beans: keeping it simple

This past weekend we went up to Todi to pick olives. We hadn’t been up  in a while, since the house had been rented out, so I knew there wasn’t really going to be any food in the pantry. Besides bringing up staples, I threw in a bunch of random things I had gotten at the Salone, including a bag of Verdolino beans from near Viterbo.

I hadn’t even really even planned on cooking the beans. They were back up, just in case we ran out of food. Right. Like I would ever run out of food. As always, I had TONS of food. I even had back up mozzarella. Just in case. You never know.

Anyway, as I was puttering around, putting things away, Evan (who was visiting) opened up the bag of beans and it was the first thing she cooked. Which makes sense, really. Because beans need a lot of time to cook, and aren’t ever really ‘last minute back up.’
The beans are called Verdolino and come from the area around Viterbo. I don’t know why they are called verdolino, since they aren’t in any way green. Raw they were plump, white little things, with a small black spot. Cooked up they turned a rosy color, and so many beans do.

I had no idea what Evan was going to do with them. Since she owns a restaurant and has written six cookbooks, I wasn’t really worried. She didn’t even bother soaking them. Brought them to a boil, and simmered them for a couple of hours till they turned soft.

Now, you’re probably expecting a fancy recipe, since Evan is a pretty accomplished chef and knows how to do all sorts of stuff with food (remember the cookbooks and the restaurant? She also hosts a radio show). But she also knows the power of keeping things simple. A lot of what I know about the importance of great ingredients I learned from Evan.  So, you know what she did with the beans? Put them in a bowl,  sprinkled them with salt and drizzled bright green, hours-old olive oil on them. You can’t get any better than that.