With this ring….I declare my love for beans.
My friend Carolyn Tillie is a very talented jewelry designer and she surprised me one day with this beautiful tribute to the Scarlet Runner. Isn’t it amazing?
Carrie blogs about food and art at Feast. Take a visit and see if she won’t make you a ring like this.
Here in Napa, we have our nice little group called the Family Farm League. We have seed saver’s exchange potluck and the local high school kids cook chili con carne and it’s usually pretty good.
Maybe the most famous chili is from the now defunct Chasen’s restaurant in Hollywood. Elizabeth Taylor (in many ways, the Britney Spears of her day, although Liz showed signs of talent now and then) supposedly had the chili flown from California to Rome so she could eat it on the set of Cleopatra (a stinker of a movie where the signs of her talent were absent.)
Anyway, I’m cold and hungry and would appreciate it if you have a killer chili recipe. Leave it in the comments section of the entry and let’s see what we come up with. Texans, please humor me and include beans.
One of the guys in the beanfields had a bumper crop of deArbol chiles and I snatched up all he had.
Large quantities of large chiles are difficult to dry here but these smaller de Arbols were easy enough. We dried them right on the floor of a barn. They’re dry enough to use but still soft and pliable. They are a little shorter than than the same chiles we get from Mexico but they’re much hotter. I was humbled by them!
We’ll have them at the farmers market in about two weeks and online about a week after that.
One of the guys in the beanfields had a bumper crop of deArbol chiles and I snatched up all he had.
Large quantities of large chiles are difficult to dry here but these smaller de Arbols were easy enough. We dried them right on the floor of a barn. They’re dry enough to use but still soft and pliable. They are a little shorter than than the same chiles we get from Mexico but they’re much hotter. I was humbled by them!
We’ll have them at the farmers market in about two weeks and online about a week after that.
This Saturday we’ll have a starchy dried corn called La Montosa available. This is unprepared flint corn and can be ground for polenta or prepared in the Mexican manner by soaking it in cal (lime, which we’ll also have available) and then rinsing. This is nixtamal, at that point. You can use it for tortilllas or pozole. Joan won’t have instructions so don’t give her too hard a time, please.
Localvores should note the corn was grown in Stockton. It’s non-certified organic and an heirloom variety originally from Jalisco, Mexico.
Edited to add: I’m leaving for Mexico next week (Oh! How I love typing those words!) but when I get back, we’ll add the corn to the website so you can order it online.
Rain is predicted for Saturday and I gave Joan the option of not doing the market, but she turned to me, with a small tear welling in the corner of her eye and said, "I’d sooner cut off my right hand than deprive the good people of San Francisco an opportunity to purchase our beans."
"But Joan!" I pleaded, "Surely you don’t want to bother with the tortillas and chips. Don’t be a fool, girl!"
"But my customers need their low-fat complex carb tortillas to go with the beans!"
Visibly shaken, I relented. Joan will be at the market on Saturday, rain or shine.
What a trooper!
One of my earliest online customers, Mary Anita, wrote me recently about her love affaire with Red Nightfall.
Hi Steve, I’m sure you remember me as a great bean lover. However, I
have found the bean of my dreams!! The red nightfall is the most
delightful morsel I’ve ever tasted. I bought them just because of their
great beauty when I shopped at the Ferry Bldg in Dec. I cooked a batch
to serve with some animal part or another and fell in love with the
richness of the pot liquor and the delectability of the bean.
Last night I made a cassoulet/cazuela (more Spanish than French) with
chicken thighs, aidells garlic chicken sausage, a bit of my homegrown,
canned tomatoes, pimenton and bread crumbs. I sprinkled a bit of
gremolata on top, served with crusty bread, arugula and tangerine salad
from the garden with a walnut oil meyer lemon vinaigrette They
remarkably hold their shape and, to be delicate, do not cause digestive
effects.
Rio Zape is my favorite Mexican cooking bean, but Red Nightfall is now
my favorite European ingredient. I normally don’t get up from the dinner
table to report on my culinary accomplishments, but tonight I was
compelled and it was leftovers!
I think these are one of my favorite looking beans and the flavor and texture are out of this world as well. Sometimes you see them called Mayflower and the story is they came over with the pilgrims, but being that these are a New World bean, I rather doubt it.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the mainstream is pointing its fat finger and shaking wildly at the Localvore movement. The fact that the a large number of foodies are accepting the Eat Local Challenge and thriving is a source of irritation for a certain type of person. They like to quote studies that somehow show that frozen farmed shrimp from Zimbabwe is somehow more gentle on the planet than buying a local tomato at your farmers market or even foraging your backyard for purslane.
If you are of a certain age, you will remember the beginnings of the feminist movement, which among other things, declared that women really are created equal to men and deserve similar rights across the board. Many, many women who agreed with this basic principal went running the other way. "Oh sure I believe in equal rights for women," they’d declare, "I just don’t want to burn my bra or any Women’s Lib thing like that." The whole issue was defined by the opposition, who declared that in order to support the feminist cause, a gal needed to burn her bra.
To support the Localvore movement is not to suddenly stop eating catsup from Ohio or even food from China. It’s not designed to put foreign imports out of business. It’s to encourage local food production, stop suburban sprawl and support traditions that are dying and entrepreneurs who are creating. Take it as far as you can. Don’t bust a gut if you have to crack open a jar of imported capers. Think twice before eating the cherries from South America in the winter. Eat more tomatoes when the days are long and more greens and root vegetables in the winter. Get to know a local hunter. Eating rice from another state is not the same things as Fedex’ing a squash blossom across the country. Do your best but don’t feel guilty or defensive if you can’t get on board with the whole show and don’t act smug and superior if somehow you do.
There is just no data that you can offer that will convince me supporting local food is a bad thing.
I’ve been having poached eggs on beans almost every morning. Yesterday I upped the ante by adding some leftover duck confit from the Fatted Calf.
It’s hard to be in a bad mood with this kind of breakfast.
I made a pot of Eye of the Goat the other day and it reminded me what got so excited about heirloom beans in the first place. Yes, the texture was rich and velvety and they tasted like a million bucks but it was the last spoonfuls of pot liquor, or bean broth, that really sent me to the moon.
As with most of the beans, I made this pot with just onion, garlic and a scant spoonful of oil. What a treat!
Rancho Gordo: Experiments from my mostly New World kitchen and gardens 