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daddy knows best
02/25/2010 = 06:48 AM

Beans, beans, the musical fruit.
The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel,
So let's have beans for every meal.

That was the version chanted in our home when I was growing up. The one about beans being good for one's heart, I learned in school.

Never underestimate the value of public education.

Anyway, I do, indeed, love baked beans — not so much that you can't be in the same room with me, but they are certainly one of my favorite side-dishes.

I come by this passion honestly: I inherited it from my dad, an armed forces veteran and a perennial fan of meat and potatoes with as few vegetables as he can get away with.

The Mom, who taught us to love all vegetables (and mostly convinced me, with the exception of pre-packaged peas), was okay with the baked beans, since they're packed with nutrition and fiber.

So we had them once a week, on Thursdays, which were Daddy's day off, meaning he was the dinner chef.

With hot dogs, of course, because, really, baked beans were made for hot dogs.

When I was extremely tiny and needed a bedtime story, the Mom would read to me from a book, but Daddy always told the same story, which was fine with me.

"Once upon a time, there were three little pigs, and they all went to the supermarket where they bought hot dogs and ..."

Which was my cue to yell the word "BEANS!" as loudly as I could, and that was the end of the story.

Not much in the way of theme or plot, I grant you, but baked beans don't need no reasons.

When I got older and began being more of a presence in the kitchen myself, I found a recipe for homemade baked beans in The Joy of Cooking and began preparing them on Thursdays because they were superior to the canned ones my dad always used.

I always assumed the shrinkage in the pot was due to the prolonged cooking time, but after I moved away from home, I discovered I could cook the same quantity of beans, at the same temperature, for the same length of time, and wind up still having a full pot of beans.

You will no doubt have guessed that Daddy was "helping" me by giving the beans a stir about once an hour during the cooking process, which is proper, but also helping himself to a spoonful each stir-period once they were starting to be done, and filling a small dish (presumably for quality control) for himself when they were finished and just still in the oven waiting for it to be dinnertime.

So beans were a large part of my growing up, and thankfully I married a fellow bean-lover.

Which is not to say that I am thankful for the follow-up to the "more you eat, the more you ..." bit, but at least we have a common passion, in a "musical" genre with which I can take revenge upon him for the fact that just about every other food in the universe has the same effect upon him, usually when we're in the car on a long trip, or in bed.

Okay, that got gross in a hurry. I am moving on.

So, beans.

Recently, we had a voucher for the buffet at the Rio.

I am not a great value with buffets. I want salad, and then I want, maybe, a teaspoonful each of a few foods I like, and then I am done.

I might, if it looks good enough, take a taste of one of the five or six desserts That Man of Mine will have after his three overflowing plates of dinner, but if I'm already full, I will not overload myself.

But a voucher is a voucher, and the Rio has a lovely variety of cuisines prepared by excellent chefs, and if you time your visit appropriately, you will catch them when they're turning over the food (in other words, switching out half-emptied chafers for fresh, full ones).

On the day we went, we had not just gotten our timing appropriate, but perfect, because we were also early enough that we were seated quickly and had our pick before it got too crowded.

I had planned, on the drive over, to make the main focus the Asian section, but when we were seated by the American section, I could smell the smokiness of homestyle baked beans, of the sort I make, and I wanted nothing else, not even salad.

That Man of Mine tried to get me to make the rounds of the buffet and even offered to walk around with me and carry my plate (which is really helpful because you try filling and carrying a plate whilst walking with a cane), but I was fine with my decision: I went to the salad section, where the soup bowls are, took a bowl, and came back and got my beans.

They were extremely tasty and just what I needed.

Meanwhile, That Man of Mine was polishing off his Italian plate, his seafood plate, his Mexican plate, and his plate of nothing but corn, mashed potatoes, and mac-and-cheese, and looking at me in pity and, possibly, a bit of scorn.

When he got up for dessert, he asked me to at least come with him and see if anything appealed to me, so I did.

Nothing caught my fancy, so I was on my way back to our table empty-handed, and I smelled those delicious baked beans again in passing.

That Man of Mine finished getting our voucher's worth of eating for both of us and asked if I was ready to go, and I was about to say yes, but the beans were calling me.

I told him to order another root beer, and I got up and got myself another small serving of beans.

I may not be a Daddy's girl in most senses of the word, but I think he'd be proud to know I ate nothing but baked beans for dinner, and then ate baked beans for dessert.

I took my time eating, finishing right around the same time That Man of Mine was slurping up the last of his root beer, and we headed out into the night.

We were just getting out to the carpark when we heard the sirens.

"Those sound close," I said.

"Guess we'll see in a minute," That Man of Mine said.

We pulled out of the Rio's lot and headed toward the 15, only to find a police roadblock due to a multiple car accident.

I learned later that this wreck had resulted in several major injuries and a fatality.

Had I not gone back for more beans, we could have wound up right in the middle of it ourselves.

I don't know if I'd have traded a cow for magic beans as Jack did in Jack and the Beanstalk, but trading dessert for un-magic beans totally paid off, as far as I'm concerned.

I think I have my dad to thank for that.

Tags: baked beans

drinking: coffee
listening to: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Richard Stoltzman conducting), Debussey's "Maid with the Flaxen Hair"
craving: munson's route 6 mix