Beans at Home, with Steve Sando!

Bean tribe, unite! This week, we have a very special guest joining us: Steve Sando, founder of everyone’s favorite heirloom bean company Rancho Gordo and author (or publisher) of nearly a dozen books on the topic. We get philosophical: What is actual simplicity in cooking (and can it exist in cookbook publishing)? We get genre-bendy: Is there a connection between making fashion choices and eating beans? And of course we get very deep on the specifics of bean cookery: pre-soaking, brining, blending, and what to do with the liquid gold that is bean broth. Plus, Steve’s ultimate no-fuss dinner-party finale: Pockys and Amaro? Yes, please!

Discussed in this episode:

• Caballero Beans
• Pineapple Vinegar
• Lukas’ Smoky Confit’d Beans with Olives, which is one of the most popular Rancho Gordo Bean Club recipes OF ALL TIME
• The Rancho Gordo Bean Club (sorry, there’s a waiting list!!) 
• The Rancho Gordo Cooking with Clay Facebook Group 
• The movie The Taste of Things, on our to-watch list now
• Rancho Gordo Gift Boxes
• Also, Steve is on Substack! 

Instagram | Substack

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Salt Pig. We are two cookbook writers chatting about the ups and downs of actual home kitchen life. Lucas, what are we talking about this week? Today we have a very, very special guest. This is one of my personal favorite people in food. Me too. The Bean King. If you know anything about beans or care about beans at all, it's Steve Sando from Rancho Gordo, the heirloom bean company. He's really done a lot of work over the past 15, 20 years to like make beans really cool. And Ellie and I are both huge fans of him, and we cook his beans almost every week, right? Oh, for sure. Every week, a new kind. They're amazing. We have a kind of fun conversation about how beans are just this like common thread in our in our um our meals all week long. And so we learn a lot about home cooking from Steve's perspective and some of the cool things that he does with Rancho Gordo. Three hearts beating is one, really. Once again, we're gonna talk about bean broth if you're not tired of that yet. I know we've all been waiting. Yeah. But um it's a really fun conversation, and it was a real honor to have Steve accept our invitation to come chat with us. Yeah, it was it was great. Thank you so much, Steve. And you can find new and old episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. And check us out on Substack2 at saltpig.substack.com where you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. All right, let's get started. Steve, hello, thank you so much for joining us today here on Salt Pig. Thank you for having me. I'm a big salt pig myself, so this is perfect in every sense. I have one, I am one, I I love them. So that's amazing. Um, I was thinking about you this weekend because I had some friends over for dinner and I made some beans. I cooked the um it's a caballero, caballer, the caballero beans. Those are my caballero, and they were so good, and they came out perfectly, and because it was a dinner party, I felt the need to sort of like zhuzh them up a little bit. And so I was like, oh, do I do like a little celery salad to put on top, or do I make some kind of like pesto-y thing or like a I don't know, something just to make them say dinner party? Yeah, but then they were so good that I was like, I think I'm just gonna serve them as beans and just in a in a bowl. And um, and I did that and they were great. And then as I was preparing for our conversation, I realized like you have over 300 recipes on the website. You've published like 10 books. Yeah, well, I was just I did quick math. Yeah, um, and then there's like 10 cookbooks now, or is there more than that of the Rancho Gorgeous? Oh, I think it's of that I've done has been eight, but I think we published two from other people. Okay. The publishing industry, you might not have heard this, but it's horrible. And they aren't out for the author. So we decided to self-publish a lot. And then there were a couple of books I loved, and we make so much more money, and we don't have to fight with stupid graphic design people about that. Looks too Tex-Mex. It's like it's from Morocco. What are you talking about? So we we still I love working with TenSpeed, and we decided a deal to work with Norton, and I'm really happy. But uh on the whole, I also love self-publishing because you just are 100% in control. You get to do everything, yeah. And you can make more money too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I wanted to ask you, because I then in a bunch of your interviews and when conversations that I've had with you, you always everything kind of comes back to that simple pot of beans. Like, and it sounds like the way you cook too is you cook off a bit, you know, a pound of beans a week, or you kind of just like have beans on hand. But are you following recipes very often? Or like what is your relationship with the recipe versus like the elemental pot of beans? Well, as far as beans go, I'm the beans are the star, and I just think you have to get out of their way. Caballero is almost like dairy, it is the creamiest bean. And that's what I'm just telling Ellie. Yeah. Yeah, it's so weird. It's like, who put cream in it? These are vegan. It's like, no, they aren't, yeah. And even though I'm an omnivore, I really insist people do their beans vegan at least once, so you can see. Because when you say, Oh, cook them simply so the heirloom part of it shines, like, oh yeah, I just put a ham bone in. It's like, oh, you just already blew it as far as I'm concerned. And I love ham, but and I love you know, it just it's really irritating that you've got because they're hard to grow, is the other thing. So I want them to really be the stars of whatever they're doing. And people do need recipes, especially newer people. But my goal, if I ever could make a cultural change, is you just have a side of beans with whatever you're having, and it's just like bread. Is it's there you can just it up if you want. For me lately, it's pickled shallots. Is I just can't tell you how happy I am. It's almost it's like when Paul was saying to use uh arugula instead of dairy. It's like, what? But I feel like it's almost like bacon in a weird way. When I just had