Misc – Experiments in my New World Kitchen and Garden

The Sorana Bean. From Tuscany, With Love

Last autumn I was in Italy for the first time in way too long. This was the funny time when we all thought this covid thing was waning and we were heading back to normal. Weren’t we cute?

Regular followers of Rancho Gordo know of our love and admiration for the amazing Judy Witts Francini. She is a powerhouse of knowledge about the Italian kitchen and nothing makes her happier than sharing her secrets. She has many.

Judy arranged for me to meet with some members of the cooperative that is keeping the Sorana bean production going. Unable to meet our demands with Italian production, we of course grew their seed on the West Coast and market them as Marcella, to honor the Italian producers (and my hero, Marcella Hazan).

We have space here so we just let the bean plants grow as they will. Sorano is very limited (which is why they can’t increase production) and every inch is maximized.

Judy and I met each other in Firenze in the early 1980s. She was just starting out with her tours and classes and I was a clueless but well-fed tourist. I’d end up moving to Milano in 1988 and actually became the host of a radio show, Mister Lucky Cocktail, for a local jazz station.

In the states, almost every aspect of bean production is automated. Not in Sorana! Here Maurizio goes down every row with a little garden scooter and handpicks the beans and tosses them into a bucket for threshing later.

We use a moisture meter to decide when to harvest. Rita explains to me that they just make sure they are well-dried before storing. They would rather overdry them a bit in order to avoid molding beans since most Italians soak their beans anyway.

I was a little nervous to meet Rita and Maurizio as we were growing their beans stateside, but they were fine with that. There is a terroir that can’t be replicated and we didn’t call them Sorana , so there was no confusion.

I think there was a little disbelief that someone would match their passion for beans but we’ve become fast friends and I can’t wait to visit them again.

Afterward, we went to the local restaurant, Ristorante da Carla, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. All the beans are cooked al fiasco, which is in a glass carafe with a narrow top that cooks the beans perfectly.

The highlight was the beans served over a piece of toast that had been thoroughly saturated with fabulous Tuscan olive oil, topped with a piece of lardo, which is cured pork fat (not the same as lard), which on its own isn’t so appealing, but gently melting over warm beans is a thing to be remembered always.

In case you had doubts, Bean People are the best people!

If you are considering a trip to Italy, you would be well-served by getting in touch with Judy. She can arrange to help you get to Sorana, as well as anywhere in Italia that you fancy, and really, for me having Judy sitting across a dinner table means I’ll eat well, have some laughs, and remember why Italy is one of my favorite places on the planet.

Divina Cucina on the web (with contact information)

These great photos were taken by artist Kelly Borsheim, someone as nice as she is talented.

Happy Harvest: Frijolon Gris

It has been a long time since I played in the garden. I have not been a good steward of my land and as we got busier and busier over the holiday season, I left my precious Oaxacan runner beans to fend for themselves. We experienced a very wet season, followed by several nights with freezing temperatures and the mornings have been foggy. You would have thought my forgotten bean crop would be a goner, but you’d be wrong.

Mid-February and this is my harvest.

I looked and I saw a few funky pods. When I opened them, the beans were fine. I ran into the house to get my incredibly wonderful ayate de ixtle, which is a large harvesting sheet, perfect for beans, made from the fiber of the maguey plant. This prized piece is from Hidalgo and takes hours to make. It’s especially clever because you can fold up the four corners and wear it like a backpack and not lose a single bean.

Dirt and dust can slip through but the harvest remains intact.

I picked the obvious pods but the more I picked, the more I found. They are good at hiding and once you get the rhythm of their growth patterns, you find a lot of them.

The pods looked very funky and many of them split open as I threw them unto the ayate. You can see that I was also harvesting a little borage with its pretty flowers.

You can pick up the ayate from the four sides and make a sack. I hung this and hit it with a stick and the rest of the beans came popping out of their pods. When you open the ayate de ixtle back up, you can easily pick up the spent pods and these will obviously go into the compost bin. The beans remaining are amazingly clean.

This is a shot of the plant last October. You can eat the flowers raw or cooked.

The bean is Frijolon Gris, a grey runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) from Oaxaca that clearly has acclimated to Northern California. The hummingbirds love it and they were nice enough to leave me a lot of beans. I also suspect that many of the early beans fell into the soil and they’ll be naturalized but I’ll keep some of these for planting in the spring, just in case. I would guess you would have similar results with any of the runner beans, like Scarlet Runners, Ayocote Negro, etc. but these are particularly pretty. Lacking an authentic ayate de ixtle, I bet you would have great results with an old sheet.

