The "Chips and Salsa" Lady Says I'll Love Them...

I tried to grown green beans in the garden again this summer.  I had visions of dilly beans dancing in my head.  But, all three or four attempts at growing them from seed failed me.  So, mostly, in an effort to keep a pretty and tall wrought iron lattice I got on super sale from a closing Smith and Hawken store from "disappearing" from my garden one night, I planted seedlings from the garden center.  They were labeled your run of the mill "Blue Lake" beans, but I found that unless you picked them less than 3 inches long, they were all seed, all the time.  While they grew lushly, they "weren't no eatin' beans".  I let them go to seed and thought nothing more of them.

But, yesterday, as I was chopping the bean stalks down to green manure, a pod opened up and I found some creamy, smooth, white beans in my hand.  I thought maybe it was worth exploring these seeds after all.  I gathered what was easy to harvest and headed home after three long, hard hours in the garden turning over soil and green manuring the last of the summer crops.

Since I was well past when I should have been eating for my adrenals, I stopped at a little local Mexican joint called "Chips and Salsa" for some quick nourishment.  They know me and my eating habits pretty well there, which meant as soon as they saw me walk in, they started some shrimp tacos without even asking.  While I waited, the owner and I started talking a bit.  She speaks little English.  I speak no Spanish.   But, we didn't need words to see that with bean leaves still stuck to my shirt, dirt on my knees, and hay stuck to my skin, I'd just come from the garden.  She gestured to my garden bag and I pulled out the beans.  She immediately smiled.  I asked her if she knew what they were.  She said a "Mexican bean.  Very yummy.  You will like".   I tried to ask if I need to soak them overnight and I'm not sure she understood, but she said to cook "like a white bean, pinto bean".  And again reiterated I would like them.  I said, garlic? Olive oil?  And she said, "yes, yes, very good!".

This concept of dried beans excites me, now.  It brings out the Laura Ingalls in me.  Putting away beans for soups or smashes for the winter is a whole new adventure.  As much as I loved the fresh fava beans last spring, I think I will double my crop and let half dry out.  I would love to make some genuine fuul next year.  And maybe I'll peruse the catalogs for some black bean seeds.  It would be nice to make my black bean quesadilla with feta next winter from dried beans I've grown myself.  

But, for the moment, maybe today I'll roast a chicken, do a quick soak of the beans and make myself some white bean/garlic/rosemary mash with my mystery beans.  And hope they are as my 'Chips and Salsa' friend said:

For every season....

I was at a birthday party in Portland on Saturday.  The first person I met happened to be a really great woman who grew up in Long Beach.  Immediately she asked me what had brought me to my adopted town.  I hesitated, as I am apt to do lately, and said, "I followed love".   And then quickly,  "Silly, I know".  After reassuring me it wasn't and telling her own tale of love followed, she asked if I was still with my Love.  Choking back emotion, I had to admit that, "No, he left me".  She waxed poetic about opportunities and new beginnings and what's bad can be good again.  And maybe she's right, but I'm not there yet.   So, she turned instead to asking me what I've been doing to help soldier on.  Canning I told her.  "I've been canning".

And I have.  I started in February, right after my Squeeze left.  I began with Blood Orange Marmalade.  It was my first attempt and it went okay, although the blood orange caramels I found on another Long Beach resident and photographer's site Matt Bites were an even bigger hit.  But, when Blood Oranges moved out of season I searched for what to do with the abundance of organic pears at Trader Joes and fell into a Ginger Pear Preserve courtesy of Emeril.  And for me, given my current ginger obsession, these little jars of ginger colored goodness were spoonfuls of happiness and a delight to give away.  But then with Spring deeply sprung and summer waiting anxiously around the corner,  you couldn't walk two feet at the farmers' market without being knocked down by sweet, sweet strawberries.  So, I turned to my new canning crush's website: Kevin West's Saving The Season.  There I was challenged to make Strawberry Preserves with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper.  And, I did - gel testing with my antique plates and spoons which made it all the more sacred somehow.

Truthfully, other than a lick of the bowl at clean up, I haven't even tried it.  With the battle of my adrenals, thyroid, and sinus raging this summer,  I'm supposed to be off sugar.  So, there it sits in my pantry.   One jar got sent to Portland as a hostess gift along with a jar of each of the others and some zucchini bread with crystallized ginger and curry.   But, eating it isn't why I'm doing it.  Canning keeps me busy at night or on a weekend.  It forces me to focus on something that quite frankly requires, well, focus.  One mind-drift to days of old and you are looking at burnt sugar or shattered jars.  It requires me to be present.  Not thinking about a past that I miss or the future I fear or the fact that I'm alone in a big loft with only a new kitten to keep me company.   It keeps me productive and challenged and connected somehow because these jars of beautiful preserves and jams (and maybe as the summer creeps along veggies and tomatoes) are meant to be shared and gifted.  And they will be. 

Until then I'll mark the healing of my heart by the contents of the jars I've put up.  Time and seasons and heartache all move along.  And good will come of bad.  And maybe by Blood Orange Marmalade season next year I'll have more joy and surprises in my life than I can ever imagine.