My next swap was both practical and sentimental.

Years ago, a long time ago, when I was living at home, working on my Master’s degree, engaged to be married when I graduated, and collecting what used to be called a trousseau, my brother gave me a bean pot for Christmas. I love baked beans, though at the time I didn’t know how to prepare them. I wasn’t a cook, I was an academic. Time enough for that. I was pleased to receive the pot, a big family size, brown, of course, with a lid.

My brother was apologetic. He said he felt guilty because the pot cost so little—one dollar.(. (He got it on sale.) After Christmas he bought me another Christmas present to make up for it. I don’t remember what he gave me. It’s long gone. But I kept the bean pot and I learned to use it. I made Boston Baked Beans but I also learned to make my Icelandic grandmother’s Bena Supa (bean soup) and I served it at parties. Actually, I sort of made it up. My amma’s recipe read: “Boil beans and mea.t.” I developed it from there. My recipe can be found in my book, Letters to Icelanders, which is about to be re-published in October.

I’m sill talking about a Boutique swap.

Over the years, my brother’s bean pot had a lot of use. The lid cracked and broke and I used aluminum foil as a cover. Fast forward to my present home, a comfortable apartment for one, with an office, and with greatly reduced contents from my Other LIfe. But I still had my brother’s bean pot, with no lid and too big for me to use but I still loved baked beans and Bena Supa.

I found a new, intact, smaller, brown bean pot in the Basement Boutique. So I swapped.

Happy ending.

I can now bake memorial beans in my new-old pot. I might have a party.