The inevitable question is probably how to get the beans or the ayate de ixtle and for now, sadly, the answer has to be whipping out your passport and going on a Mexican adventure. Now that the COVID crisis is easing, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

Jesús Helguera, Our Calendar Artist

One of the first things I did when I started Rancho Gordo was to offer free calendars every year featuring almost exclusively the art of Jesús Helguera. I love the idealized, often policially incorrect, images of post-revolutionary Mexico. There are some real problems but there’s a clear sense of Helguera’s patriotism, and loads of campy good fun.

I asked Karla from our customer service department to do some research on Helguera so we all could know a little more about him. She used an uncredited book I have, Jesus Helguera (1989, Galas de Mexico) for much of the information. – Steve Sando

The Jesús Helguera Story
by Karla A. Moreno

Renowned Mexican painter Jesús Enrique Emilio de la Helguera Espinoza was born on May 28, 1910 in Chihuahua, and spent his early childhood in Mexico City and Cordoba, Veracruz. When Jesús was 7, his Spanish-born economist father moved the family to Ciudad Real, Spain, to escape the effects of the Mexican Revolution.

*Rancho Gordo owner, Steve Sando, loves this image so much, he brings it back every few years on our calendars. It’s the only repeated image we’ve used so far.*

During his elementary school years, Jesús began to develop his lifelong interest in art. He created murals with scenes from literature, illustrated his history lessons, and painted large-scale rural maps. Even at a young age, his teachers recognized his devotion to painting; one instructor made him responsible for his school’s art class at the age of 9. He completed his high school studies at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Madrid. At the age of 14, he was admitted to the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, and later studied at the famous Academia de San Fernando.Helguera met Julia Gonzales Llanos in an art class; she served as a model and inspiration for many of his paintings. The couple married and had two children, Fernando and Maria Luisa. Contemporaries described Helguera as outgoing, sincere, and affable — a loving husband and protective father.

Helguera worked in Madrid and Barcelona as an illustrator for books, magazines, and comics for many years. In 1938, due to the Spanish Civil War and its resulting economic issues, Helguera returned to Veracruz. Capitalizing on the current vogue for mural-style work, the tobacco company Cigarrera La Moderna hired Helguera to produce artwork for its cigar boxes and calendars. His works during this era display his fascination with both indigenous mysticism and Catholic religion, and feature an idealized, romantic aesthetic. His heroic images of Aztec royalty, smoldering volcanoes, and smoky-eyed women inspired generations of imitators.

In 1940, Helguera painted his most famous work, La Leyenda de los Volcanes (The Legend of the Volcanoes), inspired by Aztec stories of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. In 1954, he joined Imprenta Galas de Mexico, a large printer of calendar artwork. At Galas, he was known for spending long stretches in his studio, painting whenever inspiration found him, regardless of the hour.

Helguera worked until his death in December 1971. His last painting, Las Manañitas — showing a gallant caballero serenading a radiant maiden perched on the sill of a bougainvillea-covered window — now hangs in one of Mexico City’s leading cultural sites, the Museo Soumaya of Fundación Carlos Slim.

*If you ever needed any help in deciding how hip and great Linda Ronstadt is, here’s proof.*

Helguera was largely unrecognized by fine-arts culture in his lifetime; not until 1985 did he finally received formal recognition from Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Throughout the years, Helguera’s works have been broadly pirated, reproduced (not always faithfully) on ceramics, stone, metal, and wood. Millions of copies of Helguera’s works have hung proudly in countless Mexican homes, both in Mexico and in the United States, and for thousands, through the annual Rancho Gordo calendar.

One of our most frequently asked questions is, “When do you release the calendars?”
Unless there’s some weird problem, we start shipping calendars with all of our holiday orders starting the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year (2021), we may start earlier because if anticipated crazy shipping times. We keep including them in all of our packages until they run out, generally in February but some years it can be as early as December. First come, first served! – Steve

Emily Nunn on Beans and Health

Emily Nunn is one of my favorite writers. Her Comfort Food Diaries is a classic and her Twitter feed is essential reading. I asked her what she’s thinking about beans and health for the new year. – Steve

