Showbags of beans

Above is a moment I love; opening a dirty brown wet bean pod without knowing what's in it (yes, I forgot which bean I planted where, classic) and in it a perfect little bean, red, white, lemony, speckled or brown (above you see Canadian Wonder, which alas had interbean-intercourse with, I assume, the originally rather brown Lazy Housewife, now their children are either faintly rosé or kidneybeancolour with white speckles. No seedsaving this year). The borlotti on the right found a home way above the Danish yellow pumpkin and still take a while to have seeds that can be dried for next year's garden. Now all of the beans (Dutch brown and lemon bean, besides the two sorts that had too close an affair) dry on a sheet besides the laptop fan.
As the bean weevil had a great summer vacation and ate through pretty much every single of the hundreds of John's holy beans in my room and then expanded himself into every corner and bedsheet wrinkle of my bedsheet, I'll try the freezing thing this year: dry the beans until really really dry (somebody suggested the hammer test: crush one with a hammer. If it cracks it's dry. It's still too wet when it just crushes gently, well). Then freeze at least 8 days and dry again, put them in glass jars after and hope the weevils pack their traps and leave to other far away beans.

After the deluge: porcini!

After nearly two weeks of pouring rain and no true August in sight, Friday and Saturday had finally brought a blazing 26 degrees back again. And with it popped up mushrooms, among them a bunny-sized one in our backyard, most likely inedible but quite cute. After venturing in vain for the gigantic white puffball we settled for a lurid bolete close to our house. My mum pointed us at him referring to the Polish hauler who turns up at my dad's factory about once a year and manically crawls beneath the trees, taking bags of this lurid bolete (and offering them to my frightened mum who happily refuses). Not us! (we thought.) But then, slight discomfort arose thinking of an intense mushroom death, albeit psychedelic it might be.

This made me go to Pete's dad today who collects mushrooms for years and just walked over the doorway, still dripping from the rain that decided to revisit, now with 100 litres tonight.

In his hand though a shopping bag full of porcini which he proudly showcased and turned right into a steaming, meaty mushroom mess. Cut them in thin slices, fry in oil or butter until most of the liquid has gone and then add a finely cubed onion for about every 150-200g of mushrooms, leave to become translucent, add half a crushed garlic clove, and leave it be for 2 more minutes. Then season with salt, pepper and a good handful of parsley. Pete's dad put a sourdough bread with cold butter to serve on the side, good for adding something substantial and perfectly complementary.

So if you have some rain and then some sun around this time of the year, check out the base of beech trees on your next walk out, maybe you can find some of these tasty fellows (here's how by Leslie Land, nothing more to say)!