A summery bean salad

After much procrastination and many weeks of pushing “write newsletter” down the to-do list, I’m back. I’m still figuring out what I want this newsletter to be and how frequently it’ll send; I’m guessing it’ll be sporadic, though I do have a significant backlog of food photos, so who knows? In any case, thanks for staying tuned.

I’ve been busy writing a mix of pitched articles and assignments. After wrapping up a nearly two-year recipe testing project last summer — I’ll write more about that at some point but for now, you can pre-order (!) — it feels good to be back in the writing space, using the creative side of my brain more than the recipe testing side, writing fun little sentences filled with em-dashes but not in a gross AI way, interviewing loads of people, seeing how one story leads to another.

(But to any cookbook authors reading this, I am open to recipe testing work. Here are the other books I’ve tested and/or edited.)

Not having recipe testing work also means I can finally cook whatever the hell I want. I am not complaining about cooking for work, but I am by nature a person who keeps a well-stocked pantry and freezer, so it’s been great to actually cook ingredients I already have. Our current financial reality — in which Braeden was laid off last year and still hasn’t found a full-time job with benefits because, as you’ve probably heard, it’s an extremely tough job market — also necessitates cooking in more often than not. Thanks to a mix of growing up how I did, being a food professional, getting random ingredients from the cooking job, and being completely ok with eating beans every day, we’re doing just fine.

I’m not exaggerating about the beans, btw. We’ve eaten beans almost every day of the year, minus February 21, a few days in April, and maybe, idk, last Saturday? The benefits are many: beans are good for you; beans are cheap; beans are tasty. If you’re really into protein and/or fiber, guess what has both? (I’m not not into those things, but please send someone to check on me if I ever start talking too much about protein.)

Because of Braeden’s temporary work situation — in which the microwave was taken away because a former employee used it solely to warm up Jimmy Dean sausages (yes, really) — his lunches need to be tasty cold or at room temp. Initially this was annoying, especially since we used to both work from home and could simply heat up leftovers, but we soon realized that sturdy salads were the answer. And you know what’s sturdy?

Beans.

Our new go-to lunch is bean salad, made in bulk. I’m not on TikTok so I missed the whole dense bean salad thing when it was trendy, but this is basically that. Bean salads keep well for several days, so we can make a giant bean salad and have lunch for the whole week. If we run out we just … make another giant bean salad. If we get bored with beans — rare, but it happens — we mix it up with tofu (technically also beans!). It’s sort of like a maximalist matpakke, ideal for evading lunchtime decision fatigue, except instead of bread and cheese it’s beans and whatever vegetable you want with a punchy little dressing. (Ok fine it’s nothing like matpakke, I just wanted to shamelessly link to an old article.)

Below, rough instructions for a recent winner of a bean salad. I don’t want to write full-on recipes in this space — simply because, my dear, I don’t feel like it — but my hope is to inspire you to go experiment with your own beans and random ingredients rather than provide instructions to recreate exactly what I did. If you’re looking for specific bean instructions, check out Cool Beans by Joe Yonan.

For The Washington Post: 10 tips for being a smarter farmers market shopper and Why you should be baking with rye flour (gift links; when these ran in print, they were both top of the fold Food section stories :))

For FoodPrint: When seeds online look too good to be true — because they are (in which I flirted with investigative reporting in a totally non-serious way; be sure to click on links to photos within the article because they are RIDICULOUS)

For Tomato Tomato: What’s in a Tomato Martini? (Was quite thrilled to be included in the inaugural digital Tomato Tomato issue from Alicia Kennedy — a deep dive on the tomato martini at The Gin Room in St. Louis, naturally.)

In January we bought a 20-pound bag of Colorado-grown mayocoba beans at Heinie’s Market because a) I love a bulk pantry purchase and b) these beans are incredible. Thin-skinned (so don’t insult them) (sorry), creamy flesh, excellent texture even if you overcook them, a neutral nuttiness that pairs well with anything.

My preferred bean cooking method: soak about a pound of dry beans in water overnight; drain, rinse, and add to a slow-cooker. Cover with water by a few inches, add a little kombu or other seaweed and whatever aromatics you want (usually inspired by their final salad ingredients but I always include onion powder and bay leaves), then cook on high for 3 to 4 hours. Timing varies based on your altitude and bean freshness. Sometimes I add salt before cooking; sometimes I stir it in once they’re done. Store beans in the cooking liquid for up to a week.

(These beans are from last year’s harvest which means they’re quite fresh and don’t even need to be soaked, but I feel like they cook more evenly when soaked so I do it anyway; if you’re trying to conserve water because you’re in a drought — hello, anyone else in Colorado/The West — use the soaking liquid to water plants.)

If you don’t want to cook dry beans, used canned! Canned beans are also great. Any white or yellow variety would work well here.

For the salad: mix cooked beans, chopped jarred artichokes, roasted summer squash, shaved or chopped parmesan, ¼ minced preserved lemon (both the peel and the flesh), zest from 1 lemon, and chopped scallions, tarragon, parsley, and lovage leaves (or whatever tender fresh herbs you want). Dress with the juice of the zested lemon, a flavorful oil, a spoonful of mustard, and a bit of the bean cooking liquid — you just want enough to have something that’s almost too saucy when you first mix it, but the salad will absorb some of it as it sits and the bean juice prevents it from turning dry. Taste and add salt, pepper, more acid (vinegar, lemon, etc) as needed. (I think I sprinkled in some Herbes de Provence, too, maybe a few capers? I was going for a summery Mediterranean vibe.) When serving, it’s always a good idea to have flaky salt and/or chile flakes on hand.

Do people care what I’m reading? This is something other newsletter writers share and that makes me want to share too, but I also don’t read as quickly as they seem to so this might become repetitive. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

For fun: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, and Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon.

For work: Story Craft by Jack Hart and Bad Company by Megan Greenwell

We watch a lot of movies. Maybe too many movies? Nah, never too many movies. Below, the standouts from April, and where/how we watched them in case you want to watch, too. Did you recognize the photos sprinkled throughout the newsletter? They’re from one of these. :)

Herbs! Send tips for using lovage and tarragon, specifically. So far I’m just…adding them to everything?

Until next time,

Kara