Beans, Not steak. Not lobster or snow crab or salmon. Not escargot or oysters Rockefeller. Beans. Just ask Louie Armstrong. When he signed anything for people he enjoyed being around, he signed with, "Red beans and richly yours." He didn't sign sizzling' steak, did he? Know why? His favorite meal was red beans, rice and sweetin' water. So, you say, he came from poverty. He didn't have a lot of choice. But Louie became famous and traveled pretty much world wide and had a sample of all kinds of food. He ate with royalty. He still liked his beans. My fetish for the legumes was formed at the Methodist Children's Home in Ruston, Louisiana. We had two cooks. Gussie and Lela. Our meals weren't fancy but we did get fried chicken and turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Corn on the cob. Cornbread. But my first experience with the bean was the modest, unassuming but soon to be considered ethereal, the pinto. The pinto is kidney shaped and light brown. Often with speckles. Like all beans, they need to be soaked overnight then slow cooked with various seasonings, most prominently ham bones and fat. Salt. Bay leaves and so on. I'm no expert but like art and pornography, you know it when you experience it. Pinto beans cooked well by somebody who knows what they're doing, is better than barbecue, short ribs, filet Mignon or broiled trout. Don't get me wrong. I like all of those. I love a great gumbo. Freshly cooked fish. Wow. But let me tell you, pinto beans, properly prepared, seasoned and served hot are at least the equal of expensive meat and seafood. I didn't get good pintos for decades. There was a forty year gap. I almost forgot how I cleaned up two to three platefuls during my preteen growth spurt until I got a chance to stay in Half Moon Bay for a few nights. Our company ordered some buses from Gillig Corporation, located in Hayward, CA and I got to serve as an inspector. I chose to stay in Half Moon Bay for lots of reasons, not the least of which is it's location adjacent to Mavericks. Am I surfer? Hardly. I've been on a board but I'm a kook. But the bay has soul and is a great place to walk around and hang out. The spirit of Mark Foo inhabits the shoreline. I picked a motel close to Highway 92 and the first night I drove over from San Francisco Airport I was hungry. Immediately adjacent to the motel was a Taqueria, Taqueria La Mexicana. It was a typical hole in the wall, ex-burger joint which had seen better days. A few booths and tables of Formica and chrome surrounded by glass walls looking out onto an asphalt parking lot stained with partially-dried leaked-out motor oil. I stood reviewing the menu, which was posted above the inside window which led to the open kitchen. I chose steak rancheros, which came with two sides, one of which was beans. It was all placed in a styrofoam take out container with flour tortillas wrapped in tin foil. If you've been to the west, you pretty much know what I'm talking about. The rancheros was thinly sliced beef slow cooked with salt, onions, tomatoes and green peppers in a savory sauce and well, it was pretty darn good. Cheap too. Nothing on the menu was over five bucks and in the ten days I stayed there I pretty much tried everything they had and it was all simply great. The two older Mexican gals who stayed and cooked all day had all kinds of pots and pans of food cooking, all the time. The Chicano locals were their main clientele. For the week and a half I commuted to Hayward each day, so was I. But I digress. While eating the rancheros, I decided to sample the beans in their own little pressed styrofoam trough and, pow, there it was. It all came flooding back. These were the beans I couldn't eat enough of all those years ago. My olfactories triggered a nostalgic temporal episode. I was taken back forty years. I tried to savor each mouthful. There it was. Properly cooked and seasoned pintos. Not mashed. Not refried. Melt in your mouth, salty sauced and wonderfully seasoned pinto beans. I still remember the experience. It's now going on twenty five years ago. I still can smell and taste those beans.
