saturday night, 0125, perfect beans

As a kid I didn't like beans, mostly. Green beans were okay, but the others were, ugh. Probably this was because of bad textures (my parents had a weird affection for blackeyed peas or red beans with mushy rice), bad flavors (often beans were served with... beans), and some genuinely bad beans. Particularly, overcooked lima beans and sad limp pinto beans contributed to this.

The lesson of my adult bean adventures is: over-season. Beans are great, but you have to treat them right. In this case I cooked 1 cup (dry volume) Great Northern Beans with: black pepper, green peppercorns, a bay leaf, saffron, two tomatoes, a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a bit of epazote. They are fucking fantastic. What would be an overkill flavoring in most dishes is just enough with a cup of beans.

And that's your saturday night bean update.

In which bullets whistle past me

This was not a good day to shop at my usual shopping mall back in KC nor is it going to be a good day getting around the Bay Area for a very long, very very long time.

The photo gallery for the trucksplosion story is amazing.