Beans Called “Fagioli Borlotti”,

“What do you want tonight?”  I’m all cooked out, but the cooking must continue.  I wasn’t sure what she was gonna say but the older one said “Mexican?” with a question mark .  I imagined the taste, as one does in one’s mind and it wasn’t finding a mark.  It will get better when I’m at the market, starring at the food.  It's ain't a bodega.  With limited ingredient possibilities, I’d need to find a different way to prepare something, so it wasn’t the same damn “Mexican” thing I’d made last week and the week before.

My stepson and his wife would be joining us which would be wonderful, but more complex.  Since New Year’s day, my younger daughter has announced that she is a vegetarian again, like the older one. This, at least for the next six months.  My wife and I were supposed to join for this the way we did last year, though my heart’s not in it.  Last year we all opted in for a vegetarian month in January.  That was the extent of the commitment.  Then, mid-stream at February, it was easy to say, let’s just keep going and we did until the summer.  But this year, starting out with a half a year commitment seems daunting and a bit routinized.

About to bike to the market I got a note from my son:  “We’ll be there around eight.”  “Dude,” I typed back: “The girls can’t eat that late on a school night.”  These guys are going to want meat.   We’re going to have to have multiple meals this evening. 

The young Henan gals all know me at our local market and I pop out my head phones and greet them as I start to stalk this evening’s preparation.  I decide I can bake zucchini with some black beans, salsa, eggs and imagine it tasting something like a Mexican bake.  But if I’m going to make burritos I don’t want black beans again.  Our market never has pinto beans and that’s the taste that’s in my mind’s tongue.  But we do have an Italian brand with beans called “fagioli borlotti”, which despite the ill-connected bean photo on the can, I believe are more or less the same thing.  I’ll bake some chicken for the carnivores.  I might even have some of that myself. 

Thursday, 01/10/19