My friend, Matelda, came to my door yesterday with a clay cooking pot. The quintessential clay pot is unmistakably part of a cook's batterie de cuisine, but somehow I've come to be this old and never splurged on one. I have no answer as to why I never bought myself one, but having had one for all of two days here in Florence and breathing the fertile scent of earth, of clay, and of all things right in the world as our meal bubbles in the round, brown belly of the pot makes me nostalgic for times gone by. I had to cure the pot first by soaking it in water for 12 hours. At the market this morning, the first thing I noticed was the freshly hulled cannellini. So, remembering how my mother cooked our beans in a clay pot with a round belly like this one, I decided that had to be the first thing I cooked in my new pot: beans. The difference here is that when they're ready, we will eat them … [Read more...]