beans and greens

I met J (whose code name here I’m considering changing to The Big Guth) when I was 31 and at my wit’s end with graduate school and it’s impoverished living. A couple walks together later, I made a list of the reasons why I liked him. I did this because I had a long history of meeting someone, really liking him, enjoying a lovely six or eight or even thirteen months together, and then promptly forgetting why it was I ever decided to date him. I figured that 31 was as good a time as any to change my ways and so I’d write it all down, keep a spreadsheet of love (okay, so that’s an exaggeration), and then have the proof months later when he was driving me crazy and I had decided I was better off alone. And yes, I pulled that list out six months after we met, and again at nine months, and even again at twenty-two months. I haven’t looked at it in awhile, but when I came home from work last night, #2 on the list was being enacted before my eyes: the man can make miracles happen with a can of beans.

Indeed! At 31 and after scores of failed relationships, I knew what was most important: the ability to turn a $.99 can of black beans into a little taste of heaven. He called it “beans and greens,” and it had been a staple of his diet for the countless years that he, too, spent in the throes of graduate school hell. I had never known anyone who could make a delicious meal out of three simple ingredients: a can of beans, a bag of spinach, and some hot sauce. Oh and I guess a bit of olive oil to coat the pan. It was perfect: lots of protein, little fat, a green leafy vegetable that you don’t really want to eat but that tastes yummy all warmed up and spicy, and best of all, it was cheap, super cheap. Last night we had the post-graduate version, i.e. it had chicken. Imagine the decadence. It might not look like anything, but trust me, it tastes like love.

p.s. Beans and greens a la Smitten Kitchen. Combining my love of risotto and beans and greens....think I might give it a try