The Beans Are Done

Those Salem Witch Trials hearth-baked beans? If you wanted them for supper tonight, you should have started them when you got home from the courthouse in 1692. Possibly if you grew them yourself it would take less time to cook them. In fact, growing them yourself and then cooking them in the fire might take less time than cooking store-bought beans there. Because OH my god. How old are these things anyway? My next experiment will involve pressure cooking these store-bought beans for about an hour at temperatures typically only available on the planet Mercury and THEN letting them spend 9 hours in the fire, getting all savory.

The other problem being that an unscrupulous person, and I use the term loosely, sold us unseasoned firewood in the middle of winter. So not unlike the cook fires of Salem in the late 17th century, this wood is bewitched and will not burn. Either that or it's that new fireproof safety wood from Monsanto.  In any event, the whole Sugaring On The Coronet plan is off until next year, when my woodshed will be in better order and my temper will have receded to its normal placid levels.

I am full of gratitude that my life and my family’s lives do not depend on this firewood and these beans. As my off the grid friends say, “Praise the fossil fuels.” Only I, you know, actually mean it.