Old So-and-Sos
Yea, smell that rose!
It’s on the nose.
Not one of those
Who would suppose
That poems, prose,
And speeches’ throes
Must not disclose
Where their heart goes,
I always chose
To stick to those
That told my nose
What was a rose.
Beans can be fun. Yes, they can be slightly dangerous in their propensity for aftershocks, if you will, but with reasonably careful preparation they offer a great deal of variety in flavors and textures, a filling and hearty sense of substance, and a decent nutritional punch, all in a bunch of mighty little packages. Fond as I am of rather wide-ranging cuisines, I am also bound, then, to enjoy good leguminous dishes. But I’m not endlessly open-minded about them. I don’t get much pleasure from things that are mealy, mushy, and morose, and when beans are handled too cavalierly by cooks, they can be reduced to such states rather easily. Why eat anything too bland, too woody from undercooking, too dull and lifeless from overdoing, or otherwise characterless, when in fact beans are such a fine medium for carrying a host of vivid flavors and come in such a rainbow of colors, shapes, and sizes?
All of this being said, I’m also a fan of one of the less stylish preparations known to bean-eating humankind, the ubiquitous mash of frijoles refritos or refried beans. This may be, as you’d guess if you’d read no other posts of mine than a single recent Tuesday one, due to the oft-practiced method of making refritos taste best by jamming as much lard into the pot of them as is physically possible, along with the musky goodness of cumin and other Mexican or Tex-Mex seasonings. But it’s also a pleasing kind of mash, having both the thick porridge character of many so-called comfort foods (nursery food texture is clearly a consistent preference among these) and the occasional happy surprise of the un-mashed, unabashed little pearls of un-crushed beans here and there.
Another pleasurable bean dish that’s full of rustic old-school goodness is the American classic of Boston baked beans, the virtual equivalent of candied beans, which also hold an unsurprising attraction for a devoted sweet tooth like mine. Traditionally, the well-loved Boston version of them contains salt pork and molasses, and I happily went with a similar theme when preparing yesterday’s side dish, but then I got to ruminating upon the aforementioned treat and wondered if the two recipes mightn’t make a nice partnership, as well. Turns out that there’s a Boston in Texas, too, in case that excuses me. So off I went, concocting my bean dish of the day…and enough extra for another two meals or so.
I’d par-cooked a batch of mixed beans recently, for starters. I combined equal parts dried kidney, pinto, and black beans, soaking them in several batches of water (each one successively cold, brought to a boil, cooled, rinsed, and replaced) over a stretch of hours before the final simmer to near-doneness. One portion of the beans went directly into a big batch of beef chili my spouse and I had prepared together that day; a large portion of the legumes went into the freezer for future uses; the last quantity was saved in the refrigerator in its own unseasoned juices for today’s preparation. And the latter was pretty easy to fix, with those beans already lying in half-cooked wait for the occasion.
Boston, Texas, Beans
Before the beans came into the picture, there was the salty-sweet sauciness to get under construction. I chopped about a generous half-pound of bacon into pieces and cooked them over medium-low heat with a big handful of brown sugar (my molasses source), a small sprinkle of smoked salt, and a couple Tablespoons of butter. Yes, extra salt and extra fat. Beans to come, cooked without any seasoning or fat, you know. Me: fat, salt, sugar. Yes. Deglazing, as the bacon began to crisp, with about 1/2 cup of good Texas bourbon. Once that all got good and syrupy and semi-crisped, I added the beans and their liquor, (about three cups) stirred everything to mix, and got in there with the potato masher, leaving some beans more or less intact. Let the whole pan sit, covered, at a low simmer until dinnertime about a half hour later. Served hot, it satisfied nicely after a busy afternoon for both of us diners.
