don’t like soup, you just haven’t found they kind of soup that’s right for you.

I don’t think I’ve ever met a soup I didn’t like, but I lean heavily towards the kind that you can almost eat with a fork. A good brothy soup is fine. But, most of the time I want something thick and hearty, and filled with many, many layers of flavors and textures.

And, like everything else I like to cook, I want my soup to be packed with flavor. Bland soup has no place here.

Also, I’d like it served with some homemade dinner rolls, please and thank you.

As every soup should, this one comes with plenty of options. You can puree some or all of it for a rich, thick, creamy texture that requires precisely NO cream. Or skip that step and serve it brothy, the tender potatoes and creamy white beans swimming freely in their lemony sumac flavored broth.

Also, I’ve kept this recipe simple, affordable, and plant based but there are so many things you could add to this soup if you are so inclined, like sausage or bacon.

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Homemade Dinner Rolls

I’ve shared the recipe for these buttery homemade rolls before and it’s highly likely I’ll share it again. They’ve been a family favorite in my home for decades, and on the day I took the photos you see here for potato and white bean soup I thought that nothing sounded better to me than dipping warm rolls in my bowl of soup.

I can’t make these rolls without thinking about our son, and that’s ok too. Food is sometimes powerful enough to resurrect those we’ve loved those we’ve lost.

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Roasted Carrots and Dates

This is one of those super quick and easy side dishes that can be served with almost anything. As a side dish, this recipe makes enough for 4 servings. But, Steve and I sometimes eat it as a meal, topped with a dollop of za’atar labneh or as a veggie bowl with some cooked wild rice, quinoa, or farro.

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Apple Crumb Pie for Two

This is the latest recipe in a series of small batch baking recipes available exclusively to members of the Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

Almost everything in this newsletter is available to everyone, for free. This is only possible because of the generous support of paid subscribers. This is the beauty of a subscription model. Unlike social media or websites where revenue is generated through advertising, the subscription model allows creators to get paid for their work directly, without any ads.

The problem with the subscription model, as any of us who have tried to get their streaming services under control knows all too well, is that we only have so many dollars to go around and we can’t possibly subscribe to everything we like to read, watch, and listen to.

• I am currently subscribed to 342 Substack newsletters. I have a paid subscription to just 10 of those.

• I have 56 podcast shows in my library. I only support 2 of those with a paid subscription.

• There are 750 million books I want to read. I probably purchase less than 50 of them a year.

Here’s the great thing about the subscription model: I still get to read the other 332 Substack newsletters and listen to the other 54 podcasts and dream about someday reading the 750 million books because other people have invested in them. All of these things exist because a small handful of people have chosen to support them.

That is also true here. The Lost Supper Club is a small group of supporters who show their support with a paid subscription thus ensuring that the vast majority of readers can keep reading this newsletter for free.

As a thank you, I try to provide those paid subscribers with some cool stuff. This small batch baking series is one of those things but also, paid subscribers receive:

• Access to the complete recipe index + the downloadable recipe cards for every single recipe published here

• A free copy of The No Recipe Required Cookbook

• The weekly recommendation list

• Access to the entire library of classes

• Access to the entire library of past issues

• Invitations to the occasional meet-up!

• A discount for The Let’s Get Lost Cookbook

If this is one of the things in your in-box that you almost always open, if it’s something you find valuable and look forward to, I ask that you consider supporting it with a paid subscription.

To all the current paid subscribers: THANK YOU. This newsletter quite literally would not exist without you.

→ Here is where you’ll find all the goodies that are exclusive to members of the Lost Supper Club.

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