lentils, pickled shallots. It's like, oh, it gives me the same joy that the bacon has. So maybe that's what she was saying under pressure. I don't know. But I know I just love them simple. So it's hard when people still want more and more recipes. It's like, oh, just shut up and cook. I mean, come on. I mean, it's just not that hard. And if you have them, it's you have this incredible ingredient. If you want meat, you can roast a chicken breast. If you have a salad and you're done, you don't need a recipe for that. And if they're all good ingredients, you don't need to do too much more. I mean, that's a great dinner. Yeah. I just came up with that as a recipe. Yeah. Came up with a silly name, like dense bean. Dense bean, dense something. I don't know. Yeah. I think that's how Ellie and I cook too. With I mean, I mean, my work is developing recipes, but if I'm left to my own devices, it is it's that pot of beans and a slice of bread and pickled something on top. Yeah. No, that's a wonderful thing. That was practically the premise of this podcast, to be honest, because we were we were going to talk about self-publishing more, and then we changed gears because we were like we started to I mean, Lucas and I talk about food all the time, obviously, but we were talking about recipes, and we were like, we realized really neither of us use recipes very often, and we were like, it feels like this sort of unspoken thing in the food world to not use recipes because so many people are engaged in the process. That's sort of the language that people use to talk about food these days. So it's fun to talk about the more improvisational and also just like the more simple. I mean, simple cooking is is something that's thrown around so much, especially in publishing, but it's it doesn't really exist in cookbooks very often because everyone has to make it sort of trademarkable or you know, I mean that you can't make a recipe. But yeah, it has to you have to sort of sing for your supper a little bit. So I love the but I love the idea of like keep bringing people back to that simple idea because it's yeah, it's not very fashionable, but it's so appealing. Yes. I mean, uh you know, it is really hard. I just a simple pot of beans is what more do you want? I don't but they want a recipe. Especially I would say a beginning cook, especially really, and they want literal how much water. It's like, well, you know, how old are your beans? What kind of pot are you using? Is it clay? Is can it absorb some of the water? Are you is your water hard? I mean, there's so many variants, and I think that's why beans are so great because you actually have to learn how to become a cook, not just a recipe follower. Tiny bit. You have to work really hard to screw it up, but you actually do have to think the tiniest bit. And uh not in a hurry, it's not a souffle that's gonna fall if you don't do this now. I just that's why another people don't talk about that. It's like this health, they taste good, blah, blah, blah. But it's like also you're gonna become a better cook and have this ingredient in your refrigerator all week that you can rely on. I I find that very romantic. Me too. It's the only type of meal. If I do any meal prep, it's cooking beans every week. And then I'm like, what do I do with them? And it's this great, like, it's the same question every week. And it's fun to like try to figure out an answer to it that appeals to you, that appeals to your family, that works in the season, that you know, all those constraints. Yeah, I think also when you're a new cook, you need that wow factor all the time. And it's exhausting, and it's led us to horrible processed food where we need more thrills, more thrills, more thrills, rather than culturally having a cuisine that we can fall back on. Yeah, in the wrong direction. But I've recently lost a lot of weight uh Monjaro and Proud and the gym, but uh it's the same thing with clothes too. Like you first lose this weight, and you think, oh, I need to get all these glossy things and glitter. Then you realize, no, if you have three or four great trousers, you figure out what kind of shirt you like. You actually don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you get up in the morning. And it's the same thing in the kitchen. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. And sometimes it's fun to put on a suit if you're used to wearing track clothes, but you don't have to if that's not your lifestyle. So you figure out what your lifestyle is and then you cook and dress accordingly. Oh, there's a new book, isn't there? Yeah, yeah. I think about this all the time because I'm so I struggle with fashion because I think I overthink it and like I don't want to spend a bunch of money on clothes. It seems like anybody who dresses well spends a lot of money on their clothing. I know this isn't true, but that's my perception living in New York. And so it's just a little bit overwhelming. And then I realize with food, I'm totally willing to go scour the city for whatever ingredient I need. I'll spend all day, I'll do, I'll go to the extreme in the service of food. But I and that's what my fashion friends are willing to do for fashion. So it's just kind of like the lane of interest. Yeah. And they probably buy fewer, better clothes rather than the novelty of the moment, which and it's an investment in the future, much like your beans are gonna be. Beans and fashion. They're that's a new podcast we have to do. Now, the pickled shallots, how do you make those? I have a mandolin that I've made peace with after you know, I've only got four fingers. Um, and I've really the secret is just never take your eye off that thing because you think, oh, I've got it down. And ah, it's like well, that's a funny. I love Lucy. I love this one. So no, you can't do that. You have to watch them. And also, don't be cheap, like I want to get every last bit of the vegetable. Just let it go. It's okay. You can put it in the stock pot later with that rochissery chicken you're gonna make. And then I uh teeniest bit of sugar. Uh I'm now using our pineapple vinegar, which is just this gift from the gods from Veracruz, and uh a little water. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. No salt. Oh salt, too, yeah. Oh, and I use a little bit of our oregano indio, which is a Mexican oregano from saying this. It's not like I know what I'm talking about. It's from the Huasteca region of Hidalgo, as opposed to the San Luis Potosí or the Veracruz Huasteca. Yeah. But Mexican oregano, salt, vinegar uh salads. Okay. Yeah. And they last for they say a week, but it's really longer than forever. And then the water, I mean the liquid is great in salads. It's a great thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I use red onions usually. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm always trying to figure out if there's like something I'm doing wrong with my pickles because sometimes you know when you have a really good quick pickle, you can just like snack on it all day. Um sometimes I make them like too sweet or too acidic, and I feel like it's getting that balance right. But also the vinegar changes everything, and I'm always changing up the vinegar, so I probably just need to change it. You're using plenty of water, right, Lucas? Yeah, I do like two to one. Two to one water to vinegar. Two vinegar to one water. Oh, interesting. I usually do half and half. I do two. So maybe that's what I'm maybe that has messen up. Try it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And honestly, you're bored out of your mind, you just have to eat something. Beans, pickled shallots, and like you said, bread. It's like, what could be better? I know nothing. And you've got gut stuff going on. I'm kind of getting bored with that, but it's important, I guess. Between the vinegar and the beans. And then if you have sourdough bread, you're getting that interesting thing going on. Or everyone's anti-carb, but I just heard, you know, the brain needs carbohydrates. So you do and the beans have carbs and protein. I mean, it just fiber is carbs. I feel like fiber is supplanting protein right now. And uh the irritating thing about I've never marketed the beans as either healthy or green. I've always it's when Thomas Keller first came to me in that farmer's market and said, Oh, what you're doing is important, I thought, oh, this is how we're gonna do this. It's not gonna be morally thing. It's like you're indulging in something, and I think that's helped because like you say, this week it's fiber, next week it's protein, and then it's gonna be gut biome. It's just and it I don't find any of that very interesting. I but if people say they do, but they're cheap, those people. You really want people who love good food. And if you eat good food, you're probably gonna be pretty healthy, I would say. So sorry. Oh no, no. I was gonna say that's I think that's so true. Um and it's I don't know, there's there's something about the sort of elemental nature of beans that I think is so I think that's why I eat them all the time. I mean they're it's sure they're healthy and stuff, but they're like this flexible thing. You can eat them hot, you can eat them cold. It's like I don't know, the the benefit of them goes on and on. Kids always like beans, which I feel like that's kind of a tell. But yeah. This is like this is in a sense, it's a it's a healthy sort of elemental thing. Oh yeah. Yeah, my kids, I have Steve, I have seven-year-old twins, and they're obsessed with beans and have been obsessed with beans since they were little, and it's so um it's so satisfying. It's such a great kid food because because it's has protein, because it has carbs, because you can like have them in your fridge for you know days on end, it's it's kind of the perfect food for them. So and when they're learning to eat, they can pick up the bean, right? Totally. They make a mess, but they can yeah. Yeah, those little, you know, it's gotta work on that stuff. And in Mexico, when women are first weaning, they give them bean broth. Right. Because it's full of protein, and then the kids have a love of beans forever. It's very healthy. And I use it now uh with uh dinner parties. I have a I do dinner uh with third, I do uh bean broth, the chicken broth, and then I squeeze a lime, what's that half and half, I guess, and a squeeze of lime, and I have it hot on a tray as if it's a cocktail. And it people are owned. What is this? It's a fun thing to do. You can copy me too, and take credit. I don't need it. I my well is deep. We may, I don't you probably didn't hear this episode, but I think we mentioned in one episode serving. Maybe our first episode which must have been something that I heard from you. Um but serving it in a little shot glass just with a kickoff and I okay. Yeah, that's all right. Because bean broth is like I people really don't know what to do with it. I think it drives me crazy when I hear that. It's like do you ever make rice? Replace the water with the bean broth. And it gives it that you know, a rose pompo, like chicken and rice. The rice usually is incredibly fabulous, and it's not necessarily fat, it turns out. It's really something, and the something can be bean broth just as easily as chicken stock. Right, right. That's such a good idea. Because I think people usually, yeah, turn to like soup or that kind of thing, which is a great use for it too. We just had um some friends of mine were listening to one of the podcasts where we talk, I guess we talk about bean broth all the time, but um, they were like, they were like, Ellie, we've we're listening to salt pig and we saved our bean broth, and what should we do with it? And um, it was it was a really funny text to get from people, just where it's like, normally you're talking about other things, and I was like, these two worlds are converging. Well, it's also funny you weren't listening because you don't know what to do with it. If you were listening and paying attention, he would know exactly what to do with the bean broth instead of wasting my time on the phone. Exactly. I'm like, go back to episode three, five, seven, nine. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. And I'll just also say for soup, in Michoacan, there's sopa tarasca, and it's a third chicken stock, a third bean broth, and a third puree tomatoes. And then it's because of that, you can kind of make any kind of soup. And then they would fry tortilla strips on top, and that is also that bacon love, even though it's not bacon, but it's it's something substantial. But you can kind of make up any soup, and if you do a third, a third and a third, it's a great base for that. So I think full-on bean broth is a little bit too much for soup. I think it is, yeah. Yeah, okay, yeah. A little too murky. For for beginners, anyway. For me, for the hardcore bean people, hanging on, yeah. All right. I um oftentimes people when they talk about beans and trying to sell people on them, they're like, it all comes down to salt. And I've found that to be true that getting the seasoning right is pretty crucial. But um, when you have really nice beans and you have really good heirloom beans, can you go overkill with the salt? Like, is that something to be more careful with when you have a more delicately flavored beans? I don't know. I think the salt, and for me, finishing it with olive oil is something I almost always do. And between those two things, we're good. But the question is if you don't salt early enough, you're gonna have uh salty bean broth and bland beans, which you don't want. So, I mean, that's a bigger issue, I think. And it takes a while for the salt to get into the bean, so you do want to do it before they're finished. Okay. Do you do have either I mean, I'm sure both of you have tried this, but there's this whole thing where you brine beans ahead in like salt water. Have you guys it's it's do you believe in that? I've never tried it. I don't do that either. It's like I don't have trouble cooking beans, so right. No, I know. I'm kind of like, why why mess with just an extra life's hard already? I mean, all it all involves though is just adding a handful of salt when you soak the beans, but you don't really even soak them deep down. I don't soak. You know, I do now. Isn't that funny? Well, I have friends from high school. If you're my friend, I'm like a lobster, or what do you call it? Barticle. Like I can't leave. So I have friends from high school, and we go hiking every Sunday morning at this beautiful Jack London Park nearby. And I will put the beans on to soak while I'm gone, and then when I come back, and it's only these aren't epic hikes, so it's only a couple hours. And I why not? I don't, it just seems like if it it does speed it up, but yeah, the worst thing to me is to oh, I can't have beans because I forgot to soak them. It's like, oh, you can do it, just go ahead and do it. Are you doing like a quick soak in like boiling water? And then boiling. Well no, because that's cooking or cold cooking. It's cooking. I think for me. You might as well just start cooking them if you're gonna do that. Yeah. No, I just put them in cold water. And I keep the soaking water because of Harold McGee in his on food and cooking. He says that you potentially are throwing out uh whatever minimal digestive issues you're curing by changing the water, you're actually possibly throwing out flavor and nutrients. So it's it's so minimal what you you're throwing out that it's not worth doing. Oh, I didn't know that. But don't tell your Italian grandmother that, because she'll go crazy. And then your Mexican grandmother's like, why are you even soaking them? So it's everybody, there's many roads lead to Rome, I always say. Yeah. Lucas's uh confid white beans is we, you know, in the bean club, we have a couple of recipes that are the recipes, and they're pizza beans from Dem Perlman. And the idea of them is like, yeah, whatever. And then you make them say, Oh no, this is insane. And the same thing with Lucas's. It's like, well, what? There's sauteed beans? I don't get it. And then it's like it is like the surefire. Like those are the two recipes I think everybody who wants a recipe should try. So congratulations to you. Yeah, that's amazing. That makes me so happy. No, you should uh be eavesdrop in the book group sometime. We can't let you run unless you're a member, but are you a member? I am a member. I've been a member. I was trying to figure out when I joined, it was at least 10 years ago. How long has the beef club been around? These are questions I should know, but I don't know. Okay. I think 2013. I think I may have joined in like 2015 or 2016. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really at some point it'd be like, okay, now it's this thing. And we actually, at first it was sort of like this is so silly, we'll just do it. And then it became like, oh, now we're having the Facebook group has 9,000 people in it out of 30,000 members, which is kind of that's a real high thing. And we've got a woman, Monica, here, who was really mean like if you quit the bean club, you're out of the group. I mean, it's really a benefit for bean club people, yeah. Yeah, which is maybe not nice, but I don't know. Uh, and so that's it's a third of those people are on the Facebook group, and everybody's I hate Facebook, but this is the one thing I'm standing with. That's exactly me. I need to get I because I have gone into the bean club on Facebook, and it's it's such it's like the most delightful place on the internet. It is. That's why you don't let you wear this. Yeah, you're not a part of it. You should Google yourself. I I won't tell. But I mean, within the Facebook group, you are very popular. Oh wow, Lucas. It's just one of those recipes. I don't have one, believe me. That's so funny. That's the smoky confid beans. Yes. Are there's olives in it, right? There's olives, yeah. You know, I have an olive tree and I bring my own olives uh well because everyone here takes them down to the olive press and it's like, oh, I'm part of the community. Now you're not. You're getting everybody else's. It's like I don't know what you're doing. And it's like, I'm gonna and you can get well until recently, you can get olive oil pretty well. I mean, pretty great at a great price, but uh it's like no, I'm not cure them, so I do. It's fine. Does that involve just packing them in salt, or do you make a brine from the uh I did that one year and it's like I found it they're just really only good for cooking, they're great for cooking, but it really is. No, I uh soak them in, I change the water every day and then I do a brind. Um I always have to look at the instructions at the beginning of every season. And where I live, the green ones are better just because by the time they get black, they start getting bugs. But some years though, actually, this year