Beans

I wonder how many people know that I love to cook. I don’t talk about it frequently. I think I’m secretly ashamed of it. Maybe it’s because the image of a mother slaving over the stove for an ungrateful family is an image my mother railed against when I was growing up. Maybe it’s because I’m a teensy bit uncomfortable with my post-pregnancy body and don’t want to seem like the overweight woman eating an ice cream cone in a van I saw the other day. Maybe it’s because as much as I like to pretend, I’m really not very good at it. Unless I play it very safe, my cooking is usually a disaster.

But whatever reason my reason for not talking about food, I’m over it. I love to cook. There is something so satisfying about taking ingredients, combining them, and turning them into something infinitely greater than its parts. I remember making sarmale with my mini-missionary on p-day and feeling incredibly proud to have a huge pot of meat and rice stuffed cabbage leaves. Okay, Sora Vasile did her share of the work as well. But I love the feeling I get when I cook something great. Perhaps it’s the same feeling Michelangelo felt when he completed La Pieta. Well, probably not, because my cooking involves no originality. Maybe it’s the feeling a six-year old gets when he successfully traces his favorite comic book character and his mom sticks it up on the fridge. Whatever, it feels good.

And, I have to admit, I like cooking for my man. I feel like I just admitted for the first time that I am an alcoholic. Not that I have ever admitted that I’m an alcoholic. And not that I am an alcoholic. I’m not. I just like to have my daily shot of scotch. What’s wrong with that?

Anyway, I discovered recently that I love to cook beans. Yep, that’s right. Beans. Sure, you can get them cheap in a can, but they’re dirt cheap when I make them myself. And buying a can and opening it up will never give me a sense of accomplishment. Maybe it will for my brothers, which is fine. But not for me.

I was always a bit intimidated by bags of beans at the store. But then, I got a slow cooker. And some courage. I bought beans. I put them in the slow cooker with lots of water and a little salt. I turned the slow cooker on high. I went to bed. In the morning, I had beans. Lots of them. It felt good.