June 25, 2011
Ojo de Cabra (Goat’s Eye) Beans
I ordered some dried cannellini and some pintos and some teparies from this outfit out west, but now I want some of these goat’s eye beans.
Because who wouldn’t want to eat “his father’s eyes”?
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If you track down a vendor, buy a pound for me too!
I’ll pay you back.
Well, damn. I want some, too. I’d look at them for a long time before cooking them.
I’m making a big pot of pinto beans for supper tomorrow. With fried potatoes and onions and oven-roasted okra. The best part will be the delicious burritos we’ll make from the leftovers.
I love beans.
Hey, are we all cooking beans today? Cindy, I’ve got pintos on the stove too! This time I get to add some of those canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce because, with David not around, I can make ‘em extra spicy.
Kels, I wrote you asking your ad-dress so I can send you some beans. Cindita, ¿quieres frijoles también?
Speaking of beans (specifically, teparies, like the ones I bought), here is a story about kids on the rez cooking and winning a prize for their dishes.
Thanky, Sheilababy, but I’m overstocked on beans. Now that I’m aware these goaty beans exist, though, I’ll track some down someday. I hope you and Kelsey will document your experiences. They sound really good.
Kelsey, my heart is heavy at the news that David doesn’t like spicy food. I’m sure you’ll change that over time. Those little chipotles en adobo are a gift from the gods.
I wish a bunch of y’all were here. I’d feed you beans and beer and stories.
Oh, and Kelsey, if David will make room in his suitcase, I’ll send a couple of tubs of dried okra pods for you when he comes through Dallas.
Oh, now I know it was you, Cindy, who brought those dried okra pods to the Bauman farm a whole back. I pretty much thought so. I ate up a bunch of them.
Well, it’s not that David doesn’t like spicy, it’s that he is not amused by spicy. Unfortunately I am uninspired by the former. Since we met I have been toying with his limits like a teenager testing curfew. The question is, can his tolerance expand?
I miss you guys, so much.
Cindy, your offer of okra is of crazy timing because just last Wednesday, I rang up a lady with a box of those crispy, seedy friends! I’m sure I freaked her out. I mean, my exclamatory remarks must have seemed way out of proportion. At the end of my shift I immediately bought four boxes, in case the randomness that brought them into our inventory just as quickly takes them away.
With David gone this last month, I have been in need of beer and stories.
Those dried okra pods are the best. Hallelujah that they’ve made their way to San Francisco!
My friend Charlie was convinced by his brother to devote a little portion of his market garden to okra. Charlie was reluctant. But now the okra is coming up.
I have this dehydrator I haven’t used, and I’m thinking . . . you know. Dried okra pod snacks? Runaway best-seller of the farmers’ market?
One thing I will never develop a tolerance for is stewed okra. Ewww.
Sheila, I’m thinking those amazing ones sold by Whole Foods are somehow flash-fried and then dried. I’ll bet you could experiment and replicate them. I’ve always intended to try.
My favorite way to eat okra is stewed with tomatoes, onions, jalapenos. My next favorite way to eat it–a very close second–is sliced and oven roasted with a bit of olive oil. The okra gets tiny and hard and dark, and it is absolutely delicious. Better than fried okra in every way. It’s wonderful to add to a salad–a kind of okra crouton. And then, of course, there’s the multitude of ways okra can be incorporated into Indian food.
Okra plants make beautiful yellow blossoms. And the pods that are too high up to pick, or that get too large, can be left on the plant to dry. Daryl didn’t plant okra this year because we are selling the house, but in years when he did I often made autumn bouquets of dried stems of okra. So odd and beautiful.
I will experiment with okra, Cindy. This summer I got me a supply. And when I go to fetch okra, I get to visit donkeys, so it’s all good.
Okra bouquets.
We go to this Thai restaurant that fries or oven-fries sliced okra until it’s dark brown and then serves it with toasted garlic, chilies, sugar, soy, and fish sauce. Jesus Christ. I like okra more than most people.
I could go for that Thai restaurant’s okra. Do they fry it tempura-style or simply as-is?
