Frijoles!

Beans, and pinto beans in particular, are one of the great pleasures on this fertile earth of ours. I think that living in Texas precludes one to be even more fond of beans than residents of other parts of the world, perhaps because they so nicely compliment many of the other foods we enjoy here. I challenge you to find me a Mexican or Barbecue restaurant at which beans are not the default side on any plate.

I inherited a cookbook from my grandmother called "A Taste of Texas," which is notable not just for its delicious recipes, but the highly entertaining essays which accompany many of the recipes. The essay accompanying the two recipes for pinto beans is by J. Frank Dobie, and if you don't know who that is, well, you're probably not from Texas. I kind of want his life. Aside from the part where he was getting shelled by Germans during World War I. Anyway, Dobie's essay is a treatise on the frijole which I am tempted to reproduce in its entirety here because it is as learned and eloquent a discussion of bean cooking as I've ever read. Here's the last paragraph:

"A meat eater could live on frijoles and never miss meat. When a Mexican laborer is unable to lift a heavy weight, his companions say that he 'lacks frijoles.' As you may deduce, I am kind of a frijole man. On the oldtime ranches of the border country, where I grew up, frijoles were about as regular as bread and in some households they still are."

Yeah. Dobie makes the point, and I agree, that pinto beans should be prepared simply. At their most basic, with just water, pork, salt, onions and peppers. Here's my recipe.

First, dump your bag of HEB pinto beans into a large pot. Cover them with cold water and let them sit, ideally over night, but if you're a slacker like me, then maybe just a couple of hours. I don't plan. Some people say you should sift through the beans and look for rocks and dirt and whatever. Meh.

When you're ready to cook them, drain the beans. You can rinse them if it helps you sleep better at night. Here are my beans post-soak.

Cover the beans with water again, probably about 6 cups to start. If you're feeling zesty, you can replace some of the water with chicken broth or beer. For this particular batch I used 2 cups water, 2 cups chicken broth, and a bottle of Shiner, just because that's how I was feeling yesterday. I pretty much always pour a light beer in there. You can go fancy if you want, but Bud Light works just fine.

Then you're going to chop some stuff. Here's my still life with ingredients.

Dice the onion and throw that in. Dice up one of the jalapenos and throw that in. If that looks like a LOT of jalapeno to you then hold off on the other one for a couple of hours, taste your bean juice and then make a decision about the second one. Editor's note: I always add the second one. Before you do anything else, wash your hands. If you don't do it immediately, you will forget. And then you will rub your eyes, or pick your nose, and then you will hate yourself. So do it right away before you forget.

Then, chop garlic until you can't stand to chop garlic anymore. About 4 large cloves should be enough. Next, get yourself some link sausauge.

Mine is frozen because I just took it out of the freezer. Like I said, I don't plan. This is venison/pork sausage from a deer that Will shot. Pork is important for beans. Pork and beans love each other like...pork and beans. Like my sister's feral cats named Frank and Beans who only love each other and hate all other living creatures.

Dice up the sausage and throw that in.

Now add your spices. I don't measure, so use the measurements below for novelty purposes only. They might be kind of accurate, I don't know. Use your taste buds. And your eyes.

1 1/2 Tbsp. Salt
1 Tbsp. black pepper
1 tsp. sage
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves

I realized when I started looking for the sage yesterday that I didn't have any. MUCH to my consternation. I substitued oregano, but it's really not as good for beans. You should use sage.

Mmmm...beans. Bring them to a boil, then put the lid on and turn the fire down to medium-low. More like low-medium. Then you should pretty much leave them alone for about 4 hours. If you don't have that long, just plan on eating them the next day. They'll be better then anyway. Stir them occasionally, but not too often or they'll get all mushy. Also, keep an eye on the water level and add more if it gets too low, or if the beans start to stick to the bottom. I usually add another couple cups at some point. Before you serve, taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. I can't really help you with that part.

I didn't get a picture of the finished beans because I was too busy wharking them down. Sorry. Suffice it to say they were delicious, and I will likely be eating them again soon, as this recipe makes enough beans to feed my entire college graduating class.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go fix myself a bowl of beans.