rigorousintuition.ca

Many years ago I did a stint as a cook in an organic production kitchen. We made little rice and bean wrap sandwiches to sell in local stores. Got up at 5 am and lugged 50 lb bags of rice to and fro. We had giant pressure cookers for the rice and smaller ones for the beans. If you want to cook beans well and quickly, use one of those, and don't salt them until after they're cooked.

Luckily no one was ever tending the pots too closely when one of 'em blew, which they would, at least once a week. That's why I don't cook beans.

Stephen Morgan wrote:I'm confused, have you been eating beans with something other than toast?

I am to blame, as like the french, I did not fully understand beans on toast. I think my confusion was due to the word "baked". Over here, baked beans are more like stewed with maple syrup, molasses, or brown sugar, sometimes a bit of mustard, and pork fat or bacon, and eaten as a side dish. If I can find tomatoey ones, I may try it.

When I was a kid, there was a sugarhouse right up the road and all the maple trees were tapped in the spring. I don't think it's done around there anymore.

That's right about cooking the beans, don't add anything until they're done, especially acid. I made some with a tomato product once and I think they could have boiled for days and not softened.

didn't even think of using a pressure cooker! and I also added acid right off the bat. I guess I've learned 2 lessons, thank you both.

so maybe I will try again. in the winter, of course.

A sweet friend and client took me out to dinner last night and gave me a glimpse of how the upper percentages live.

Crispy Sweetbread with creamy grits, grilled Scallions, red-eye gravy (thymus not testicles)
A cream-based, Dungeness crap gazpacho with pickled grapes and jalapeno almonds
Caramelized Sea Scallops with chanterelle mushrooms, green asparagus, heirloom tomato confit, bacon Jam

There was no need for dessert after the bacon jam!

A dude came in last night who works for Canlis. He said they had a private party there that night, a large one, where each course featured bottles of wine that were worth no less than $1000! He took one of the bottles as a souvenir -- a 1990 vintage. There was a little left in it and I tried a sip. Eh, so what. It was a good wine. But why wine or liquors increase in value is beyond me. Seems fake and probably is because the only people who can afford this shit are the developers who created this fake ass world we live in.

$1000 a bottle of wine? Who the fuck cares. . .

Some info on this Canlis I speak of:



http://classifiedhumanity.com/tagged/canlis

But what I am eating right now are hot wings to keep this thread on topic. I just thought willow would enjoy that little local Seattle happenings story. NO BOTTLE WAS UNDER $1000!!! For these Seattle rich folk. Jesus h christ.

Interesting little synchro!

We passed by Canlis on the way to our destination last night. I saw the rather large crowd inside and it became a topic of conversation. My friend said that the valet's don't track the cars by number, they just remember which vehicle belongs to whom.

Before our dinner we had a wine tasting and winery tour. I rarely drink expensive wines and these were not that expensive, in the $25 range, but they were so full of flavor (on the "big" end) it was almost like an entirely different beverage. Maybe they are $40 or $50 wines in a retail shop?

I wouldn't mind being able to afford $25 bottles of wine, well, on holidays perhaps.

Mmm. Beans. A local farmer has fresh purple hull peas (a cowpea variety). They remain a favorite. Fresh beans simmer in no time at all... 20 or 25 minutes. A minced chipotle. A battered bay leaf. Enough water to cover the beans by about an inch. After, I use the "bean water" to make rice. And I thoroughly salt the beans after simmering. Delicious... on their own. As an addition to enchiladas. Stuffed peppers. Burritos. Huevos rancheros. You name it.

The same farmer also raises black beans. Fresh. Oh, my. They're delicious. If/when you have a chance to try some fresh beans/peas, do yourself a favor and try them.

^^ Everything fresh this time of year is such a delicacy. I have had the impulse to simply type the word peach.

I was able to buy straight from farmers over the weekend, heirloom tomatoes for .89 per lb. and plucots, a cross between plumes and apricots. I'd never had them but they're amazing, blood red inside and complexly sweet until the final tart at the end.

Those apriums are tasty too.

Menu for tonight's harvest feast: Explorateur cheese, pita crackers, and spicy olives. Mahogany beef stew with egg noodles and green salad with herbs, tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden.

Schweddy Balls. (Ice cream)


Eh, it's not that good.

My regular breakfast, good organic coffee.
Can't eat anything until noon.

Cleansing diet atm- tons of fresh, tropical fruit. Papayas, fresh dates, mamey sapotes (haven't lived if you haven't had), persimmons... and some macadamia nuts.

I'm a former raw foodist, so I'm down with the fruit. Beats the heck out of caffeine, gnomad.

I alternate between this and eating tons of organic red meat and pork.

Guess what those fruit cost over here...They need to be freighted a few thousand km. Most shops stock just the general oranges, bananas, peaches, apples and some others, usually from Spain or elsewhere in southern Europe.

Only forest berries available as local produce (blueberries, lingonberries, field grown strawberries etc) and in the winter, only as frozen products. Yeah, Ive been lazy and haven't gone to the woods to pick my freezer full of them, too bad
Or I really should not say "only forest berries", there is nothing "only" about them....

There would be plenty, and we have a thing called "everymans right" which means that everyone is allowed to hike and bike in all forests, and pick berries and shrooms, as well as fish with a line and hook in your home county, and with a (cheap) permit elsewhere. This fall we only have collected some mushrooms and dried them. I bloody love mushrooms, every fall I eat so much of them at first that I get a nice tummyache

There's still plenty of berries on the bushes and apples in the trees in England. Obviously still too early to be picking, say, Sloes, of which there are hugh impenetrable thickets everywhere.

Today I have been mostly eating a chocolate orange.