we didn't have that. But I got I have two trees and I got 30 pounds of uh olives. Wow, Napa's in an unusual place. So California's just the best. Yeah. In that sense, yeah. We've got a couple of problems, but yeah, yeah, I'm saying it. Two or one. Yeah, the food, the food systems. Yeah, that's so cool. They make tapa all the time now, and I love anchovies, and I have very screamish friends. It's like that is so strong, but it's like, oh, just I'm alive. I finally remember, I'm eating this stuff. Wow because it's garlicky, anchovy, olives. It's not for everyone, but that sounds so good. That's right. For the right people, I'd say do you spend a lot of time in the garden still? Yeah, well, not enough, I always say. But this year, the last couple years I have. And the most exciting thing is I have this uh ayakote bean that's from Oaxaca, and they call them three halon there, and it's called Grease, and I remember seeing it in the market. It's like it's gunmetal gray. How is this even? I've never seen a bean. It's the most beautiful solid-colored bean. So we tried to plant it commercially, and it just takes forever, and it really likes most ayakote or runner beans prefer cool nights. So in the Central Valley, it's not gonna happen, but we're doing different experiments. But I planted this bean two or three years ago and it receded itself, and then this year it just never died. So I actually have long beans on it, and flowers and old dried beans ready to be harvested all at the same time. And it's a real miracle, it just makes you want to go out and hang out there a lot. And you can eat the flowers, which are delicious, on runner beans. The regular beans are mediocre, but uh, it's pretty great. And they think that ayakote were the first cultivated crop in the Americas. So when ag was happening, it was where they went from hunter-gatherers and foragers to ag this with runner beans. Wow. Wow, I'd never Sophie Co. in America's First Cuisines. I sighted because I didn't make that up. That's so cool. It always comes back to the bean. It does. Doesn't it? I know it's a book title. I wanted my next book to be called Beans, who knew? But I can use this book too. Yours works too. That could be your memoir. Yeah, totally. Which would be so interesting. Simple beans, simple beans, simple beans, every chapter. So you make a pot of beans. Do you have different practices with your beans, like different things that you like to taste with your beans in the summer? I guess California climate, you're you're not dealing with as many extremes as we are on the East Coast, but I feel like so many people think about beans as like winter food. And I know I cook with beans differently in the winter, and now that it's like getting hot out, like I have my like marinated beans that I make every week, but I'm like, I'm trying to branch out a little bit on what I'm gonna be doing in the next couple months, if you guys have any ideas. I think it's interesting that every hot country has the best soups. So I mean, I think limiting soup or beans to winter is you're shutting out. I mean, you think like in India or or even in Mexico, I mean, you just soup's just always there. And beans would be like, people eat hot food all the time. I know. They do silly. And I just think it is funny that some of the best soups are from super hot country countries. So I'd keep that in mind with beans too. But if I have a pot, you know, the first one is just me eating them, and then maybe I'll do something recipe-ish, like Lucas' comp feed beans, or and then the next time I'm making a salad, oh, I have the beans. I don't make it a bean salad necessarily, so I'm just gonna throw some of the beans in there. Yeah. And even though I say I don't care about protein and fiber, it's like, well, okay, at least I'm getting some protein in the salad, I can have the salad for dinner. Yeah, and then this one or maybe you make a soup, but at the end, lately I used to do refried beans, where I take really beautiful or rendered lard with a white onion and saute it and then mash the beans. But actually now I just put an immersion blender in, and it's like, this is almost just as good. Oh, yeah. To be honest. So there's something about pureeed beans. Like, if you sometimes I'll look at the end of the beans that I've had all week. It's like I just can't again. I want something new. But once you puree them, it's like I can't stop eating them. Oh, for sure. It's there's just something about it. Oh yeah. So that goes on all year then, is what I would say. Right. Okay. Yeah. I make a lot of bean dips. The kids really love, I mean, obviously, like kids love hummus, but really any any bean dips they're really into. And the immersion blender really does make it so convenient when um when you get down to the end to the dregs. For sure. It's always a good thing to do. True refried beans are a thing of beauty, but it doesn't mean you have to do that every time. You can still curate them and have a very great dish. We sell a wood machadora, which is a masher, and it uh is the old proper way of making refried beans. Now I think most Mexican cooks would use a ricer in order to uh do that. But uh the machadora is a wood thing, and we sell hundreds of them a year. And the guy who makes it was like, What are these gringos buying these things? No one uses these. But we love that traditional authentic experience. So we sell hundreds of them. It's very funny. And they're also good if you ferment, if you're mashing your cabbage in the beginning, it's a perfect tool to mash it down. So it has multiple uses. Yeah, yeah, it's not a single use, single-use thing. Well, do you guys occasionally you occasionally sell the clay pots for the clay pot cooking of beans and other foods, too? Do you have those in in stock now? Yeah. And that's the same thing too. The woman who makes those. The first year we ordered 30 of them, and she said, you know, why do I do this Gringozy to McDonald's? No one's gonna buy these. It's a stupid wasting my time. And to call her in a week and say they're gone, and to write stereotypes on both sides of the board is really fun. And we saw hundreds of them. And talk about another sacred place on the internet, the Claypot Cooking Club on Facebook. It's just the best people and people just ecstatic about their