Beans

Dill Beans

In the early 1980’s we became friends with a woman who lived in a cabin in the Washington woods, taught the deaf and was one of the best cooks I’ve ever known.  When we would arrive at her cabin on the Kitsap Peninsula, we would be greeted with a Bloody Mary that always had a dilled string bean in the glass.  The beans, and the drink, were memorable.

Despite working in a Regensburg pickle factory, I still love a dill pickle. Despite spending six weeks smelling of vinegar and dill and shoving cucumbers into a jar, I feel fortunate that the Hengstenberg Pickle Company made crap pickles.  Therefore, I am still able to enjoy a good pickle—ala Hub Mart’s deli—or more recently, Bubbies. 

Our friend was kind enough to give me the recipe.  I remember when my mother once asked someone (who lived on Los Feliz Blvd. and thought she was the bee’s knees) the woman declined.  My mother was shocked. There are those sorts of women who leave out the key ingredient so that even if they share the recipe, it’s never quite the same.  I can understand if your recipe is from some award-winning restaurant, but in Silverlake,….come on.  Mrs. B.—you should be ashamed.

The making of dill beans became a summer ritual.  First in Seattle, and then in Honolulu.  I grew dill and bought the beans.  Usually I would invite a coterie of women and round up my son and his friends.  We would sanitize the jars, boil the vinegar and salt, boil the lids of the Mason jars and wash and cut the stems of the green beans.  Often it was a domestic assembly line:  one person washing, another cutting, someone else stuffing the jars and another pouring in the brine and sealing the jars. 

I did this for many summers and included many friends.  All of the friends have moved elsewhere.  Then I stopped. 

But this summer I saw a small dill plant and bought it.  It has grown strong and produced many of the heads that are perfect to put in the bottom of the jar of dill beans.

And so, now in my kitchen, there are eight jars of dill beans.

My son visited last week, and the first thing he noticed was a jar of dill beans.  We opened one and, for the first time, shared them with my grandson.  He loved them too.  My son ate too many and even drank the juice.  I ate a few.  We all woke up with swollen eyes from all the salt, but it was worth it.   Thank you, RF.