According to the food world, beans are having “a moment.” Well, pardon us, but beans—which are the world’s second most important food source, after grains/grasses— have been a mainstay in the Americas for centuries (and the Old World began cultivating and eating them about 10,000 years ago). There’s a very good reason for their longevity, too. Beans make the human body happy—and not in that fleeting I-just-ate-a-bag-of-Fritos way. According to Dawn Jackson Blatner, a Chicago RDN and author of “The Flexitarian Diet” and “Superfood Swap, “if you look at world nutrition, you’ll see that some of the healthiest countries consume beans as a part of their regular diet.” Beans are nutrient dense: they contain a cache of (plant) protein and fiber, vitamins and minerals (iron, zinc, potassium, and folate), and healthy phytochemicals and antioxidants that make them small but powerful disease fighters. “A balanced diet that includes beans may improve digestive health and decrease risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer,” she says. And for those of you who believe that lean meat is the only protein that will keep you at your fighting weight, Blatner adds: “Beans can keep you feeling full longer, which means greater appetite control. And in terms of calories (which are what matters when it comes to weight), they only have 125 per 1/2 cup.” Another plus: since beans, legumes, and pulses are a part of virtually every cuisine, there’s no lack of great recipes for preparing them. Bottom line: beans are not some crazy fad, but you’d almost have to be nuts not to eat them.

(You can get cooking now with our recipes on our website. And for more nutrition-related bean facts, check out the Bean Institute)

Wish You’d Been There: The Rancho Gordo Pozole Book Launch Party

At one point, I looked out on to the crowd, smiling, thinking, “Beans. Beans did this.” How did I go from being the loneliest fellow at the farmer’s markets to calling for a party and having it be packed with a steady stream of Rancho Gordo enthusiasts for two hours? How did we pull off making our own dried nixtamal? How did we pull off publishing our own books when we were feeling burned by the traditional publishing houses? How did this happen?

The Rancho Gordo Pozole Book by Steve Sando was officially released on November 8, 2019

I’m also lucky in that the staff at Rancho Gordo is better at all this than I am. In the old days, I felt as if I had to do everything, and I did. Now, we come up with an idea, work it out and I get to breeze in like a celebrity and sign books and schmooze. The party was arranged by the retail staff, the pozole for sampling was made by my pals at The Fatted Calf, and we even had wine. This time an excellent pinot noir and a rosé from Honrama Cellars.

I was also tickled that there were so many people already invested in pozole. Most of the guests were well aware of the dish and everyone was happy with The Fatted Calf’s version.

The book is shipping as I write this and I know it will offend a few Mexican grandmothers, but I am prepared for wrath. I can’t tell you how many people told me that their grandmother (or mother, or uncle, etc.) made the best pozole. I’m sure they did.

If you weren’t there, we’re sorry to have missed you. Please make sure you’re on our mailing lists so that you’re aware of our future events and if you’re thinking of coming to Napa for a visit, call ahead and see if we have anything coming up. We’d love to see you.

Posole or Pozole? A Rose By Any Other Name

Recently on Twitter, the very talented Pati Jinich wrote that she was irked by the word posole. “It is Pozole with a Z!!!! Posole is nothing, nada!! Posole equals not Pozole. Sorry and good night.”, she wrote. Now I admire Patti a lot but I think she got this one wrong, along with many of her enthusiastic followers who were quick to throw posole under the bus.

My response was: “Posole is an old tradition from the US Southwest. It refers to the grain and the final dish. It’s hundreds of years old and to deny this is to deny how indigenous cultures refused to stagnate. ”

I understand that good Mexican food is under siege and its advocates have to stand their ground. How many chefs are discovering tacos and are eager to share their new love (and “interesting” new spins) on food that many of us discovered long ago? The talented Ina Garten created a dish that might be delicious and it might have corn in it, but it’s not pozole by anyone’s standards other than hers. Taco Bell created a snack called a chalupa and it has nothing to do with the well-established Poblano treat that has been called a chalupa for generations. As writer Javier Cabral writes, “Adding black beans and lime juice to things do not automatically make it Mexican.”

I was once in the lovely town of San Miguel de Allende with a group of fellow gringo tourists. San Miguel is a very unusual town with an exceptionally large ex-pat US population. Or should I say, US immigrant population? Whatever it is, whether you like SMA or not, it’s not very typical. One woman insisted that a bowl of guacamole and chips was a proper way to start a meal in Mexico. I suggested that she may want to start her meal this way, but it’s not all the common, and in fact, I’d never observed Mexicans doing this. She asked the waiter if she could order this and he, of course, brought out a big bowl of chips and guacamole and she turned to me and said, “See! They do this here.” I had to bite my tongue.

I have to watch my own behavior, as well. Clearly, I am obsessed with Mexican food and culture and even though I travel there often, I am aware of my own tourist status and try to avoid speaking in absolutes. I would love to be considered someone who is helping the situation more than hurting it. I don’t want to be another attack on traditional Mexican culture that will need to be defended by someone who knows more.

