Yellow Split Pea Soup with myriad toppings

This is a very basic, very simple soup. However, paired with the suggested toppings elevates it substantially. Alone, the soup would be just a "3". We paired it with the pickled onions and the tapenade.

Do beware that the recipe takes at least 2 hrs. If you are like me, and read just the beginning, you might delude yourself into thinking its a simple 1 hour cook. When I realized my miscalculation, I moved it to the pressure cooker, 10 minutes high, fast release, and then carried out the second 45 minutes of reducing the broth. I wish the author had described how thick it should be - it seemed a bit thin to me.

I was happy to eat this and to remember how much I enjoy split peas.

In themselves, yellow split peas are only marginally more interesting than green split peas. I'm not sure why I thought adding some olive oil, an onion, and some chopped garlic was going to do something special. No, just some (quite well-cooked) yellow split peas. The toppings make the difference. The Pickled Red Onions were quite good. The Wilted Parsley or Cilantro Topping was okay. (I was too lazy to do the tapenade or even to get a jar out of the pantry.) The best topping was liberal slugs of Chipotle Tabasco.