If you’ve ever wondered whether or not royal blood pumps through your veins, try this: wander the earth for days and days in the rain until you find a castle where a prince and/or a princess lives with a dad (the king) and/or a mom (the queen). Or two dads as kings or two queens as moms. Or the dads can be moms and the queens can be kings.

Knock on the door, introduce yourself, and say that you are so exhausted you’d appreciate a warm, dry bed with a fresh pea under the pillow. If you wake up the next morning with a pounding headache, chances are someone in the castle put a frozen pea under your pillow, not a fresh one.

At the breakfast table, ask a simple question. Did someone put a frozen pea under my pillow last night?

If this question causes the castle dwellers to drop their tea cups onto their eyefones and crack the selfie screens they use to put their pictures on the app Cinder, (which helps people find a real prince and/or a real princess), brace yourself. Someone is going to pop a gasket and say: How dare you suggest we believe in frozen peas in this castle!

Ask the next question. I woke up with a wicked bad headache and that never happens when I sleep with a fresh pea under my pillow. Did someone put a stone under my pillow?

Now you’ve done it. Hold up a piece of toast to shield your face from the spray of saliva aimed right for you when they sputter, collectively: Are you calling us stoners?

Keep your composure and say: Okay then. Does anyone know the answer to this question: Is a pea a vegetable or a fruit?

If everyone starts to laugh, offer to prepare a peas-ful dinner for later in the day.

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This blog post and the recipe that follows were inspired by a dull day of wandering around all the way over to the local farm where a pile of fat pea pods looked really good. I bought about 30 of the plumpest pods. I bought two ears of fresh corn. I bought some okra. I bought tomatoes from Maine.

I took everything back to my castle. (And really wished it would rain. We need rain!)

The plan: Cook some form of succotash. Pile it onto a plate. Rest a skewer of barbecued shrimp on top. (Using Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Wango Tango Habanero HOT Bar-B-Que Sauce.)

Here’s the recipe, for use during the season of FRESH peas:

SUFFERIN’ SUCCOTASH

Saute FRESH peas in butter or olive oil with chopped onions and garlic.

Saute fresh peeled and chopped tomato with okra sliced into half inch pieces. (Drop tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds to get the skins to peel off easily.)

Cook fresh corn, then slice the corn off the cob.

Mix all the vegetables together and add seasonings of salt and pepper and a teaspoon of sugar with a tablespoon of cider vinegar. (Or something like that or other seasonings you like.)

Add fresh chopped or hand-torn basil.

Barbecue some shrimp. Put the shrimp on the succotash.

My husband and I loved the meal. It was a great alternative to serving fish over rice. (We ate the leftovers the next day with grilled salmon on top.) My husband had never tasted a fresh pea, raw or cooked, in his life!

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********PEAS BE WITH YOU********