Steve Sando among the beans. Illustration: Margalit Cutler
Steve Sando has been living through a great bean rush. His company, Rancho Gordo, is the purveyor of choice for garbanzo geeks, and overwhelming orders have led to shipping delays for regulars and its semi-famous Bean Club. Most people have understood. But one guy called me reprehensible, says Sando, who also recently published The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide. Sando lives alone in Napa, California, where he gardens obscure vegetables, cooks for his mother next door, and trades beans with neighbors for duck eggs, wild mushrooms, and other foods. The bean boom also has Sando working six days a week, but hes still cooking all the time the way he likes to: repurposing and reusing ingredients, with a California sensibility. You could find him cooking his weekly pots of beans, marinating chicken thighs and pickling mushrooms, and baking his favorite cornbread.
Thursday, April 30I drink Peets French Roast made in an Italian Moka pot. Whole scalded milk. I used to use sugar but now I use BochaSweet kabocha sugar. Its not as good, but its not bad like most artificial sweeteners.
Super-dark European coffee is what I grew up with, when it was a total trend in San Francisco. Thats where I picked up on it. Theres a trend now for light coffee. I know people like to say dark roast is burnt and a waste of good coffee, but I think theyre nuts. Im sorry, Id rather drink coffee in Italy than almost anywhere. I think they know what theyre doing. I dont get Blue Bottle at all. In the early days of the farmers market theyd always want to trade with me, and it was like, ugh, no I dont want this.
During the quarantine, Ive been eating a lot. I get a CSA box on Tuesdays from a local charcuterie shop, the Fatted Calf. (They wrote In the Charcuterie the breadth of their knowledge of Italian, French, and even Mexican charcuterie is just shocking to me.) The box is full of veg from Riverdog Farm but I also get a lot of meat, dairy, and Spanish chorizo from Fatted Calf while Im there. I also tend to get Straus Family yogurt.
At some point later in the week, I also go to a local Mexican Market, La Tapatia, where I get tortillas, chicharrones, and vegetable basics like onions, limes, and chiles. Ill often get a pound of the carnitas they make there, the tortillas, salsa, and call it a day, because its really good. Ive only been to the conventional grocery store once since lockdown. It was very unpleasant and I would avoid it at all costs in the future. It was no fun. Between the Mexican market, the Fatty Calf, and my CSA, Im pretty good. Plus I have all the beans I want, which definitely helps.
I was affected by the Napa fires two and a half years ago, we were evacuated for two weeks; then weve had these rolling blackouts; and now we have this and its like I dont trust anything. I also think by having a garden, its like Im off the grid a little bit, Im out of the system, and Im a little more self-reliant. Now, Im not freaking out, but I dont like going to the store if I dont have to. At night, when Im coming home from work, I think, eh you know what? I can skip yet another day. Which is really bad for these businesses in general, but for me, its like theres a satisfaction for going, I can actually do a lot less. And its actually even more fun. Thats one good thing thats come from this.
For breakfast I had some leftover kale from my CSA box (made with Fatted Calf pancetta) tossed with previously cooked ayocote morado beans. I prefer dandelion greens, chard, or rapini to kale but with enough pancetta, anything is delicious. With kale, its a sort of penance it feels like youre doing your duty.I love the bitterness of the dandelions, and the chards slightly sweet. I just think theyre more versatile.
Im here by myself. My mother lives right next door, so I see her, and I have another family that lives on the property, but mostly Im here by myself at this point. I have extra food and bring it to my mom.
Snacked on mixed nuts. I buy a bag each of almonds, cashews, and pecans and mix them myself from Trader Joes. I live on this.
Pounded chicken thighs pan-roasted, with roasted asparagus reheated in the pan juices with a little chicken stock to get the bits from cooking the chicken. The asparagus was in the CSA box. I used to steam them all the time, but I think tossing them in olive oil and roasting them is great.
I like buying boneless, skinless chicken thighs and pounding them before marinating them. I marinated these in olive oil, banana vinegar from Veracruz that we have, salt and pepper, and oregano indio. I dont overkill it. I try to keep it as neutral as I can, but the banana vinegar is out of this world. Its true rotted bananas and plantains. I think a lot of the fruit vinegars are plain vinegars with fruit flavoring added.
You can heat up a steel pan or cast iron until very hot and cook about six minutes each side. Let it rest and cut them up. It has the same satisfaction as steak for me. Normally I buy a whole chicken and cut it up and use as needed, always making broth, but I got these from the grocery store when I went. They were so cheap I thought, Im gonna do this.
