The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover. Recipe by Mark Reid

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingslover

 The read for April is The Bean Trees by a favourite author of Foodie Book Club, Barbara Kingslover.

 An American novelist, essayist and poet, Barbara Kingslover was born in Maryland, raised in rural Kentucky and as a child, lived briefly in Africa.

 She worked as a free-lance writer after earning degrees in Biology from DePauw university and the University of Arizona before moving onto novels.

 Barbara often writes about social justice, relationships and interactions between character, communities, environments and life.

 Each of her books published since 1993 have been on The New York Times Best Seller list and she has received numerous awards, including the UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for The Lacuna and the National Humanities Medal.

She’s also been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

 In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change."

 The Bean Trees was first published in 1988 and again ten years later. It’s main character, Taylor Greer, showed up in the sequel a little later.

Living her first years in rural Kentucky where she dreams of two things; getting away from there as soon as she can, and not getting pregnant.

 Taylor heads west when she’s handed a three-year-old American Indian child by a random stranger and decides to take care of it.

The Bean Trees follows their lives during the child’s (Turtle) early years as Taylor tries to put down some roots.

 It’s a story with themes about love, friendship, motherhood, life, death, belonging, abandonment, friendship and the discovery of personnel resources.

 It covers some heavy hitting topics such as Native American parental rights and some critiques thought that the sequel, Pigs in Heaven, was written as a way to correct some of the misconceptions the first book had perpetuated by Barbara Kingslover.

For this book i’m giving a 3 1/2 egg rating .

The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingslover

3 1/2 Egg Rating

Pan-Fried Fillet of Sea bass with Borlotti Beans and Chorizo

Pan-Fried Fillet of Sea bass with Borlotti Beans and Chorizo by Mark Reid

Ingredients

• 2 Sea bass fillets 170g filleted, scaled and pinned

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Sea salt

• 100g Borlotti beans fresh, or dried (soak for 12 hours at room temp if dried)

• 8 Cherry or datterini tomatoes

• 2 Rosemary sprigs

• 2 Garlic cloves

• 50g Chorizo

• 50g Butter unsalted

• Handful of spinach or if you can acquire it sea vegetables such as sea aster or sea beet

 Method

• Set the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.

• Place the beans in a suitable braising dish, preferably with a lid (if not cover with tin foil after adding all the ingredients).

• Halve the tomatoes, crush the garlic and add to the beans with the rosemary.

• Cover the ingredients with enough water so that there is double the liquid to solid ingredients.

• Cover the dish and place in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the beans are soft.

• Remove the rosemary and garlic.

• Drain the beans but reserve some of the cooking liquid.

• Wash the spinach or sea greens and set aside for blanching later.

• Set a small pan of seasoned water on.

• Dice the chorizo into small finger nail sized cubes.

• In a small saucepan over a medium heat, add the chorizo.

• Stir occasionally and the chorizo should emit its oils.

• Once the chorizo is lightly fried, add the beans and some of the bean cooking liquor to create a light broth.

• Add half of butter to thicken the sauce.

• Place a non-stick frying pan on to a high heat and add a small amount of olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan.

• Score the skin side of the fish.

• Generously coat the fish in olive oil and season both sides with sea salt.

• Once the pan is smoking, add the fish, skin side down.

• Press down on the sea bass fillets to ensure the fish remains flat and the skin will evenly cook.

• After a minute reduce the heat by 25% and continue to cook on the skin side.

• It should take about 3-4 minutes or until the skin is crispy.

• Add the remaining butter and turn the fish for the last 1minute of cooking, basting the skin with the butter.

• Quickly blanch the spinach/sea greens for a minute. And then begin to plate the dish.

• Beans on the base, fish on top and the greens scattered over the top.

• Chanterelle mushrooms are a great addition to dish if they are available.