The beans had been in the crock pot since noon and were ready to serve at least a couple of hours before I was ready to eat them. It was the aroma that made me want to wait. I stirred them more often than I needed to, just to get an extra whiff at full strength. Actually serving myself would break the spell.

Or so I thought. In fact, the eating turned out to be the best part of the experience. Much better, in fact, than the chopping of the onions. I’ve studied videos of onion chopping in great detail on a couple of web sites, and it looks so easy until I try to do it. I tend to mangle things when I have a knife in my hand. My knife skills are easily the weakest part of my cooking.

Well, they’re the weakest part of my prep work, anyway. My biggest weakness is the fact that I don’t have an ease with blending flavors, so I tend to follow recipes more precisely than a real cook would. I measure more than necessary, and I stifle my imagination. That comes as a result of bitter experience. Bitter and sour and sometimes downright distasteful experience. Fool me once, won’t get fooled again, as a former public figure once said.

The onions, which are contradictorily enough not part of the original recipe, didn’t add much to the beans other than a slightly different texture. The whole kernel corn, a whimsical last-minute addition, made more of an impact, to be perfectly if unnecessarily honest. Next time, though, I’ll probably leave out both and go back to beans, beans and beans. Oh, and also diced tomatoes. Or maybe I’ll add some greens. I’m deep into dark greens these days.