In the event, it was a bit on the dry side for my ideal, but not too dry to be enjoyed with some plain smoked sausages cooked in white wine, dipped in a touch of mustard, and served with a side of juicy sweet Clementines. Given the slight dryness, however, I added a big dose-si-do of sweet BBQ sauce and a splash of water before sealing the remaining two meals’ worth in a zipper bag for refrigeration, and I’m sure I’ll get this little handshake-across-state-lines dish on speaking terms with further entrees in the days to come. Cooperation is a good thing, and the ever-flexible ingredient beans are nothing if not good citizens in the kitchen.
In addition to the under-appreciated benefits of simply vegetating for rest and personal renewal—the old R&R that current generations seem to forget to practice in our constant race for connectedness and communication and “productivity”—vegetating is a state in which the highly desirable happy accident of inspiration has room to occur. Some inspiring thoughts could even lead to a great invention or contribution to society. Mine, not likely. But if I don’t take the opportunity to allow that creative space, how will I know?
It’s worth the risk, in my view, of fulfilling my destiny as one who will never have the Great Idea. By trying the intentional-vegetative approach, I might surprise even myself. And I’m certain that having a little more time spent as a human plant form is bound to have a positive effect on my general well-being, at the least. Indulge me. Better yet, indulge yourself from time to time.
Among her treasured recordings of Harold Arlen gems, Ella Fitzgerald gave her distinctive verve to the admonition to Get Happy, and even a retrograde curmudgeon would be hard-pressed, hearing her clarion call, to resist the call. I think this is a great time of year to succumb to the great Miss Ella’s invocation. Listening to her sparkling voice, her incredible vocal agility, and her superlative interpretive artistry is Spring tonic to me, no matter when.
Let me just keep this snappy for today and add my voice, unimpressive as it may be, to hers to call everyone within earshot with a wide-open invitation to rejoice in whatever is available on the day. Live in the moment, yes. Sing at the top of your lungs, yes! Be glad and generous and gleeful with and through whatever you can possible find in the day, make of the day, and grow out of the day, oh yes indeed. You can ignore me, but if you listen to her, I think I can promise that you’ll find it mighty hard to ignore that glorious and welcome summons.
…but most of us are not only guilty of such misdemeanors but occasionally even get caught with our paws in the pasta. We’re not always major miscreants, but there are times when even the most proper of persons likes to break protocol just a bit. Ah, well, we do so love our naughty little secrets!
Everybody does certain things for no particular reason—sometimes to show off just a little, sometimes to test our limits a bit, and sometimes for the Everest-scaling excuse “Because it’s there.” Some of the things we do with the latter brand of casual offhandedness might, of course, be far better thought through, given that the utterer of that famous phrase died on the mountain and his body wasn’t even found until about 75 years later. But I’ll grant you that sometimes, too, a seemingly aimless act can lead to more useful ends.
As a person seriously devoted to both comfort and safety, I am more than content to leave any because-I-can acts of physical or psychological derring-do to anyone who wishes to live on the edge. I like my secure and restful life, thankyouverymuch, most especially the life part of it. But I’m willing, on occasion, to do small and non-dangerous experiments, if they seem to offer any interesting byproducts of use or entertainment.
Like making home-mixed shampoo, skin lotion, and toothpaste.
Sorry, if you were hoping for something really exciting! My inner life of fantasy has all of the elements of danger that I have the slightest interest in experiencing. But my day-to-day life and its practical requirements offer plenty of areas for potential improvement. If I can make my chores simpler, my needs smaller, the products I use slightly less expensive or toxic or complicated, and any other kinds of fixes that seem likely to make daily living pleasanter in any way, I’m generally glad to make the attempt at some point.
I don’t like most perfumed products. Nature gives me lots of wonderful smelling stuff to enjoy without my wanting to complicate those scents with artificial add-ons, so I’m more likely to buy an unscented, hypoallergenic version of any product if I can, and just enjoy the benefits of some of my favorite real-life ‘byproduct perfumes’: coffee brewing, freshly cut alfalfa hay, wet sidewalks after a long-awaited rain, a sleepy baby’s milky breath, sun-heated cedars and Douglas-fir trees, yeasty cardamom bread coming out of the oven. Flowers bursting into bloom in the garden. Salt spray at the shore. Spiced cider steeping on a cold night. Maybe it’s because I just recovered from a two-week cold, saw my poor spouse go through his own afterward, and woke up stuffy-headed again this morning, but the idea of all of those very lovely perfumes is the more alluring without thinking of their being masked by any artificial ones.
