My Life

Lookin' Beans

If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m a country girl. Don’t laugh! It’s not really a bad thing.

Beans, cornbread and fried potatoes were consumed in my household at least twice a week throughout my entire childhood. Move to Texas and you lose the cornbread and fried potatoes but you gain rice. Everybody lives on red beans and rice in Texas.

My mom looked beans, my sister’s looked beans, even my brother looked beans a time or two. My mom would say “look the beans so I can get ‘em soakin.”

As I got older and the sister’s started moving away. It was my turn to start lookin’ beans. I had seen my sisters and mother flatten out little piles of beans, remove some and leave others a million times. I just followed their procedure.

Now, I don’t make that meal as often as my dear mother did. I figure a couple times a year is more than sufficient. Not to do it at all, would be an insult to my mama. Never insult your mama!

This morning as I was lookin’ beans, it dawned me that mama never told me what I was lookin’ for. The realization that I have been lookin’ beans for some 25+ years, and never thought to ask what I was lookin’ for hit me.

I mean, why do you look beans? I take out one’s that are chipped, split in half, too dark, too wrinkled. My throw away pile, almost always ends up just as large as my cook pile. I don’t recall my mom and sisters throwing away so many beans!

Anyway... I put them in the crock pot, chopped up an onion and threw in some spices. It was about that time that it dawned me, I didn’t have any ham.

I had to go back to that beloved grocery store to remedy the situation. But this time, I went to a familiar face to have my ham rang up for me.

Of course, it would have to be the only piece of meat in the entire grocery store that didn’t have a price sticker on it. When the meat lady finally arrived with the sticker on the ham, I made my purchase and headed home to throw it in the beans.

It was then that I realized, I hadn’t soaked the beans! Mama always soaked the beans...

I think I’ll just order a pizza!