But aren't you right next to the Gulf of America?
That's all the more reason for him to feel lost. I'm sure that nice red state where he's been transported to is enough to give anyone the willies.
I have been cooking lentils and beans a lot lately. Lentils in soup, beans in chili and other soups. They are super nutritious and generally cheap. Onions, celery, and carrots in combo with various other vegetables and some broth make for good one pot meals. I freeze the excess. I don't know if you have a reasonable sized freezer, but that's a way to keep from getting tired of the same dish over and over for a week.
I was reading about Lima beans lately and didn't realize they were called that because they originated in south and central America. The proximity to Peru is why the lazy guys exporting them called them Lima, after the city, instead of using their Latin name (Phaseolus lunatus). In the north American south, they're called butter beans. I use the baby variety in soup. The larger variety is known as the Lima type while the baby ones are the Sieva type. There's a crazy chemistry that the beans have evolved to ward off spider mites, one of their main predators. Apparently one worm pisses the plant off to the point where it cranks out hydrogen peroxide in the leaves. Another defensive strategy involves the production of hydrogen cyanide. So it's really a good idea to cook them since the toxins are kind of off-putting.
A friend of mine gave me a handful of the heirloom Rancho Gordo scarlet runner beans that I soaked and sprouted and they have been coming back on their own for a couple of years. They are pretty climbing vines with deep orange flowers and they produce a kind of fuzzy string bean -they are very nice steamed with butter. I don't know if you have space for a garden, but you could probably grow some with some poles and a windowbox. They are hardy plants. I don't know how the harsh Florida sun would affect them, but I was surprised and pleased to see that they could be grown from dried beans you could buy at the grocer's. I'm tempted to make an effort with the dried butter beans I picked up yesterday.
Garbanzos are super nutritious, too, and I have been using them in soups and chilis to use them up because I have a large number of cans past their expiration date, but they are fine so long as the can is still intact.
And to finish off my rant about beans, here's Pete Seeger. I met him once a long time ago, and he was a lovely human being.
