february beans

 The other day my mom looked at me and said something to the effect of you look like you need a Coke (and offered me a tiny can of Coke). Which was her way of saying I looked tired.

The other other day in the car Cub and I were talking about dining for health, not so intentionally but we usually talk about dining for pleasure so it stuck with me. While these things aren’t at odds necessarily I take it a bit like Luce Giard, sailing between “the Lake of Fondness and the Ocean of Reason” in a third, unnamed body of water where the two mingle. Potentially that body of water is made of bean pot liquor. The rich health elixir of olive oil, starch, and whatever else you ended up putting in the pot. 

So with this Coke I had a bowl of beans and it wasn’t magic but it did feel like a solution. It was the last of a pot I had made in mid-January, I’ve made two pots since actually. All different beans. These were cranberries that I stuck in the freezer. The next pot was for a friend, not that they asked for beans. Again, beans feel like a solution  to the fact that it’s February and nothing is fresh in Chicago, to the fact that it’s too cold to walk to the store, to my desire to cook something lovingly while working two jobs.

To cook beans I put olive oil in a pot followed by an onion and celery. You could put carrots too but I don’t. As those loosen up I add spices and dried herbs. Like white pepper, coriander, oregano, thyme, rosemary, crushed red pepper like for pizza. Sometimes a charred lemon goes in, colatura di alici/fish sauce or white wine, I like a parmesan rind from time to time. Twice as many greens as beans or some prosciutto ends. Those things I don’t always have. But it’s nice because it helps you learn to pay more attention to what you do have, how it shapes its companions in the pot/they shape it back. Because you can also make beans with just beans and water, if you want. Anyway, you put in the beans and water to cover, the beans are soaked if you have time. Also I salt them while they’re cooking. I've never really noticed a difference. They stay on the stovetop until they’re finished because I like different textures but if you like a more even cook in the oven that’s fine. I usually also do something else during this time.

While the act of cooking beans is perhaps a solution, the finished pot also feels like a celebration. The pot stretches so far for one or two people especially, it’s like you’ve cooked to never cook again. Trish, who lives in a region known for their beans, eats them many times a week but also will take a glass of the cooking liquid next to her water and wine with dinner. I think about her when I stand over the stove drinking the pot liquor. The beans themselves can then become pasta e fagioli, beans on toast, bean & clam soup, a condiment for another soup like cabbage soup once the pork has gone.

My favorite, the one that takes a little more effort and the outcome of the third pot of beans, is an homage to the antipasti plate at one of America’s great restaurants, Ops. At Ops they offer a plate of white beans, marinated beets, and feta with a sidecar of bread as a prelude to pizza. A recent small survey of people (women) suggests that this itself is actually the perfect meal. Especially with the addition of some greens cooked in Cub’s lid style. Freshness this time of year is found in wines and the cookedness of this meal plays into that nicely. The ones that I am craving have a lot of acidity, density and earthliness that match the dish, wines that you can feel in not just your mouth and head but the rest of your body too; Malas Uvas from La Perdida, A Flor de Piel from Vigna Flor, and Bessons from Toni Sanchez Ortiz. Or the explosive pet nat Waterfly from Celler Ca Foracaime or perennially in the shop favorite Coule de Source from Jerome Lambert. I think the Chenin thing has to do with Anjou native Rabelais and Pantagruel infected daydreams.

Back to the pot, you can freeze what you can’t eat now (Georgian winemaker Ének Peterson just captioned an Instagram “freezers are amazing”, so true). And pick this back up when you are down again. Baby steps back with some easy food and some wine.