The Suegra’s Beans, Yerno
At home with my wife, I find myself in the small kitchen we use to prepare our family lunches. Now we are cooking for six since some of the family has joined us in Madrid. I am trying to finish the first part of the family’s bean recipe before I get in the way of lunch. I usually take the easy jobs for lunch, because my kitchen skills are much much slower. Today, after the beans, I will only need to prep the broccoli.
I ask Jeni questions I am embarrassed to ask about the pressure cooker, but I am determined to make these beans a success. She is beautiful in our bedroom organizing some things before she will join me in the kitchen. She answers all my questions with patience today and I start the bean boiling process.
Later we go to work together, caring for the uncooperative red beans and now the day’s lunch as well. She’s decided that si o si she is going to make a dessert in the midst of this, because one of the family member’s asked for it. Her love is powerful and it puts extra hope into the life of everyone who lives here. We are going by my notes on the family recipe because, as Jeni tells me today, she doesn’t quite know the process for the beans.
Halfway through the lunch prep I want to patear el perro because the directions for boiling the beans left them somewhat uncooked. Jeni is unphased and tells me we will need to return them to a boil until they are soft. I resist, I want to go by the recipe. But after a few stubborn minutes I admit to myself that she almost never steers me wrong when we cook together.
We finish lunch, and, at the same time, the beans are finally done with the boil phase. We sit down with part of the family to eat. Tesla, my amazing mother in law, will be home from work an hour later. Lunch is delicious and Jeni and I relax a bit and take care of a few odds and ends. Before I know it, I find Tesla in the kitchen blending my beans (step two of three). “Wait!” I tell her “I was going to make the beans today.” She tells me the next steps and I confirm with her that the beans seem well prepared up to this point. She sits down to relax after work and I go at the second part of my project.
As I clumsily dice the onion and garlic, Tesla laughs at me and tells me advice I could have used 15 minutes ago. “You can dip the onion in garlic to help avoid crying”. I go back and forth to talk with her as I finish various steps of the final frying. Finally, the beans are done. My wife, the love of my life, is tutoring one of the neighbor’s kids and I am in the common area of the apartment with just Tesla. We chat about an apartment that just came up for rent and who might want it. When the thinking gets stressful we push a little farther but then rest. I tell her I’m going to stir the beans and that I love her. “I love you too” she says, still getting used to the new habit of telling this to her new son in law. I go and taste the beans and to my delight they are quite good. I ask her if she is going to try them and watch as she puts some on a piece of fresh bread. “They are good,” she says. “They are really tasty.”
I have a special place in this new family and I am finding it day by day. I love that cooking beans is one small part of what I bring.
