Magical Fruits

Every winter, I think a long time about beans. I think about beans more than I think about any of the other garden vegetables. Dry beans, not green. And what ever comes of them? Not much. Even this picture is blurry.

Last winter, I poured over catalogs before I finally decided on these beans. I don't remember their name (I never recorded it and accidentally deleted half my emails). Rabbits got into the garden and chewed the plants down several times before they finally got going. It rained before I harvested them, and half the beans were moldy and half were immature. Shelled, the harvest was maybe a cup.

I ignored that cup until this weekend, when I soaked them overnight and simmered them in salted water. I meant to make a minestrone (a friend had recently made some for me and reminded me how much I love that soup), but when I tasted the bean to see if they were done, I wound up eating every one of them, straight from the pot with a spoon and my fingers.

I'm pouring over seed catalogs again and spending the most time thinking about beans. I'll probably never get enough. But one October, my daughters sat for an afternoon shelling dry beans (greasy grits) in the back yard. And another year, I grew enough Oland Swedish brown beans to make a few lunches of bean salad, and I ate them in the grass in the sun with someone I loved.