cooking experiments, and it's great. Oh, that's cool. I have never tried though, I've never tried, I don't have a clay pot. I want to try that out. Yeah, we can fix that. Well, you know what's so sad, it's like I have uh one or two too many clay pots. Like that's a good problem to have. I'd probably have like 50 clay pots down in my basement between I have like a cooking store in my basement, and I love that. But I just discovered copper pots, which many years ago someone gave me a really expensive French William Sonoma copper pot. I made something in it and all the tin melted immediately. And I I thought it was just I made something with tomatillos, but I think now I've learned is you just you can't preheat them because it melts the tin. So you always have to have something in there, and even if it's just butter, because the liquid from the moisture from the butter will help keep the temperature at a decent thing. So I think I must have because the first time I used it, I thought, I hate copper, these are stupid. And then there was an antique store here in Napa, and I bought three just because they were a good price. And it's like, I love these things, and then now, of course, I'm goddamn, I have a Daubier, I have uh a cauldron, I have it's insane. I have a lot of them. And then there's a guy in Sacramento who retins because the tinning lasts, I think, for about 10 to 15 years normally with constant use, and you have to have it retinned, which is a pain. Um, and this is the joy of owning a business like this. I said, why don't you use a rancho gordo as your dropping off and pickup place? So every three weeks he comes and picks up and brings back the old ones. And it's just because I don't want to drive to Sacramento, but it also brings out the right customer and the right kind of person who could be your friend. Because if you think this insane way of cooking is worth it, I want to know you. Yeah. So it's been very fun. And so I'm not giving up clay, but uh yeah, it's uh funny, these copper pots. And then my friend Sarah Scott, who's a chef who used to work at Mondavi, she really is one of those people that defined wine country cooking, whatever that is. But she told me the taste of things, that movie is a French movie. Uh it's all about copper pot cooking. It's just not it's more about more, but it's one of the most fun. The first 20 minutes are the symphony with no dialogue of them cooking. And you guys would love it, I think. Oh my gosh. And I thought looking it up. Are there copper cooking traditions in like Central and Southern America, or is it this primarily a European Western thing? Yeah, I think most except for in Mexico, they have a thing called a caso, which is a pot that has it looks like a jam pot, and that's the proper way to make carnitas. You should do a copper pot and also nopales. So if you're cooking cactus paddles, the bobble, the stickiness, the it's like a snail, really, in a copper pot and a copper wire in a garden. Wow, interesting. It reacts to that. So we're actually looking, I'm gonna be going in a couple weeks to to looking to import small copper causals for making nopalis, because the big one I it's so big I tend not to do it. So I think oh, but I had little individual ones and I found them, so I think we might be bringing those up. Oh my gosh. As well. It's tend to be me sometimes. Do you go go down? Uh do you go out on like travel work travel trips? Yes. Annually, a couple times a year. Is it still two to three times on a good year? This year I've been doing a lot of domestic stuff for some reason. Like I went to New York where I saw you guys. So that was very fun. We did the superiority dinner, superiority burger dinner, and it sold out in three minutes, they said. Oh my god. I was on, I had my finger hovering over the purchase button, waiting for that thing to be live. I was in the first two minutes. I was so lonely at the beginning in the farmer's market. No one wanted beans. Nobody, it's like, ugh. They I mean I always told this story, but it's true. They'd think, oh, I love nuts. Ooh, beans. They just had no interest. And now to have to sell out in three minutes is so wild. And then we did a series of dinners at uh farm two people in Brooklyn, and those sold out in a couple of hours. They were huge rooms. So yeah. And we did the same thing in I went to Asheville earlier, and there's a great Spanish restaurant called Curate, and that sold out, and they asked us to do another night. So we did. What do you what do you make of that? That you couldn't have predicted this this kind of success with beans. You know, they say the unexamined life is not worth living, but that's exactly what I have. I'm just doing it. I don't reflect a whole lot. I do think the little bit I would say is you have to follow your passions. I think it makes you a much more interesting person. And there's this weird pressure to be part of the mainstream. And as a young gay man, I thought, no, you are not invited to this party for sure. But what else is there? So I'm not really into superhero movies. I've never seen one. The one I saw I hated. And it's like, but there's actually a whole world of movies, it turns out, about superheroes. So, really, I think if you follow your passions, eventually you find your tribe, and you actually have a much more interesting life than getting upset because Marvel wasn't represented by the studio the way you believe. I mean, I just find that so boring. And whereas, oh my god, Elephants Gerald saying this? It's like, and discovering those things is so much more interesting to me. And everyone should do what they want, but I think culturally we're in a weird place, and uh there's still a lot out there. So even though the internet has given us access to everything, I think it is pushing us towards this kind of banal boarding center. Yeah, so for us. Yeah. No, but it's find your tribe, that's the secret, I think. Yeah. If I had gone to a bank and said, Oh, I want to start an heirloom bean business, they would have laughed me out of the I mean, so that's the secret. If they won't invite you to their party, start your own. And eventually they're gonna come around. It's if it's a good one. Yeah, or maybe they won't have a better time. But some other people will, yeah. Yeah, and the right people. Not