White Bean Soup Tuscan style

Wednesday 26 November

In the crockpot, one day old.
I'm becoming a convert to the slow cooker. We don’t have one at home, but we're going to get one, as it does a nice job on beans and friends (as the ol' Moosewood cookbook said). The white beans soaked overnight, then went into the slow cooker with a big chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, whatever tiny sage leaves had held on this long, a grind of rosemary, and a long afternoon. After about 4 hours, I tossed in little cubes of an old "ham" (i.e. "ham and water product": anything that has to be labeled "product" ain't food) found at the back of the freezer and in its own (slightly spongy) way not bad for flavoring the soup. Barbara scored some more dried sage from this dude she knows. We served it with the toasted Christmas focaccia that Holt had made last Friday. Like a winter night in Florence, if you overlook all those Canadian bungaloes with Christmas lights outside.