Some Questions

Why would you rinse the beans? It never made any sense to me. I mean I suppose if I was making a bean salad I might want the beans 'clean', but I never make bean salad. Being a southern boy, juice is important to me. Pot liquor, as it was always called, was a critical component for the final bites of a given meal, which was wiping the plate clean. Wasting the juice was a cardinal sin. What's the relationship between the volume of water, and the size of the aperture in a cliff face that results in these amazing ice-sculptures? I had to pull off the road, yesterday, to study one that looked very much like an elephant. They buried Ernie Banks today. It was a joy to watch him play. All those years with a losing team and winning the MVP award two years in a row. How do you distinguish hubris from revelation? If the secular world anointed sainthood. Volume 3 of the 11th Britannica is AUS to BIS and I had pulled it out to read the entry on Bach, taken it over to the island, to read while I made the pot of chili. Great smells, caramelizing onions and red peppers, and the slanted winter light dancing through stick trees with a scattering of snow. I felt like I was in a Russian novel. The stove was hot and the oven was 450 degrees, so I made a small thin pone of cornbread, thinking it would be very good with the chili, which it would have been, if I hadn't eaten it all, long before the chili was done. I get distracted, so I bought a $10 timer I keep at the island, and set it to remind myself to stir something or look at whatever's in the oven. A lazy Saturday afternoon. Beethoven was in the same volume of the Britannica, and many other things, and I left the radio on, to further complicate my sensory overload. The chili will be better tomorrow, but it's already one of the best things I've ever eaten. I triple-check to make sure I've battened down all the hatches, got a drink, and retired to the end of the sofa, where I had good light and a lap blanket. Reading about salt, and Joy Morton (who would name a boy child 'Joy'?) leads me, by bend of bay, to packaging techniques and labeling. At some point iconic images become symbolic. I've read Faulkner rather closely. My rant is just Everyman.