Then again, not only do I like to be clean both in my home and my person, there are some scents that do enhance my sense of cleanliness and good health in their ways, so I am not averse to adding those that I like, in the quantities I find appealing, to home-brewed stuff of personal- and home-care when I do make them.
My shampoo is almost always the all-purpose blend of a very plain liquid hand soap like Ivory (one could also use a similarly simple, if slightly more expensive, liquid Castile soap like Dr. Bronner’s) with nothing more complicated than tea tree and peppermint oils added in for their refreshing and slightly antimicrobial/antiviral qualities. The plain, oil-free soap is good for nearly any sort of (personal or house) cleaning that doesn’t require scrubbing, and with the oils it’s sufficient for my showering or bathing and hair care, no creme rinse needed. I don’t invest in any special skin treatments beyond the same home-mixed blend of skin moisturizer I’ve used on my face since my eccentric old dermatologist gave me his “recipe” of one part oil-free, hypoallergenic skin cleansing lotion + 1 part oil-free, hypoallergenic skin moisturizer + 1-2 parts water to use daily about 35 years ago. I have far better skin now than I did back then, so I guess it still works just fine.
The toothpaste-making is a work in progress, but I’m generally happy with that little science project as well. I have excellent teeth to begin with, so I wouldn’t recommend everyone jumping into fiddling with homemade toothpaste without consulting your dentist first, but these are also pretty standard toothpaste ingredients, so I’m not especially fearful of ruining my pretty white choppers. The blend at the moment is 1 cup baking soda (very mildly abrasive, and has some ability to remove or lessen stains and freshen breath—not, mind you, baking powder, unless you’re intending to bake your teeth into some sort of snack food) +1 cup coconut oil (melted for blending) + 1/2 cup powdered xylitol (the sugar alcohol sweetener, currently thought to be a cavity-fighter when used in moderation) + 2-3 Tbsp peppermint extract (flavor and breath freshening) + 2 drops blue food coloring. The latter is primarily to remind me that it’s toothpaste, since it’s just stored in a 2-cup jar in the medicine cabinet at the moment and I am, after all, occasionally forgetful. I might try the addition of a little Bentonite clay for better light abrasion, but didn’t have any on hand.
Let me just add that this little project is not my attempt to avoid fluoride. You are all free to choose to use it or not, but I am delighted that my first dentist happened to be among the first adopters of dental fluoridation and my home water district among the first adopters of fluoridated water. I have as near to perfect teeth as any 50-something I know, along with my three siblings, and our parents had typical earlier-generation rates of cavities and other dental problems; my dentists since then have agreed that early and consistent application of fluoride is very probably a significant contributing factor in this one-generation upgrade on general oral health. I don’t doubt that there are potential problems with overexposure or tradeoffs in other areas of health and well-being, and yet I wouldn’t trade any of those for a set of strong, healthy teeth with no caps, fillings, or other major interventions having been necessary, never mind growing up without fear of dentists and their tools. That’s my story. But I’m dubious that the occasional batch of homemade toothpaste without fluoride, at this point in my life, is going to threaten my dental magnificence. If my dentist tells me otherwise, I’ll switch back without a fuss. I’d hardly risk my teeth any more than I would life and limb for a little experiment.
I’m not, after all, that much of an adventurer.
Stolen Away
Too soon, cold sorrow steals from me the light
Of promise, of the hope for growing love
Which I had longed to see his mastery of
Bring him to see such stars divide the night
That he might know it possible that day
Was his as much as anyone’s, and keep
Alive, alight, and not succumb to sleep
As refuge from an endlessly dark way,
But my poor strivings—anyone’s, I guess—
Could never generate the power he
Required to light enough so he could see
In such great bleakness any happiness,
And love and hope, invisible and far
From him as he from me, my distant star.
