But all of these steps are always changing us, always moving us one way or another. In life, there are big steps like moving to Nashville, and then there are small steps, like starting a newsletter or choosing a new type of flour or writing in a journal every day. And that even though a certain change seems Big, it’s necessary. It’s a hard thing to explain, to people who aren’t changing with you when you switch something big and obvious – be it career, location, relationship, school, or clothing choices – that in some ways we are all always changing. In the first couple of years, in fact, some loving friends even wondered if this new man in my life might be changing things too much. To many people who knew me before I met Tim, the way my life has gone in the years since I met him has sometimes seemed like a whirlwind of new things. Mostly, I remember eating a full plate of these myself, alongside slices of toast if I remember correctly, thinking this man sitting next to me was full of information and surprises, and that he was someone from whom I wanted to learn. I remember a large, deep skillet on his stove and the aroma of sauteing garlic floating from the kitchen to the living room. While most nights we worked side by side, Tim chopping vegetables while I worked over the stove, on that first night when we shared these green beans, he did all the work. Tim first made Italian green beans like this for me after I moved to Nashville, in those early months when we lived 20 minutes – instead of eight hours – away from each other and could make dinner together every night. It’s the way his mom made them, and the way her mom made them before her. I’ve even learned how to use my pressure cooker to shave off some cook time.īut here is the way Tim likes green beans best, the way he grew up eating them throughout a childhood lived five hours east of mine: Italian-style, soft and wilty, submerged in chopped tomatoes and infused with garlicky oil. Years later, as an adult in my early blogging days, I’d been adventurous enough to roast green beans on high heat and cover them with lemon juice, marveling at the blistered, crunchy results. Sometimes my mom toasted slivered almonds to place on top, and there was a green bean casserole at every Thanksgiving meal, a welcome addition to the usual list of our favorite side dishes. I grew up in a family that ate green beans boiled, the same way we ate peas or carrots (and NOT the good kind!), alongside mashed potatoes and chicken dinners. That statement came from a perspective not unlike most people’s in America, I think – or at least one not too different from that of the people I knew or the ones I watched on TV. “I think they’re probably the vegetable I like best.” “Yeah, I like green beans, too,” I remember telling him on the phone, categorizing vegetables into levels of like and dislike, cabbage being on the low end and green beans being ranked high. We’d already been talking for a few months when he posted a picture of this particular dish on social media one night, a plate piled so high with green beans and sauce, you’d think it was the side dish at a dinner party for four rather than the happy, hearty main meal enjoyed by one 20-something-year-old man. It was the kind that happens on the phone and over email, alongside Twitter updates and photos posted to Instagram. When I make Italian-style green beans, I think of Tim – the man who brought them, along with avocados and perfect grilled cheese sandwiches and raw milk bought straight from the farmer – into my life.Īlthough we met in person for the first time on a long January afternoon in 2010, and began visiting each other’s towns every month shortly thereafter, Tim and I grew to know each other over a full year of long-distance conversation. When Tim makes Italian-style green beans, he thinks of his grandma Emily, a beautiful Italian woman with short white hair and smiling blue eyes, who would explain a recipe with a flick of her wrist and an, “Oh, it’s so simple!”
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