My thing is, you just want to keep reinventing the ingredients you have. Theres that great book, An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler. I love the whole concept. Her thing is, food will never be as fresh as when you brought it home from the market. So do as much prep as you can up front. When youre tired, youre not going to sit there and create this beautiful vegetable medley. But when its sitting there in a container and ready to go, you can heat up some vegetables and call it a day. Then you incorporate beans and, for me either, the charcuterie or marinated chicken thighs you can do everything pretty quickly once you lay the groundwork.
Ended my night with Strauss whole milk Euro-style yogurt with Bocha Sweet kabocha sugar. This yogurt is so good, it takes the place of ice cream for me.
Friday, May 1Beans. More ayocote morado (and bean broth) with roasted cauliflower, pinch of Burlap & Barrel cumin and our own pimenton. I had made a pot early in the week, and then Friday morning I made this dish with them. It just keeps giving.
I go on jags, and this week, I was just on this jag of Spanish pimenton and cumin. Not enough that you can tell what either one is, because I think then youve almost used too much, so just a scant, scant amount. Its just this great combination. But, more than anything else, I love thyme. I actually dont think theres a better herb in the world, until I decide to use rosemary.
Also, chicharron con carne. When I went to my Mexican market, to buy tortillas, I couldnt resist the great carnitas and chicharrones they have. Its not just the skin. I dont know how to describe it but Im sure a full diet of these would cause gout. Theyre scary good. The fat just melts in your mouth in a completely appealing way. I dont do it often, but sometimes get one for the road. Its this perfect blend of meat and fat and skinny. Its not gristly fat. Pork fat by itself is disgusting to me. I dont know what the deal with this is, but its terrific.
Chicken tacos made with the pounded chicken thighs, plus white onions, cilantro, limes and, Cosecha Purepecha chipotle salsa. Thats from Michoacn. When I was there maybe 15 or 12 years ago, we actually went to the factory because my friends who live down there said, oh, this is great stuff. And I just loved it. Locally I noticed they had it at Tapatio, and Ive just been hoarding it. We make a chipotle salsa at Rancho Gordo, which is excellent, but with things I love, I dont limit it to us. I still buy other peoples beans, for example, and this chipotle salsa in particular is just great.
Saturday, May 2Made a soup with the last of the ayocote morados and their broth, a scoop of hongos en vinagre from wild mushrooms from Wine Forest. Connie Green is a local forager who wrote a great book, The Wild Table. She lives up here on the mountain, so sometimes well trade, and because she was really tied in with chefs she got stuck with all these fresh mushrooms. I had way too many, so I pickled them.
There are lots of recipes for hongos en vinagre online but I tend to follow Diana Kennedys instructions. If you find yourself with a lot of mushrooms, like I did, this is a great way to extend their life and you always have a good snack on hand. Its another fast food. (Ill just come home from work and put them in a tortilla and make a pickled mushroom taco and thats fine. I wouldnt serve it to company, but to get through the night its great.) The vinegar from the mushrooms was a perfect bit of acid for the rich bean broth. I used regular chicharrones as croutons. They make a real snap-crackle-pop sound and theyre delicious in a soup like this.
That soup was one of the most successful things Ive ever done. This is why you make beans for yourself, so you can have things like this bean broth. It was mostly bean broth and mushrooms and vinegar. To me its the most exciting thing: when you do leftover cooking and you come up with a great dish like that. I probably at some point would write about the soup it was so good.
I havent been baking sourdough, but the fact that people are so into sourdough some people roll their eyes I think it is one of the best things to happen. Its all about control. You can control the rising of water and flour? That must feel great. I think about this with beans, I can turn this rock into something creamy. Maybe Im wrong, but its little places where you can control things that helps you get through this.
Dinner was pan-roasted duck breast (from Liberty Duck in Sonoma) and sauteed Red Russian kale. I have a weird love of duck breast, also its sort of a challenge because theres nothing like it and theres nothing worse if you overcook it then it gets rubbery. I just did salt and pepper, then deglazed the pan with the kale cookings. I hadnt put the pancetta back in it and I thought, this is so rich, it doesnt need that. I also thought, how this would be great for two meals. Well, it wasnt. It barely made one.
