Reading the table of contents was a first for me, I never do that. If it’s a recipe book and I’m looking for a recipe I’ll use the index. But I figured that anyone who can make the acknowledgements page interesting might have something to say in the table of contents.
The only thing I learned is that a lot of work will have to be done to convince me to try anything in Chapter 4, Cool Beans. For me beans are something that you eat throughout the winter; warm, filling, yummy little packets of protein. As a side, as a main course or as one small part of an overall something wonderful. Fresh green beans, Lima beans, tofu from soy not so much. But we’ll see, I am intending to try as many recipes as possible!
The introduction was fantastic. No, truly. I know not everyone feels this way, when I read the following I was all ready to head out to the community garden and just lay down amongst the bean rows.
“Let us, too, have an eye to the bean. Hold on in the palm of the hand. Discrete, self-contained as an egg, spotted or speckled, dark or light, it’s such a small package holding so much. Inspiration for tonight’s dinner, perhaps a soup or stew? Sure, and no more and no less important than all it contains.
Soften, now, to time, as that bean, soaked in water, would soften. You’ll see more life than seems possible in something so tiny. Eye the future and there, if you allow that bean to sprout, you have the stuff of tomorrow’s salad or stir-fry. Look further: bury that bean in soil, and it sprouts. Emerging from the earth, roots growing down, shoots and leaves growing up, it becomes a bush or a vine climbing a pole, tendrils curled – tenacious, poetic. This is a miracle beans have in common with any other seed, Yet, unique among plant families, beans and their kin generously give back to the soil; they are – it almost defies belief – self-fertilizing.”
Sigh. I have to leave. Time to go walk barefoot in the grass. A demain!
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