With all of this, I understand being irked by posole. But this isn’t like a chalupa. This tradition from the American southwest has been around for generations and has morphed into its own thing, including taking freshly cooked nixtamal and drying it for use later, a very clever technique not used by the Mexicans who came up with the very clever technique of making nixtamal. And I would argue even further that this product is superior to the canned hominy most everyone uses instead of making fresh nixtamal. If you want to start a cause, it should be against canned hominy, which has almost no flavor and provides a texture not unlike chicken cartilage.

In New Mexico, posole refers to both the grain and the final dish. It’s a much more casual ingredient than in Mexico. A bowl of posole in a chile sauce is a common side dish. Huntley Dent says in his seminal book, The Feast of Santa Fe, that the difference between everyday posole and feast-day posole is the amount of pork. Everyday posole is a thing. It’s not Mexican but it’s from the same roots and I think it should be embraced as an example of indigenous cultures adapting, creating, and celebrating nixtamal.

When I announced that I was writing a book on pozole, one commenter scolded me for adding pork and told me I should stick to pozole’s pre-colonial roots. Well, if I were to follow her advice, I’d have had to use the flesh of my captured soldiers for protein and I’m just not up for that. Corn and nixtamal have made their way far further north and south than their Mesoamerican origins. It’s bound to change and watching the journey is part of the fun.

Did I mention my new book? Never one to pass up an opportunity when it’s knocking, my next book, The Rancho Gordo Pozole Book, comes out this November.

Announcement: Our Response to Proposed Tariffs on Mexican Imports

Our government recently decided to threaten a 5% tariff on imports from Mexico, with the fees escalating up to 25%. 5% doesn’t sound like much but you have to realize the beans are a food crop. They’ve been growing for 6-9 months, followed by cleaning and packaging and they’ve been planned long before that. It’s taken us years to develop these relationships and these actions have taken their toll.

Speaking for myself, I do believe in comprehensive immigration reform. Nobody is advocating for a porous border. Reform would include international laws, trade, the US role in foreign governments and humanitarian causes. It won’t be simple but it needs to be done in a pragmatic, non-emotional manner.

Immigrants and refugees are not coming to the United States for the cable service. They are fleeing the most desperate situations imaginable, often created with our help by meddling in their governments, along with the American appetite for drug consumption. I would argue that their problems are our problems. Because of our role throughout the Americas and because we are neighbors.

With Burkhard Bilger from The New Yorker, meeting some of the farmers we work with, in Hidalgo, as part of the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project. These hardworking entrepreneurs are the ones who will suffer if a tariff is imposed.

In response to this, we’re considering the threatened tariff and adding a 5% charge to all of our Mexican imports and donating this money, 100%, to No More Deaths, a non-profit that provides humanitarian aid to migrants and refugees, focusing on the deadly Arizona border. In addition to water and medical aid, they also help with legal issues and search-and-rescue situations. That a group like this even needs to exist is repugnant, but thank goodness they do.

Someone suggested we grow our beans in the US instead of Mexico. We do. Maybe we haven’t told the story as well as we should have. We produce about 85% domestically. The imports from Mexico are to encourage the farmers in Mexico to grow their heritage beans. This isn’t about us trying to save money by producing in Mexico. We have also been told that it’s not immigration that is offensive, it’s illegal immigration. It’s not illegal to seek asylum. I also anticipate the “stick to beans and leave politics out of it” responses but sadly, these recent actions have made this personal, for my friends and for my business. My preference would be to not argue about whether we should be treating our neighbors with humanity.

We challenge our legislators and president to work together to enact immigration reform in Congress and then enforce it on the border. Diplomacy and policy through tantrums is not the answer.

N.B. The comments on this post are overwhelming and that’s good. For the record, I’ve allowed opposing views to post and often I’ve rebutted them. If the responses get silly, as they have, I’m not bothering to share them. If they get personal, are racist, the same argument, etc. I’m not approving them.

Not so much here, but from our helpline, I’ve had some really good conversations. In the end, most of us want to be fair. That’s a great place to start. Responding with anger rarely helps. My technique has been to try and diffuse those conversations but at one point it can become clear that it’s time to cut your losses and move on. Once in a while, you have a real moment and that’s encouraging.

Pasta e Fagioli a la Omnivore (or Il Nostro Caro Angelo)

Is this not a thing of beauty? A bowl of cranberry (Borlotti) beans with homemade pasta in a sauce of bean broth, chicken broth, and vegetables. It’s moist and delicious but not at all soupy. A perfect balance of beans, pasta, and inspiration.

