Friends invited me over to a party to celebrate their new Caja China and the roasting of a whole pig. Rich did all kinds of research and dutifully prepared the pig according to the instructions and other comments on the internet. I decided the party deserved beans so I cooked them in a huge clay pot. I started 8 pounds at home and cooked them on the stovetop with onions, garlic, olive oil and salt. When they were just shy of being perfect, I shut off the gas and went to the party. The beanpot on fire performed beautifully and...

These pots were found in the Pinotepa Nacional mercado. These are the pots that Diana Kennedy features in her seminal book Oaxaca al Gusto for the dish El Cabio on page 137. I should have bought the specific pot for that dish but I fell in love with a cazuela and an olla and could barely carry those back. It's amazing how little airline and airline security people care about hand carrying clay pots! These pots were very light in weight. The real appeal is how they look and I assume they'll only look better over time. There's no glaze...

How can I be faithful to my Poblano beanpot when Bram comes along and produces this gorgeous little number in Egypt? All the perfumes of Araby cannot hide the stench of my betrayal! I've been using it weekly since it arrived. Just over two quarts, it's fine for a pound but perfect for half a pound of heirloom beans. It has a nice stable bottom and a much more finished look than our regular "rustic" pot. There's no glaze and of course no worries about lead. You can check out this gem here and you tell me if I'm wrong...

My local Mexican grocer had some xoconostle (sour prickly pears) and even though they were a little sad looking, I bought them all. We have a new shipment in from Mexico that includes clay comales and I've been eager to grill something other than tortillas on them. The xoconostle proved tp be perfect. The fruit in the photo look a little over-charred but the burn didn't go any deeper than the skin and the juicy flesh was easy to scoop out. If you want a clay comal, you'll need to come visit us at our store in Napa. They're sturdy...

There are dozens of reasons why I love living in Napa, almost none of them involving wine. My fellow Napans make great neighbors and when there's a call for a party, you know the food is going to be incredible. In other communities, I often hear about how beans are a winter food. "It's bean weather!" they say as they fight off the chills. Napa now joins India and Mexico in knowing that there is no such thing as a bean season, or that it's always bean weather. A recent party illustrates my point. We had barbecue of all sorts,...

Until you get obsessive, a normal pot is fine for beans. Once you start down that slippery slope, you'll want several different pots for different beans and different cuisines. I refuse to tell you how many pots, metal or clay, I own. You would lose respect for me and question my sanity. But I will introduce you to my favorite pot. The first reason I love the pot so much is that it was a gift from my Mexican business partners Yunuen and Gabriel. They got it from Lourdes in the Mixteca region of Puebla, near Oaxaca. It's perfect for...

Just the sight of it makes me hungry.

I can't tell you how many conversations I have with people who just don't know what to do with their beans after they've bought them. Even after I tell them, and give them dozens of ideas, they still aren't confident. I tell them I just have a bowl of them with almost every meal and they look at me like I'm nuts. Steak? A bowl of beans. Lasagna? A bowl of beans. Summer salad? A bowl of beans. Cheese plate? You get the idea. When my kids were small (and fussy), I'd put their beans in a ramekin. It meant...

I bought a mattone after I read about them in Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking and so far I've been underwhelmed. The piece is fine but all the chickens I seem to come across seem to weigh from four to six pounds! They're huge. I mentioned this to Judy Witts-Francini and she told me she loves hers, especially for marinated chicken thighs. I made a marinade of olive oil, a fruity vinegar, garlic and our swoon-worthy oregano indio and the results were incredible. After I cooked the thighs (and since they're a dark meat, they're pretty forgiving if you...

This is a simple dish from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico. I'd never made the dish before but the book will go with me to my desert island. The only big difference is I added one cup of cooked Moro beans and I think you should, too! Carne de Res con Col (Ground Beef with Cabbage) From Chiapas 3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped 6 peppercorns salt to taste 1 lb ground sirloin with a little fat 3 tablespoons vegetable oil 1/4 cup finely chopped white onion 1 jalapeño chile, finely chopped 6 oz tomatoes, finely chopped 4 cups...

My youngest son and I have decided to take road trips to visit all the old missions in California. It was a whim at one point but now we've started and our adventure has begun. This last weekend we hit Mission San Jose (which oddly enough isn't in San Jose, but nearby Fremont), Mission San Rafael and Mission San Francisco de Solano in Sonoma. He's only 8 but he has a good eye for photos and he's an excellent dining companion, once he remembers to eat with his mouth closed. As a 4th grader in the California school system, my...

Thanks to a hot tip from Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Clay Pot Cooking book, I ordered this handsome clay pot and lid from Turkey. It's very crude and very heavy and just plain feels foreign. I love it. The instructions said to wash it with soap and water and then rub the insides with margarine. I couldn't bring myself to do that so after washing I rubbed the whole thing, inside and out, with olive oil. It's something I've always felt compelled to do and Paula's book confirms that it's wise.But you know deep inside you're some kind of freak if...