Dear Miss Edith,

As you asked, here's my Navy bean soup or should I say Seaview Bean Soup:

1. Wash and drain some dry navy beans. Put in a big pot or kettle overnite with lots of water.

2..Next day, drain and rinse again making sure no bits of rock have been left in. The last time that happened, Morton threatened me with keelhauling. It wasn't his fault he felt that way, poor Doc's not a dentist and that tooth was split in two. He looked kind of wierd and were we ever glad to get him flown ashore for a real dentist to take care of it. Not that he noticed much, as Doc had to give him something for the pain, and he was kind of spacy by then. Boy was the skipper pissed.. Practically ordered me to put the whole batch through the smallest sieve in the galley to make sure nobody else cracked or broke a tooth. Not that it mattered. Nobody touched the stuff after that and I had to throw it out.

Anyway, as I was saying~

3. Add enough water to cover the beans plus more all the way to near the top of the pot, but not quite. It's going to be kind of scummy and you don't want to make more of a mess on the stovetop.

4.Add whatever big chunk of ham you have or big cut up pieces of ham.

5. Boil, boil, boil.

6.When the beans are not quite soft, add a couple of onions (they'll soften and sort of dissapear) and about 1/3 cup of brown sugar.

7. Keep boiling til beans are soft, by then there won't be much water, and the liquid will be a nice beany slurry...you don't want the soup to be too mushy, so keep an eye on the water level, you don't want to over add water if you have to when it's boiling.

And that's it. Most of the crew likes it, but it has a few side effects I'm just glad we have soundproofing and adequate ventilation.

I'll be happy to send you any other recipees you might want from Seaview.

Yours truly,

'Cookie'