There are beach shacks on the North Carolina Outer Banks that do a fried okra cup that is the stuff of daydreams. Quick fried so the okra retains its crisp green inside. The batter has something hot in it, I’m not sure what and they aint sayin’. You have to drive around and look for them. They are shacks that sell just burgers and fries, hot dogs, ice cream, and fried okra. Sit back and scan the treacherous waters known as the graveyard of the Atlantic. Pretend you’re a pirate waiting for your ship to come in. Enjoy your spicy okra cup.
I want an NC spicy okra cup.
The Thai okra dish is fried as is. It ends up with a little crunch and a little chew and is served (as everything is there) with a heart-shaped pile of rice.
Y’all, I am out the door and hoping to make it to my gardener/farmer friend’s market patch this afternoon. If there is okra, I will claim some. Fix it some kind of way and report.
Also, I hope to visit the donkeys and give them a hee-haw. They are still living in the junkyard, but it is just a little piece down the road.
Aaron, I may try to replicate the NC spicy okra cup. It probably tastes better while staring at the Atlantic. But still. I’m probably the best one to do it considering my proximity and experience.
The best part of the Outer Banks, to me, is Ocracoke, the southermost tip. Blackbeard was killed there. You get there by ferry. Spanish moss drips from trees, heavy vegetation hides old family graves cordoned off by rusty iron fences. It gives the Iowan the creeps. But it feels like home to me.
I love it that Ocracoke is called that. It sounds like, you know, like okra. A friend of mine once dated a guy who either owned an Ocracoke shack, or his people were from there, or something. It sounded wonderful. But he and she had a falling-out. Alas for me.
I could go for that Thai okra or a spicy okra cup right now. I love okra in all its forms. I think I’ll go have a pickled okra.
I just made the Vegan Black Metal Pad Thai Recipe. I think I added too much sugar, but he specified “a whole fucking lot” of it. Didn’t realize Black Metal Vegans had such a sweet tooth.
Dave, that was in the recipe re the sugar? Was that a verbal instruct or written? Of course, context is key. I still can’t believe it when I watch Mother sweeten iced tea. Even though I am a southerner my very own self. She makes the tea, pours it in a large pitcher and while it is still hot, takes the package of sugar and begins to pour. And pours. And pours. And pours. I think she probably could stand a spoon up in it.
Shelia, I would like for Ocracoke to be named for okra. But it isn’t. The meaning of the word is a mystery. It may come from an Indian word that means sacred or powerful. And if your friend was a TRUE friend of yours she would make up with the person that owns a shack on Ocracoke. It is so very simple.
Just got back from the truck patch. Scarlet and purple radishes, plus one white; Siberian kale; dinosaur kale; curly parsley; Swiss chard; basil.
Loads more to come.
I would like to taste a white radish and some Siberian kale. I love chard. I am partial to flat parsley, but the curly has the intense taste, I guess. All of it is better straight from the garden. I was stunned to taste the kale I grew this year. It was sweet, mild. It did not resemble anything I have ever bought. I tossed it with butter lettuce and garlic chives, also from my garden. Garlic chives were a revelation. I don’t plan to be without them now.
There was some flat parsley, too, but I only took as much as I knew I’d eat up in the next day or so.
Good stuff. All of it.
Carole, he doesn’t use exact measurements, but in the video he fills a cereal bowl 2/3 full of sugar and then pours a little more on for good measure. It was the sweetest thing I’ve had since I was 12 years old, when I would eat vast amounts of Hostess products while jamming out in the basement of my friend’s house. Also, as I mentioned to Kelsey, the psychological impact of seeing that much sugar, unmixed in a recipe is powerful. I feared for my health, but like a drowning polar bear in search of an ice shelf, I said, “Fuck it,” and kept going.
David, I read once that a Princeton professor was trying to show that sugar is an addictive substance. And the fiends do surround me. The Iowan, who hides chocolate bars and the like from Mr. B. Mr. B., who hides donuts etc. from the Iowan. Then there is Mother, aka Miss Nell, the 91-year-old with zero health problems. Although she does have her “medication” — calcium supplements, Eucerin samples from the dermatologist. She seems to think those are meds. Bless her heart. So if you don’t have a medical condition that sugar inflames, and you have lots of hiding places, go for it!