Bean Soup

According to my acupuncturist, it’s a good time for me to be eating lots of soups and stewed dishes; I am, says she, the victim of my own body’s “damp heat,” which means that the functionings of my Stomach and my Spleen (the Chinese versions) have been compromised. As a result of this unfortunate state of affairs, I’ve been told to reduce and/or cut out of my diet most of my most favorite foods, including sugar, alcohol, wheat, fatty cuts of meat, chocolate, tomatoes, dairy, and also anything fried to culinary perfection in grease, on the grounds that such foods are difficult to digest. DRAG. However, soups and other slow cooked foods are relatively easy to digest, so they are, thankfully, supposed to be good for me to eat

The Broth: This month I had grand plans that involved making a broth out of hickory wood chips and herbs, but, concerned as I was about using sprayed or treated wood for my broth, I had a hard time finding the woodchips I needed. I did call a couple of hardware shops to ask if they had hickory wood chips and, if yes, whether or not they were sprayed. These hardware shop people who I spoke to on the phone about my plans to cook w/ the woodchips were of two minds: one of the minds I encountered was a bored, underpaid, teenage pothead type who kept saying “huh?”; the other was a old-time Libertarian, burger-gut type who kept calling his worker friends over to listen to my request. After both of the minds indicated clearly that they thought me crazy, I decided to not contact any more minds. So instead of hickory, I resorted to kelp.

Dried kelp, as it turns out, when cooked with beans (I used Great Northerns in this case) has the property of making beans especially tender. Also, cooking kelp mediates its hyper-salty flavor and the cooked pieces end up being a nice, slightly chewy addition—almost like egg noodles-- to a soup. In addition to the kelp broth, I added garlic, leeks, dried sage, and a few sprigs of fresh thyme to the beans while they cooked.


Tender Beans

The beans in that are the cushions leaking whitely into the onions which are ordered as. Handsome, the white bells. The hams are, what they are, pink commas floating or laying down like hats. In pieces. A leek has a wrist and a cousin is the leek split and swimming. More green and less quilting.

WINTER SQUASH

Is ordered into letters on a flat black pond which is the semblance of cast iron pond. And the blondes lay there in oils, sunning and cooling. All this is below the olive trees. The salt on the rims of the girls in the sun. The sight of a simple point. All to be collected and turned into message.

The movement of a collection deglazed into the pot where the beans sleep like a thieves, anxiety of sleep. This is whisper-time in the field.

There is several times goes by.

Salt is the color of itself. Is the black pepper color. Isn’t.

A TABLE

A rollered planet. Here are the tinseled jewels that take a mouth. This one has noise and a flame colored flame that climbs face, which makes a feeling, which makes a pleasant O of itself. A bracelet speaking around a gram of an oat colored wrist.

* * *

Which is to say that Jack and I enjoyed a Winter Squash, Ham, and White Bean Soup in a Kelp Broth, and that the soup was much enhanced by several hours of cooking. Along with the soup, I served an unfortunate choice of “breads”: spoon bread. Never having made or had spoon bread before, I did not realize that spoon bread is basically hot, liquid (uncooked) cornbread and that, as it is also what farmer feed pigs in sub-zero temperatures, it is not really ever a good idea to put it on a table in front of people you care about and/or are trying to impress. I hope to do better w/ bread next time.