The inception point for this project was when a friend said that restrictive New Year’s resolutions are bad, and that permissive resolutions are good. So I gave myself permission to say yes to beans, all the forms of the Fabaceae family.
The rule is simple: If there is an option to experience or learn about a bean family plant, from food to learning about the weeds in the yard or beautiful flowers, you do it. You say “yes”.
I do not have to have a role in this, this is work you do for yourself.
But I have tried to present curated collections, roughly divided into genus, related uses, or related ecologies that help supplement and to push the boundaries of what people can find for themselves.
It will be different, I am not doing the same collections again, but I will continue this work next year too. I’ll make a post in the coming weeks of my rough outline of what I hope to accomplish. There are still plant stories I want to tell. And there are still plant stories where I feel an obligation to present to people what they should know, mostly to do with our food supply and ecological resiliency. From my perspective working in food industrial supply chains, the absolute marketing hogwash that defines the public debates about what we eat occludes a real path forward to eating better food that’s lighter on the land. I hope, in so much as this small project can, to explore a better narrative with physical examples.
Have a Beanly New Year!
Brian
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