the right people, but that sounds judgy, which I God knows, I'm not judging. Us neither. Yeah, we don't know. Just yeah, that your people and it's important to find them. And also, I think being an example is better than being preachy. Like the tendency is like you should do this because of this, this, and this, and this. But it's like, oh look, he's doing that, and oh, he's eating well. And uh that I find that much more interesting. Ellie and I really feel that. I feel like in the food space, at least my corner of it, it's constantly, especially dealing with publishers and this idea of like comp comparative titles where you they want to, you know, see what types of books you can compare yours to so as to predict you know, like the sales potential for it. And it's always like everything feels a little bit derivative of other stuff, you know. Yeah. And they have no imaginations, really. But there's a lot of money on the line. But I mean, I'm really happy now, but sometimes there's not a lot of talent on the line. So people who don't necessarily have a ton of talent are making big decisions, and I find that frustrating. Yeah. So I mean especially when you're talking about creative things. I mean, you really want to have some yes, but at the same time, rails are good, like having these boundaries, like is too much freedom is also hard when you're writing a book. Like I can write about anything. It's like, oh, that that's not good. You really it's nice to have a great editor who you trust and an agent who will fight for you and uh a house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard. That's kind of rare, but it's like one of those usually is screwed up with the same. Does the um Rancho Gordo work feel creative still? The luxury of getting bigger is you can fire yourself for the bad stuff, or what I can, but there's still some. So no, it is very creative. I mean, I literally write the newsletters. I sit in a program called Omniscent and start to write. I don't even do it in Word, and then Julia, who's my co-author and our general manager here, will edit it. Um, which is uh, you know, it's probably not always the best writing, but it definitely is this is what's on my mind. I try and keep it more neutral than and then I wrote, but you know, sometimes that's hard because it's a very personal company in that sense. But yeah, no, no, it's very creative. And then coming up with the recipe part, I've happily more and more I'm giving up because I like we said I don't care, so it's hard to and if I do write a recipe, it's because I do care, or so that part's boring. Um I think I have a clear aesthetic, but we now have a man who is uh Howie who does he started doing social well, he started in the warehouse, then he's doing social media, and now he's an incredible photographer who works with a stylist, and everybody feels like they're learning from each other. Um no, it feels actually more creative now than it used to, because I don't have to. I mean, I have a wonderful bookkeeper and an accountant, but don't tell them what I don't care. We bounce the checks? Great, okay. Let's just keep going then. That's cool. That's such a it's a luxury. I I appreciate it. Which also I think when you're younger, if you I always say if I had success too much early, I wouldn't have appreciated it. And I think you get it later because I started at Rancho Gordo when I was 40. You get lightning in a bottle, it's like, okay, this isn't gonna happen again, so you have to really enjoy it and then make the most of it. Yeah, throw yourself into it. And so far, Docwood hasn't gone away, so I'm totally appreciative. My brother-in-law um gives my husband and I um like a gift box from Rancho Gordon every year, and it's it's it's literally like my favorite present every year. It's so fun to, it's so thoughtful, and it's that's always And does he pick out the beans for you? He gets one of the pre-I mean, I order my own private stash, but it's like the thought of that, the thought that someone's like, Well, Ella really likes beans, so I'm gonna get her the selection of beans is so sweet. It's just like it's it's very thoughtful. And it's it reminds me of what you're saying in terms of like, you know, there's something about um finding the people who really sort of understand your language. So that's it's nice to have that language be beans. Sure. Yeah. Sort of ultimate fighting championships. Yeah, I guess. No, no, beans are nicer. So we always close out each episode by discussing what our dinner plans are each night. Do you know what you're having for dinner tonight? I know it's early there right now, but a little bit, yeah. And often we're always like, we ask each other this question, and we know the question's coming, and we're still like, uh leftovers. Yeah. You know, that's you know, with this Monjaro, that is the one thing that I will say is better, is I'm not you have breakfast, what's for lunch? I mean, you are always they call it food noise, and it really is amazing how it's like, oh, I haven't even thought about it. I don't even know what I'm gonna do. It's kind of a joy. Like it's it takes certain pressure off, but there's a lot of pleasure in planning what's gonna be happening. So I'm it's Friday as we're recording this, and I uh have to go to the grocery store, and I'm gonna go to our favorite Costco here in Napa, which I'll tell you, we have it's such an easy, it's like going to the grocery store. It's not that hard here. Yeah, it's not a great Costco because I there's one over in Novato that has a cheese section that I if I were a cheese monger, I'd be really worried. Like these guys have it down. But for some reason, our Napa one has only the basics. But I need to go to Costco, so I will get a rotisserie chicken. I have beautiful Pardina lentils, which is a Spanish lentil that we found the grower because no one wants them here. They're from uh we export 100% to Spain. It's like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, we want these. So we've had a huge success with these. They're kind of nutty uh brown lentils, and I'm someone who grew up hating lentils because my mother would get them at the food co-op, and they were probably years and years old. And I thought, that's for hippie food. I don't like lentils at all. But it turns out I