Throughout my life, food has been both a comfort and a burden. How, fortunate am I to experience that? There are certain foods and flavors that I struggle to replicate only because I am not the one who makes them.
My Guatemalan mother used to frequently make black beans, not those from a can, but from scratch. I remember her painstakingly picking through pounds of dry beans, making sure to pick out any pebbles or grit that may be hiding among them. I remember how she’d soak them in water overnight and rinse the water out the next morning, purple water splashing across the white porcelain sink. How even though we mentioned, “black beans again?” we always sat down with a bowl of brothy black beans and a dollop of sour cream, sometimes asking for seconds.
I still can’t imitate the flavors of those brothy black beans. No matter how long I soak them, or how many of the same spices I use. It’s funny how sometimes the simplest foods can be the most comforting, and the most memorable.
My Lifestate 