October 12, 2024

How do you solve a problem like a big ol' pot a beans?

If a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters had a big ol’ pot of beans, would they be able to figure out more than one goddamn thing to do with them? I like the beans - I think they are tasty as fuck: salty with a thin sheet of something else wrapped around it. That something else is garlic and onion and ginger and dill all bubbled gently to a point past recognition, and that slow unveiling of flavour feels very mature. This is a classy bean. These beans are not packing a punch - there is no immediate zing to your palate, it’s not garlic forward, it doesn’t have a kick of ginger, there’s no grassy freshness from all the green that went in. These are not beans fighting for attention. These are the grand dame in the corner your eyes keep getting drawn to.

But what the fuck am I going to do with them? I made an imprecise-pounds¹-worth² of turtle beans (how could I resist with a name like that?), and I have an imprecise quantity of days and meals to eat them in. Some I have frozen (in a take out container kept from a beauty of a sandwich³ bought to sustain me during a long bus ride, because, what, am I supposed to buy my own Tupperware now? And then carry it around?⁴ Just so I can freeze some beans that I have no intention of defrosting because what am I going to do with all these beans, I have two weeks to eat all these beans, and I already am turned off by the idea of incorporating beans into my beans - meals - dammit! I’ve had two meals with these beans and they are so good and I just don’t want to think about what to do with these beans) and the rest, Sohla says, are good for between 3 days and a week. Fuck, just read the Note at the bottom of the page. Separated out so it’s super clear too:

“If you want the legumes to last all week, cool leftovers rapidly by transferring to a large metal bowl set over an ice bath.”

Honey. You already know I made no ice bath. I made those beans as I wrote my last blog post. It’s been eighty-four years!⁵

This is a lesson, once again, in Game Planning. Yes, I made the beans. It seemed like a fun thing to cook up that required limited equipment, ingredients I wanted the excuse to buy anyway, and sensibly could cover a lot of quick-prep meals in an environment where I’m not sure if we’ll have time to shop or the energy to boil pasta. And the process: amazing, so simple, satisfyingly gross in the scum-scooping regard.

But Game Planning the cooking doesn’t cover a recipe like this. You gotta Game Plan the meals too. Sohla gave us the first meal no problem “The first day I eat them straight out of the pot with a dollop of yoghurt”. Damn good, if vv filling. And then she gives loads of other options, which are achievable and don’t sound hard at all, but they were not part of the Game Plan, and so I am stuck.

There is a lot in this about making mistakes so that I can learn, about being comfortable with the errors, the dinners delayed by poorly estimated chopping time, the is-it-too-burnt-to-eat, the I-guess-it-tastes-fine moments. The big moments, the obvious missteps. The events that pack a punch. But being stuck? It’s not a kick in the teeth, I’m not reacting in the electric immediate. It’s an ineffable something else I need to get comfortable with. An awkward, knee-jiggling blankness. Just. Being stuck. Being empty of brain. Thinking there’s nothing in the fridge but mature beans.

Thanks, I hate it.