In September, when our farmers markets were exploding with amazing produce, I bought some green beans at the Ballard Farmers’ Market. I can’t tell you the name of the farmer or the farm; I can tell you that the stall was right next to Skagit River Ranch’s, that the farmer had a smile that lit up his broad, tan face, and that his green beans were remarkable: slender, sweet, tender and peppery.
The following week, I bought several pounds of those green beens. I spent a good part of the following evening standing over a large pot of boiling water, blanching beans: three minutes in boiling water, three minutes in ice water, several minutes draining, then into a freezer bag. I watched handful after handful of beans flush bright green as they cooked, and I confess that I couldn’t keep my hands off of them; I may have eaten my five daily servings of vegetables as I worked. I used a drinking straw to suck as much air I could out of the plastic bags before sealing them and consigning them to the freezer.
I’d earmarked one bag of these green beans for Thanksgiving dinner. I was a little anxious about how the green beans would stand up to a couple of months in the deep freeze, but I needn’t have worried. When thawed, the beans had the same squeaky crispness that I’d tasted when processing them in September. I’d filled the Thanksgiving bean freezer bag assuming a larger crowd than we had for dinner, so we had green beans left over. What a treat! I’ve been eating them with other leftovers for a few days, but we’re now done with leftovers, except for some green beans.
The first time that I lived alone, a few months after I graduated from college, I discovered the pleasure of cooking just for myself. What did I want to eat for dinner? That’s what I’d cook. One of my favorite dinners during the summer was a big bowl of fresh green beans, lightly steamed, topped with black pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice, and crumbled feta cheese. Tonight, that impromptu green bean dinner sounded like just the thing, but we had no feta. We did, however, have Seastack.
I remember the first time that the folks from Mt. Townsend Creamery showed up at the Ballard Farmers’ Market, a little over a year ago. I stop by to taste their cheeses every week, and buy them perhaps more often than I should. I can’t say that I have a favorite, but I am quite fond of the buttery, soft (to the point of runny) Seastack.
Tonight, I subbed in a runny wedge of Seastack for the feta in my green bean dinner. Its slightly sharp, salty creaminess enrobed the tender beans. Perfect, and just exactly what I wanted for dinner.
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