You can put me down with everybody else who’s enthusiastic about beans in a general way… I like ’em all and I eat ’em all the time.

For years I only ate black beans due to the influence of some particularly spectacular refritos my aunt once made, but then I changed my ways. See, around here there’s usually a choice of black, pinto, and refried beans at Mexican restaurants, and I noticed that the Latin American customers always went for the pintos. Now I bounce around between black, pink, pinto, and Anasazi beans for my day-to-day dosage.

I have a ham hock cut in half, put it into a slow cooker, top it off with beans and water and let ‘er go overnight. Minimum seasoning is intentional — that way if I want to make minestrone, I season for minestrone. I want a burrito, likewise. Or New Orleans-style beans and rice… Minimum seasoning, maximum flexibility. I always have some in the freezer ready to roll.

Canelli or white beans for ham and bean soup. Mmmm – limas. Kidney beans are good in a three-bean salad, if nowhere else. And when I make lentil soup I use a lot of greens and finish it off with lemon juice. Hummus! BBQ beans! Or to stray into the fresh bean field, long beans sauteed with garlic and sprinkled with sesame oil… There’s no natural stopping point here. Oaf heart beans.