Green Beans

I love my veggies. Green beans, peas, all of those legumes. Yum.

My favorite way to eat green beans is directly off the vine, washed and snapped and placed in my salad. Crisp and full of flavor!

Baring that, then I like them just barely cooked. Still a little crisp.

That is not the southern way to eat green beans.

We haven't had green beans in ages because I don't "cook them right" according to my husband. (Which is okay; I have never professed to be a cook.)

Green beans to him are supposed to be put in a big pot with a huge wad of fatback, and possibly new potatoes, and brought to a boil and then left to simmer on the stove for about five hours.

What you get is mess of soppy soggy beans that are slippery and which taste like boiled ham.

Husband has been having a difficult time; his dad is in the hospital, things at work not so great. So I am fixing him pot roast, green beans and rice for dinner.

He loves his beef, and he likes green beans "cooked the right way."

This has required some planning, particularly with the green beans, because they have to simmer on the stove forever if I want him to eat them. So I have a pot of green beans simmering. I had no fatback; I threw in a slice of bacon instead.

That will do.

It kind of makes the house smell like my Aunt Neva's. She always seemed to have a pot of green beans in fatback simmering when I visited her aging house in Salem. Aunt Neva was old for as long as I can remember, although she was only in her 80s when she died several years ago. However, I tend to associate the smell of long-cooked green beans with old age and elderly people.

Which may be why I don't like to cook them "the right way" very often. Old age isn't where I want to go.