Forks in Our Road: A Crockpot Kind of Day

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

A Crockpot Kind of Day

It's something that I look forward to each summer, but it always kind of takes me by surprise, that first cold snap of fall that reminds me that the snow is just weeks away. This year, it really wasn't much of a surprise in that the weather forecast for around the first official day of fall has been for lows just above freezing and highs struggling to the upper 50s.

Pork and Beans: White Beans with Pork Necks and Chorizo

The real surprise came around 3am when I awoke to very cold temperatures in our bedroom. Here in the high desert, it is exceedingly common for everyone to open their windows at night even in the summer, forest fires willing, to let in the cold night air. By the time I awoke around 5:30am, it was 35 degrees outside and the cold air was streaming in through the open windows.

In anticipation of colder weather, I always lean hard into comfort food, slow-cooked food, and eagerly await that first batch of whatever from the crockpot. At the grocery store earlier in the week, aware of the forecasted colder weather to come, I picked up a couple pounds of pork neck bones as the basis for whatever I would put in the crockpot to celebrate the coming of fall, probably my favorite season of the year.

And last night, I put a couple pounds of white beans in the ceramic crockpot liner to soak overnight, rinsing them twice before going to bed and once again when I awoke. On willing myself to brave the cooler temperatures outside the delightfully warm bedcovers, I went downstairs to start the beans cooking, make a pot of coffee, and start the pork neck bones browning.

While Ann and I started in on our coffee and the first of our New York Times crossword puzzles for the morning, the pork neck bones browned over low heat. I would get up from time to time during the puzzles to turn them and then when they were browned, to add them to the pot of beans slowly heating on the counter.

Ann left to go to her fitness class and I left to go on my morning walk down the river and back. It was a great morning to walk, starting at 45 degrees and mostly sunny. It was one of those days when I walked out of the shade and into a patch of sun and loved the momentary heat on my bare legs, so in contrast to recent weeks when I would scurry quickly from patch to patch of shade, avoiding the sun as much as possible.

My walk really hammered home that fall is upon us, even as my very cold hands on this keyboard do right now. The deciduous scrub along the river has already dropped half its leaves, with the remaining changing color, highlighting the bright red, orange, and white berries still on the branches. I decided to count the species of wildflowers still in view and until the last moment, I thought that one hand would suffice for the tally. In the end, I spied a scant few blossoms of only seven species (storksbill, alfalfa, rabbitbrush, fireweed, goldenrod, white sweet-clover, and yarrow), a sure sign that the snow will fly on the mountains soon, possibly tomorrow night.

After my brisk walk without breaking a sweat–finally!–I was looking forward to getting home and smelling that first aroma of the beans and pork cooking as I walked in the door. Our house is well-insulated and as a result, the indoor temperature never reached 60 degrees, making me crave a warm blanket, a crackling fire, and a cup of tea, thoughts unthinkable just days ago.

The chilly temps also made me crave that warm bowl of beans for dinner and I must admit that it was something of a torment to smell them cooking all afternoon, especially after I added the aromatics to them. After my walk, I cooked up a couple onions, a bunch of garlic, and half a stick of hard Spanish chorizo with a teaspoon of La Vera pimentón and a teaspoon of dried thyme. This certainly perfumed the air in the house and the crockpot did a great job of continuing to make the house smell wonderful after I put this sofrito into the beans.

White beans flavored with a bit of pork might seem very simple, very mundane, and very peasanty, but they made a fantastic dinner that comfortingly warmed our bellies on a chilly day. I'm so happy fall is here, cold hands be damned!