Clearing the Air
I missed you when you went away,
But if you should come back today,
I will no longer—for my sight’s
Been fixed—I’ve got you dead to rights.
When company’s coming and it’s not supposed to be a fussy occasion, I’m not going to be one of those hosts slaving in the kitchen and trying to pretend perfection. I would much rather spend my energies on getting edible, uncomplicated food on the table and either being with the guests or, as was the case the other night, getting out of the way of my spouse’s dinner meeting so I could enjoy reading in peace while I ate my own dinner in the other room. The people in attendance at the dinner meeting could talk business and be casual and not concern themselves with etiquette or entertaining me—or I, them—and I could even relax a bit after fixing dinner.
Pizza, in the American style, is an easy choice on such occasions. This time around, I didn’t have any guests requiring any particular dietary care: no gluten-free needs, no vegans, no special religious occasions being observed, and so forth. I didn’t have any unusual worries about any formalities. Simplicity and ease of serving were a bigger deal than being distinguished or fancy in any way, and setting up so the meeting group could take care of their own food and drink once it was served was the obvious solution. Around here, that means being able to eat without utensils if we like, and helping ourselves when we want more. Pizza. Drinks. Fruit and vegetables already cut up and served cold, with a couple of dipping sauces in case anybody wants. Lots of paper towels or serviettes or cloth napkins, whatever’s available.
Did I mention pizza?
And while I could fiddle around and make homemade crust, I’m kind of too old and lazy for that anymore. Horrifying, I know. You can shun me. Or you can enjoy making your own pizza crust, or hey, just join in and buy store-bought dough and save yourself a little time. I won’t even judge you if you order delivered, ready-made pizza. I just got in the mood to do my own toppings this time. So that was the only fuss I made. I let the grocery store do all of the fruit and vegetable peeling and cutting and plating in those chintzy little plastic trays, and was quite content. The pre-made pizza dough bought from the refrigerated case at the store was good enough for me, and one of the guys at the meeting even asked me if I had made it, and I didn’t lie. Credit where it’s due.
For the veg, a dip made of blended cottage cheese and whole milk yogurt (equal parts or so) seasoned with dill, thyme, salt, and smoked paprika, and a pinch of cayenne. For the fruits, a sauce of caramel—brown sugar melted in butter, with a pinch of salt, and in place of the usual cream, more yogurt. And a big hit of good quality cinnamon, for this batch. Mixed nuts and individually wrapped candies and chocolates. Cold drinks. Good friends and colleagues, and big ideas floating all around. Satisfying sustenance.
We are taught from childhood that excess is inherently negative. Certainly, as a trained artist, I had a certain version of that idea reinforced throughout my studies. But thankfully in that training, there was also the affirmation that part of the purpose of knowing the rules and boundaries thoroughly, and especially the valid reasons for those having been codified as The Way to Do Things, is so that when we choose to break the rules, cross those bounds, and color outside the lines, we will do so intelligently and with purpose as well.
Otherwise there would be no invention at all.
Imagine if those who developed the magnificent decorative beauties of the art and designs prevailing in Art Nouveau work had always held back and refrained from going a bit beyond the norms, never mind whether any of the magnificently ridiculous extremes of the Baroque and Rococo would have bloomed in the darkness. Think, if you dare, of a world where experimentation and thinking outside the proverbial box were forbidden: would any of the useful, meaningful, and beautiful inventions that save lives and enrich them ever have happened?
This idea can be expressed on a much smaller and more modest scale, too. Why not let our joy in excess sometimes shout its existence for others to bask in its reflected glow!
An iconic sight along the edge of Alki Beach in Seattle, this home has grown, literally, into a garden of earthly delights that we all enjoy as we pass along our ways. Sometimes being ‘over the top’ is the perfect solution.
Art-Colored Glasses 