PINTO BEANS

I buy them weekly, maybe multiple times a week, for sure many times a month.

We cook dry pinto beans in the pressure cooker. They get refried. They are put into soups. They go into tacos.

Sometimes, nachos.

I go to my local market. I go to the dry food, bulk section. There are a selection of pinto beans.

My favorite are the organic pinto beans.

I’ve even bought these beans and used them in my garden. One year I bought them in dry bulk foods to plant in my garden. Without knowing much about it, they grew. Pinto beans from my garden.

In the last decade I have not shown up to this particular bulk food section and not been able to buy my dry pinto beans.

You get it?

COVID-19. The CORONAVIRUS.

It happened.

First, I laughed at the toilet paper raids. People stocking up on toilet paper for a virus with flu-like symptoms? I didn’t get it. By the time I did get it, I couldn’t find the toilet paper I needed.

Days later, I realized I needed to buy more food. Empty shelves. Empty meat sections. No bread. But, I still had dry beans in my house those days and so I didn’t go hunting for them. Why would I?

Then, it happened. I went to the local grocery store, to the dry bulk section. No pinto beans. None of any dry beans. Nothing.

Why? Why? Why?

The next day I returned. I found that there were still no dry beans.

I told a friend and she purchased a large quantity for me last week. What did I do with those 3 pounds of dried beans? I cooked them for my family. We refried some. We’ve made nachos. We eat them for breakfast. They are an option for a snack.

Those beans? We haven’t gone out to eat much, if at all. We are watching our budget. We are using these beans.

If you don’t eat dry beans, why buy them? Please leave some beans for the ones of us who eat them regularly.

Oh, and if you are new to eating dried beans, reach out. Some of us have been doing that a long time.

Who bough all of the Pinto Beans?