Angelo with my son, Nico, before a failed, but fun, turkey hunt.

Last week Angelo Gorro of Omnivore Salt (and sauces, etc) came by for a visit and pulled out all the stops with his own pasta, his own salume, his own sausage and of course his own salt.

The variations on pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) are endless. I have yet to meet one that I haven’t liked. You just know it was created to deal with leftovers. Or to feed a crowd on a budget.

The “Il Nostro Caro Angelo” in the title refers to a Lucio Battisti song. The poor Italians always have to suffer through my enthusiasm for their pop music. It’s fun until I’ve had a few and insist on singing. Here’s a nice version by Mina.

Out of season, canned tomatoes are fine. Angelo had found a can of cherry tomatoes and these were great. Along with the onions and garlic, he sauted a lot of celery.

One of my favorite people, Sarah Londsdale, played photographer for the day. Most of these photos are hers.

You probably know about the salt. The Sicilia sauce was new to me. It’s tomato-based and versatile. On a whim, I drained a cup of the beans and then added a spoonful of the Sicilia sauce and it was perfect. I think white beans would be just as satisfying, just different. Lots of people ask me for “recipes” and here’s a new one: Beans and this sauce. Ta-da!

Exact measurements aren’t possible. Angelo added the cooked pasta to the soffritto and then added the beans. Then he’d add more beans and more pasta until the combination was just right.

My favorite commercial pasta is Baia Pasta. Owner Renato Sardo also dropped by with his daughter for the big dish.

These are Angelo’s notes. If you’ve made pasta e fagioli before, this should be fairly straightforward. If you haven’t, don’t hesitate to download our Pasta e Fagioli Manifesto, including the Baia Pasta version.

As if the afternoon weren’t perfect enough, Angelo left me with some more of his pasta. Posso toccare il cielo con un dito.

Pepitas are Everything

I’ve always liked roasted pumpkin seeds, but I’ve mostly enjoyed them when they’ve “stayed in their lane,” with dishes like pipian and Sikil Pak. Lately, I’ve been putting them on everything, and they add gravitas to the most boring dish that is remarkable.

Buy the raw, shelled variety and then briefly pan roast them. A salad is an obvious new home but keep experimenting. I had some wild arugula from my CSA box. I added some cassoulet beans and olive oil and then topped the whole thing off with some pepitas. I couldn’t have been happier.

You need to be judicious. Too many and it’s too much of a good thing. Start with a spoonful and keep adding them until you’re happy. They won’t be the star of the dish but the make the original better than it would have been without them.

Kitchen Object Fetish No.3: Steel Pans from Santa Barbara Forge

I’ve loved my old cast iron skillets but they are a little clumsy to use. They’re heavy and they take a good long time to heat up. I’m not throwing them away, but I have been straying. A few years ago I started buying pieces from Blu Skillet Ironware and I’ve loved the pans. The problem is the company has become too successful and good for them, but to get a pan, you have to enter a lottery. I’m too old.

The handle stays cool to the touch when you cook stovetop.

A friend told me about Santa Barbara Forge and as a fan of Spanish Revival architecture and style, I want them to make everything go for me. The things they produce are just amazing. I have a wish-list ready for them. Now they’re taking their ironwork skills and making hand-forged skillets and their sense of design is replicated in each pan.

Cooking cauliflower “rice” in brown butter.

I love all my pans but I dare say this is now my favorite. I love that you can see the hammer marks and the pan is substantial but not as cumbersome as cast iron. Someone made this. Not a machine in China but someone who loves what they do. And being as superficial as I am, they just look great and that’s important, too.

I’m sorry but there’s not much cooler looking than this pan.

At home, we’ve been searing a lot lately. Take a chop or chicken breast, sear it on all sides and then let it finish in the oven. As the meat rests, deglaze the pan, make a quick sauce and warm up your beans. Add a salad and there’s dinner. You wouldn’t want to do this in a toxic non-stick and the clean up with a traditional metal pan would be a mess. The carbon steel from Santa Barbara Forge is perfect. The pan goes right into the oven after browning the meat on your stovetop. And the deglazing does most of the cleanup. Check out the book Searing Inspiration for more on this technique.

The pan loses its blue color but only looks better than more you use it.

You can get the pans online and if you’re lucky enough to be in Santa Barbara, there’s an open house on 4/13/19 from 12n to 4pm.

The ended up being the cauliflower “rice” with spinach and beans cooked with some pancetta.

For what it’s worth, I’m not really into influencer marketing. I like to support fellow entrepreneurs when they do excellent work. I purchased this pan myself and have loved telling everyone about the company.