Food

-black-eyed peas (1lbs dry)
-collard greens (2 bunches)
-2 medium-sized yellow onions
-4 cloves garlic
-half-pack natural bacon
-handful coriander seeds
-sea salt + fresh ground black pepper
-Viet Huong Fish Sauce (thailand)
-olive oil + bacon fat

Bring a pot of water to boil and add a pound of dried black-eyed peas. Turn down to a simmer and cook 45+ min (test until just soft). Meanwhile, cook bacon and once it’s done cooking, hold back half the fat and half the bacon for another dish (like clam chowder) and chop the rest and put it to the side. (Bacon can be substituted for butter and smoked, black salt or whatever veg bacon flavor of choice). In the same frying pan the bacon was cooked in, add one chopped onion and a couple tlbs of the reserved bacon fat. Add one finely chopped habenero pepper with half the seeds removed. When the onions are near done, add 4 cloves chopped garlic. While the beans are cooking in one pan and the onions are cooking in another, de-stem collard greens and chop the stems and put to the side.

Once the beans are done, drain them and add them to the onion pan. Stir thoroughly and add half the chopped bacon, a few shakes of fish sauce, salt to taste and lots of ground pepper. Once the bottom of the pan has been absorbed into the mixture, remove finished beans. Then, in that same pan the beans were mixed in, add a little water, the other chopped onion, a tablespoon of coriander seeds and the chopped collard green stems. Cover the pan with a lid and sauté until you’ve washed the collard greens and then chopped them. Stir the onions and add then add the chopped collards to the pan, distributing them evenly so they aren’t in clumps, but keeping the stems on the bottom and the leaves on top. Saute until the greens are well cooked, as collards need more than to turn bright green –they need to become a leathery, dark green. Serve in a shallow bowl; half greens & half beans.

Music

This is my first post since Trump and then the pandemic. It’s early January 2022 and Beans & Greens are a favorite dish and seeyouspacecowboy’s new album, the Romance of Affliction is a surprising favorite of 2021. Ian cohen wrote, “SeeYouSpaceCowboy are freakishly adept at using the most immediately gratifying parts of oft-maligned influences, drawing on metalcore’s clean, septum-piercing hooks and the scene-chewing flourishes of MySpace emo.” While on the surface, Connie Sgarbossa is channeling mall-screamo, with both her brother and the bassist devilishly covering the boy-band vocals, what lays underneath is a manic mash-up of tempos, moods, gender displays, and the insane technical prowess of the band. The brutality this record holds both lyrically and sonically in wonderful balance with its sasscore heart. Serve with Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.