Sunday, May 3Red Russian kale with pancetta, a fried duck egg I traded for with a neighbor I bet both thought we came out ahead and cornbread made with Antebellum coarse white cornmeal from Anson Mills. I used their skillet cornbread recipe but I replaced some of the milk with goat yogurt. I love that they dont use flour in those recipes.
Theres no consistency with Southerners. Despite what you hear, some say you do need to add sugar. Some say it has to be buttermilk. Its exhausting, and not being a Southerner and growing up on really crappy Jiffy cornmeal, I discovered the Anson Mills coarse grind and nothing is better with beans. The cornmeal is a game changer compared to what I had.
You can heat up the skillet with the fat on the stove, pour the batter in and it sizzles, and then put it in the oven. Its 20 minutes, and theres just nothing like it. Im just shocked by how good it is. If the pan is hot enough when the batter hits, it forms a crust thats not very deep but is almost like when you eat cheese and it has that crystalline thing going. Its the most subtle, sublime crunch-to-cornbread ratio. The only problem with this cornbread is it doesnt keep. And the other problem is deciding what the word portion means. Can I get away with eating the whole thing? You just turn into such a pig because its so delicious.
You slather it with butter and its hot and you almost cant even talk its so good. Or you add beans and bean broth or even kale and the kale potlikker, and youre thinking, why arent we doing more of this? Id rather learn more about this than some obscure Italian preparation. Theres so much great simple food to eat at home, its frustrating we dont do more of it. A Southerner told me about taking the cornbread, breaking it up into a glass, and then you pour buttermilk over it. I thought, that just sounds as disgusting as it gets. I tried it and it was absolutely delicious.
Later, I made a quesadilla with onions, cilantro, Cosecha salsa, and crap jack cheese. Mexicans dont actually use jack cheese, but they use bland cheeses, so I dont think its such a crime. When I went to the grocery store, I just bought a ton of it because it was super cheap and the expiration date was far away. Its so funny where Im a snob and where Im not. There is a line I wont cross, but crappy cheese is fine. It has its place.
I also had a salad of garbanzos, Fatted Calf Spanish chorizo, Trader Joes marinated red peppers, onion, Olive Oil Jones Gata-Hurdes from Extremadura, Spain (home of pimento and the conquistadors), chives, and sherry vinegar. I love salads, I like lettuce fine, there are all sorts of interesting ones. But living alone, its really hard dealing with lettuce, and Ive discovered if I have super crunchy things, plus beans, its this creamy, crunchy combination that makes a great salad. Lately, Im loving shaved fennel. Not by itself, but mixed as part of something else.
Monday, May 3Penance, sort of. Even for me that was a rough four days or so. Okay, we need to slow down a bit here.
I try to skip breakfast as much as I can. I did have a half cup of homemade sauerkraut this morning, which would actually be a typical breakfast for me. Just having that so Im not dying, that works for me.
I always make it. This winter, we got a lot of cabbage from the CSA. I have a beautiful fermenting pot. I tend not to spice it while its fermenting, its probably fine, but I always worry about a little bit floating to the top and causing trouble. I find, though, you have to add tons of onion, which makes it 10 times better. I added tons of carrots, too, and I tend to like the red cabbage more just because it looks cool.
Chard and Anson Mills Carolina Gold rice. I did have pancetta leftover, and I opened a can of tomatoes, so I chopped up some tomatoes and added them as well, so it was a little more of a sauce for the kale. Theres a brown rice I love called Massa from Chico, California, its like eating nuts. But I had the Carolina Gold, and with that rice you want to keep it as simple as you can.
For dinner, I had Manchego cheese, a bit more Spanish chorizo, mixed nuts, and a sherry. Thats all. I was like, I just need to slow it down a bit. But I was about to start it all over again the next day. I had the CSA coming. It was just one day of simple eating.
Im not minding the shelter-in-place, until I do, and then it drives me crazy. I really dont love going to restaurants all that much unless theyre really special its not something I do casually. But almost every week I have a dinner party here, I have a couple of friends over, and thats the thing that kills me. I can almost bear all of this, but that part seems nice, and it seems like if we had mass testing we could take smarter, more calculated risks. But its not worth it at this point. Thats the thing: I want to open that door and see someone on the other side that would make me very happy.
I would much prefer to be cooking for more people. Im living for these meals, and theres this tiny bit of melancholy that comes at the end, like oh, its done. Its this one bit of pleasure of quarantining, and now its done. Im looking forward to the day that passes, I would say.
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Rancho Gordos Steve Sando Avoids the Grocery Store at All Costs - Grub Street
