a bird (bean) in the hand

It’s coming up on a year since I’ve written in this space, I didn’t mean to be away so long, but here we are. Thank you to everyone who sent me an email asking after me, truly, I appreciate your well wishes and check-ins. Everything is fine here, we have weathered some ups and downs this past year as I’m sure many of you have as well. We experienced death and loss in a proximity I have been privileged not to experience before. Grief is something murky, slippery in the way you can’t always see it, yet it smothers normalcy with a suffocating insistence. As Joan Didion says so well, “…when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all.”

Life inevitably doles out loss and pain, but it also gifts us joy and love. The sweet always comes to temper the bitter, to give it depth and meaning and balance. To relieve the feeling of swimming through the bottomless dark with eyes wide open. One of those sweets is that I’m currently 8.5 months pregnant, and we are over the moon about it. Also, we’ve slipped deliciously and fully into summer living, which is always such a lovely change of pace. There is a feeling of freedom about summer, the longer sunlight hours imprinting joy on the brain like a cyanotype. The longer nights lend themselves to luxuriously long dinners, time to laze about at the table, chat about nothing and everything, argue, kiss, laugh and cry, putter about the garden at dusk.

Summer here means lots of fresh produce, both from our small backyard garden and the farmers market/fruit stands. The thing I enjoy most about cooking in summer is the ease of it, the ingredients are so delicious, plump and drunk on sunlight, bursting with flavor already even in their raw state. Many summer vegetables don’t need much preparation or cooking at all, and I try to celebrate this by cooking extra simply so as to taste, really taste the flavors. A bit of salt, some olive oil, an herb here and there are really the main additions I’m using. Already things are scorching here in California, we hardly had any rain this winter and none to speak of in spring. The hills and land have been bleached golden for weeks, the warm hue of a Van Gogh wheat field. The color and the sweet smell the dry grass gives off always means home to me, but lately also means trouble. Lakes and rivers and water are all very, very low as we run on fumes. Wildfires are already licking across the land, snatching from us the places we hold dear.

while camping, swimming in gorgeous alpine streams- later that day, evacuated because of wildfires.

All this means that we are conserving water and energy, taking navy showers, opening windows early morning and evening, shuttering them during the day, and turning on the oven and stove as little as possible. People talk a lot about using the slow cooker during the winter, but I find it immensely useful during the summer. I cook beans often in it- it doesn’t heat up the house and has the added benefit of slow cooking and rendering the beans incredibly tender and flavorful, without much effort at all. Beans are a huge part of our diet, they are absolute comfort food for me, nutritionally dense and a great source of protein. They also have the added benefit of being very inexpensive and can be cooked in bulk, then eaten throughout the week in different ways or frozen for later use. I almost always cook them from scratch- it’s very easy, cheaper, and tastes better than canned. My method is to soak about at least overnight, up to 24 hours (on the counter), then drain and cook with fresh water and salt until tender. If it’s difficult for you to remember soaking, I’ve found that leaving the jar/package of dry beans out on the counter near the sink helps me to remember to soak when I’m tidying the kitchen at night.

My mother shared some local canario beans lately, which cook up remarkably similar to borlotti beans. They are plump and very tender. Our favorite way to eat them lately is in a summer minestrone and all’uccelletto, a delicious Tuscan way of flavoring beans. Uccelletto meaning a small bird, so the beans flavored in the a similar way as a game bird- with tomato and sage, simple yet delicious flavors. It’s hardly a recipe, more of a method, so adjust as you see fit- as always, you know best as a cook. In winter we sometimes eat these with veg Italian sausages, but in summer I often serve with bread, rice, or on top of garlic-rubbed and olive oil-anointed toast. Sautéed zucchini, green beans, or grilled eggplant on the side go very well. Also, a crisp fennel salad. Enjoy your summer- I hope it has been marvelous. x

the beans; volunteer zinnias showing off among the zucchini leaves

fagioli all’uccelletto, beans in tomato sauce with sage

2 cups or so cooked beans, I used white beans (such as cannellini), borlotti and canario are good, too
a few tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
a plump clove of garlic, peeled and smushed with the side of a knife, still in one piece
4 medium/2 large ripe red tomatoes (Early Girls are wonderful), or 1 cup good quality canned crushed tomatoes
2 sprigs of fresh sage

Begin by draining and rinsing your beans, then set aside. In a sauté pan, warm the olive oil over medium heat, then add the garlic clove and let it sizzle gently on both sides until it smells fragrant and has a touch of gold (careful not to brown). Roughly chop up the tomatoes, if they have an extra thick skin you may want to peel them as well, personally I don’t, but it’s a textural preference. (To peel, boil for a minute, transfer to cool water, the skin will crack a bit and you can easily peel it off.) Add sage sprigs to the olive oil and garlic and allow it to cook for about 30 seconds, just till you can smell it. Add the tomatoes and cook until they collapse into a saucy mass (for fresh), or if using canned, till it reduces a bit. Taste and add salt as needed. Add the beans and stir well, allowing them to cook until warmed through. Taste again and adjust salt as needed. Let cool a bit before eating- like most things and people, this is better after a slight rest.