Forget Christmas. It's Amish green bean season here in Waukesha. Hallelujah.
We have a little vegetable stand—a guy who sets up in the bank parking lot about a mile from here. For about three months every year, starting in mid-June, I live on his green beans, which he buys from the Amish up in...I don't know, I forget the name of the town. Shangri-La, should be, the mystical mythical happy land. And I remembered to go down there this morning before my coffee. I don't always remember, and he tends to run out.
It's green beans for lunch and green beans for dinner today. These green beans are so wonderful. (Did you know kids can detect a bitter taste in vegetables and people tend to like them more as they proceed through adulthood? I don't really know if that's true. Just something I heard somewhere recently.) I keep telling the vegetable guy to remember to thank the Amish for me. (You can't email those people, you know.) Those Amish up in Shangri-La, Wisconsin.
Today, just for fun, try thinking of one of those little things in life you're thankful for.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Chip McDaniel: "I know what you mean about Amish produce. Here's some Amish handiwork from my neck of the woods."
Food is everything.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 11:02 AM
At risk of getting all "foodie," I'm curious: just a pile of beans twice a day or do you have them *with* something? Are they boiled, steamed, roasted? Butter or olive oil? Plain? Creamed?(Please say no!) Done up in an omelette or frittata?
Posted by: Ed Hawco | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 11:08 AM
You can email some of them--on their mobile phones.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 12:28 PM
I'm 49 and I still detect a bitter taste in most vegetables. Maybe that's a sign of immaturity.
[Or youthful vigor. --Mike]
Posted by: Manuel | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 01:36 PM
I notice that the portable propane tanks are starting to sprout around Albuquerque. That means that green-chile-roasting season is nigh.
Posted by: KeithB | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 02:28 PM
Oh, and pics please...
Posted by: fotoralf | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 02:31 PM
In SC, it's fresh strawberries in early June. For three weeks, we had strawberry shortcake every day.
Posted by: David Littlejohn | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 06:57 PM
A quick inter-naught surf shows that, naturally, kids' taste perception and development is a tricky and complex subject.
What I can say anecdotally though, is that I was amazed when my then very young daughter repeatedly helped herself to some of my spicy palak paneer one day. Didn't last though, and now she can taste the spices and will only eat very mild butter chicken (as far as curry is concerned I mean of course).
Bugger, now I'm all hungry for curry. Here's some nann recipes if anyone's interested.
http://tinyurl.com/mptzkwm
Posted by: Dean Johnston | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 07:49 PM
I don't know what religion they are but red bell peppers are extraordinarily cheap down here at the moment: $2 a kilo.
Must be a bumper season.
I've stuffed 'em, mushed them into muhammara, put 'em in salads and run out of ideas.
Guess I'll just have to photograph them and seek critiques.
Posted by: Ross Chambers | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 04:07 AM