Garlic and Green Beans

As you must know by now, I'm not a fancy cook - I like to describe myself as producing good, plain food. I'm generally content to cook veggies simply and to adorn them with nothing more than a wisp of butter and perhaps a light shake of salt. In my view, it's hard to improve on the flavor of good, fresh vegetables.

Every now and then, however, I do embellish. I had some green beans in the fridge and some garlic; that reminded me of a recent Sunset recipe that sautéed fresh green beans with garlic and fresh thyme (I used lemon thyme as that is currently booming along in my pot garden - no, not that kind of pot!) for a little flavor boost. I used olive oil, just a drizzle, and minced the garlic and herbs. Once the beans were just starting to brown lightly, I added the rest for a moment or two to just warm the garlic and release the scent from the lemon thyme. Off the heat, added a squeeze of lemon juice.

I don't like the word "nice." So namby-pamby. But, in this case, it was appropriate. The dish was nice. Not offensive, not spectacular, but happily, tastily - nice.

Four Beans a Day

After grousing all summer about the low productivity of my admittedly small and relatively untended veggie garden, I'm beginning to see that it's actually a sort of tortoise-and-hare story out there. Slow and steady wins the race.

In this case, the race is to our plates.

We get about four green beans a day from the plants I put in early this summer, one or two beans per bush. By the end of the week, we have accumulated enough beans of various sizes to make a reasonable serving for the two of us. This has been going on for months and months and, given that the plants are shaded by taller things, rarely fertilized and hardly watered, I think that's pretty darn good.

The leaves are beginning to take on a tired air now, yellowing and curling like arthritic hands - I don't expect we'll have very many more days of bean production. But, that's what I said two months ago and we are still in greenie beanie heaven once or twice a week. What more could we ask?

Ducky Beans

While strolling the Marin farmer's market a few days ago, we visited our favorite Basque stand where they sell wonderful sausages and pate' - this time we were talked into trying some duck breast proscuitto that the proprietor had made. I was thinking of yet another way to use up some of my peaches but when I have unusual ingredients in the house they tend to spark new ideas.

I made tiny, dark purple lardons from a bit of the duck breast, rendering the fat by sauteeing before adding some fresh green beans from the garden, perhaps a day or two past perfect size, so I sliced them on the diagonal. After tossing the beans in the duck fat, I added just a tablespoon or so of water to the pan and butter steamed them in the duck "butter."

The fresh green flavor of the beans lightened the earthy darkness of the prosciutto and each made the other better, tastier, more complete.

My Beloved has a way, when he tastes something he really likes, of just meeting my eyes and then closing his - his way of signaling that he's having a near-religious experience. Language is suspended for the moment by simple savoring. I love that.

Trug Soup

I have an active imagination. When I began my garden, I imagined myself wafting out to my productive little patch, probably wearing a floaty Loretta Youngesque sundress and a picture hat, romantic-looking trug in hand, to harvest all the wonders that Nature would have provided.

Right.

The reality is that I do my harvesting in baggy pants and without a basket, romantic-looking or otherwise, as my two pockets and a single handful pretty much fills the bill. I was pretty resentful of that fact, too, until I made soup one day from the contents of my imaginary trug.

Okay, I did add two red potatoes, a large onion, three garlic cloves, two (Chilebrown) chili peppers, a fennel bulb, four ears of corn and a quart of veggie stock that didn't originate on my property but the fresh thyme, greenie beanies and zucchinis were my very own.

The preparation was the usual for soup - soften the aromatics in olive oil, add the thyme until it becomes fragrant and dump in the stock and the rest of the chopped veggies (except the corn, which I reserved until the end - I like crisp corn) and simmer until you can't wait any longer to ladle it into a bowl for the first taste. Add salt and pepper as you like.

It was dreamy.

Now my romantic vision is of a perfectly set table with the sun setting behind My Beloved's shoulders as we slurp our Trug Soup, holding hands by candlelight. This fantasy is far more likely to come true.