was totally wrong. So I have the lentils. I'll probably get one of the Rito Cerri chickens, which aren't great, but it's Friday night and I've worked all week. It seems fine. Sometimes it really, it really hits. I find their salad mixes are not great, and I'm sure this is regional. Um, I and I go to the farmer's market, I'll be going to the farmer's market tomorrow morning anyway. So, but I do love those clamshells of arugula, which I've discovered they're almost too much because right now I'm living alone, but you can actually put them into cooked food, like just as this going, put it in the beans, and it's like, oh, I have beans and greens. It's not great, but it's fine. But yeah, arugula and the pickled shallots I have left over. Yeah, I think I'll do that and call that a salad. And then I think the bread there is pretty sad for our one. It's not great. And someone said, Oh, you should get the pita. And it's like, no, it's not good either. For me, at least our Napa one, it doesn't. So I'll save the bread for tomorrow. I've got a great uh baker in the Napa farmers market. So it's kind of boring, but I will be really happy to have socks. I get to go through and watch this as I'm eating this, or whatever I get at Costco. So but it is honestly, it's not ours is you're in and out, and it's not a big deal. I think, Ellie, this is a New York thing. It's not other other Costco's are not like this. Yeah, I think that's true. Now we know. Ours at Christmas has Malden salt, like big tubs of Malden salt. Oh, they have that here too. I love that. I love those. It's amazing. So they're very smart. And we actually went to them about eight years ago, and we all agreed it was too soon. I wasn't the right customer for them. But they do a lot of green stuff that they don't advertise, like their own coffee is green or uh fair trade. They it's a very interesting corporation. Totally. But horrible logos. I think Kirkland logo is bad, and I think the Costco logo is horrific. So I wrote that I was good. People are like wearing them. People, it's now become fashion. Yeah, I can't do it. But I'm happy for them. I'm it's good for them. What are you guys cooking? My mother-in-law is visiting, so I think we were gonna have uh we're gonna grill some burgers. We're gonna keep it really simple. It's a gorgeous day here in New York, so we were like, we just wanted to do something where we could all sit outside the green little burgers, and maybe I'll like roast some potatoes or something. Let's just keep it really simple. Lucas knows that we have a lot of lettuce in our garden now, so we'll probably have a salad. But it's gonna be that that basic. Yeah. Classic. Yeah. Lucas, what are you doing? And well, I also have my dad, my stepmom, and my Stepbrother uh and his wife are here. So we're gonna do something upstairs on the roof where there's a grill. Oh fun. Because that as Ellie was saying, we have like finely some nice, like even weather. It's not it's hot but not gusty and uh not too hot. And um, so I think we might grill some chicken and grill some I don't know, I'm gonna see what the vegetables look like. I have to go to the farmer's market or to the grocery store as well. Yeah, but um it'll be kind of an early, early evening dinner. Are they all staying with you? Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. That's another part about being a grown-up too. Like you get to a certain age, it's like, I'll stay in a hotel. It's fine. I don't need to stay with you. Well, we kind of have space. We have an extra bedroom, so that's always people though. For that's more than one bedroom, it sounds like that's true. That's true. But it'll never be a little bit more. As long as it's temporary. Yeah, yeah. No, it's fun to have a crazy house. Yeah, but just eating outside is so fun. Yeah. You talked about dessert at the dinner party as you start with the dessert. I never do dessert. Because if someone says, Oh, I'll bring it, I just like dessert. No, I'm not gonna do that. Isn't that funny? I think I just love baking, so I'm always happy. I have a huge sweet tooth. And you're a very good baker. Like you can really really throw down some stuff. I have those Japanese pock pox, I think they're called, the pretzels with chocolate dips. I just keep them there, and then I have coffee and amari and then hair and eat that. That's your dessert. We've started buying like boxes of ice cream novelties to keep in the in the freezer, and I have to say, everybody goes nuts for them. If they're like, Oh, who wants a Klondike bar? Everyone's like, Yes, please. Or even like the the Crasdale brand ice cream sandwiches, you know, like the grocery store. Any of them I get excited about those. Yeah, yeah. But I couldn't keep them in my freezer. Steve, Steve, come eat me. There's one left. There's six left. There's one left. I couldn't do it. So I'll I'll when you come to dinner, you can bring dessert. That would be great. Oh, happily. Yeah, even if it's ice cream bars or a famous uh creation. I would love that. Oh well, thank you so much, Steve. This has been so fun. Steve, it means so much to us. Thank you so much for joining us. It was just awesome. Enjoy your dinner tonight. Enjoy your Costco run. Yeah. Okay, thanks. It's not too hectic. Okay, bye guys. Bye. Well, that was amazing. Thank you so much, Steve, for joining us. It was such a special episode, and um, I know all of our listeners love beans too, so hopefully you guys enjoyed it as much as we did. Oh, so fun, so cool. And I'm definitely that tip about um cooking rice with bean broth, I was acting like that was just the status quo, but I've never done that. I've never done that either. I'm going to do that as well. Um and I am going to also start cooking in the soaking water. I didn't realize you were wasting away all the nutrients, and so yeah, I'm gonna start cooking in the soaking water now. Yeah, gonna be awesome. And one last thing, if you have enjoyed this episode or any of our episodes and you have not yet, we would really appreciate you leaving a rating or a review for um our podcasts on whatever listening platform you use. It just really helps to sort of raise the profile and help our podcasts find new listeners. We so appreciate it. Yeah, thank you guys. Thank you so much. Okay, until next time. See you soon. Bye.