Burned Beans for Breakfast

I grabbed three fist-fulls of fresh green beans from the produce area thinking I’d fix a dish for weekend company.  I got up early, picked the beans and tossed them into a large wok and added some flavorings: diced ham, chopped onions, red bell pepper, soy sauce, two cloves of garlic, sea salt, and butter. 

But as Robert Burns wrote in 1785, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”  Then there is Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Beyond these well-known disaster predictions, I was born in Kansas. Kansans, when I was growing up, had not evolved to the level where men were allowed or expected to be in the kitchen.  Hence my lack of cooking skills has resulted in several memorable culinary disasters, like trying to make gravy out of flour and water.  

I turned on the wok. The stuff on the bottom began to sizzle. I kept tossing the beans, but they were not softening, like biting off a raw carrot.  I turned up the heat and kept tossing, but the beans remained stiff. I kept increasing the heat. The sizzling stuff at the bottom began to smoke and burn, tainting the beans with an unintended flavor.   

I dumped the smoking contents in the sink. Now, what to do with them? I didn’t want a clogged drain, or beans sprouting in the rose garden.  The subliminal admonition “Don’t waste food” kicked in. Isn’t that one of the ten commandments?  I sat down and had burned beans for breakfast. Another commandment kicked in: “Clean up your plate.” I ate “the whole nine yards,” a metaphor for the full capacity of a cement truck.  Yes, I was (am) full of beans.