Cool Beans

My very favorite TV and movie producer, Danielle Renfrew Behrens, first introduced me to that expression – “Cool Beans!” Danielle is also our honorary goddaughter and Bestie of our daughter, Sara. Speaking of Danielle, if you haven’t been watching Poker Face, you should! Peter Travers from ABC News calls it a “fabulously addictive mystery series;” other critics remark that Natasha Lyonne, the star, plays the role of an updated Columbo (I have to add two asides here: 1. we went back and watched the first Columbo, which debuted in 1971; the similarities between Charlie, Lyonne’s role in Poker Face, and Lt Columbo, Peter Falk’s role in Columbo, are hysterical; 2. after watching clips of the fascinating Alex Murdaugh trial, we were amused at someone’s comment: “Where is Poker Face when we need her?!”).

What’s the connection with Danielle and Poker Face? Though filmmaker Rian Johnson (think Knives Out and Star Wars) is the creator, writer, and director, the series’ co-executive producers are Danielle and Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph – through their Animal Pictures production company.

Danielle is cool; Poker Face is cool – but how cool are beans?

A recent article in the Washington Post refers to a study published last year in PLOS Medicine that found that the average person could add years to his/her/their life by switching from a typical Western diet to a healthier diet — and that the foods that produced the biggest gains in life expectancy were beans, chickpeas, lentils and other legumes.

“Figure out how to get a cup of beans into your diet every day,” says Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones American Kitchen. “Just one cup gives you half of all the daily fiber you need.”

Thinking about beans, Andy claims that beans remind him of sea serpents and gremlins from his dark past. Check out Andy’s Corner for more on this and for another of Andy’s riveting video productions.

For me, thinking about beans brings back vague memories of visiting Washington D.C. as a child in the early to mid-1950’s. My grandmother and grandfather (aka “Mom and Pop Hill”) were living in an apartment there, since my grandfather was then a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The one thing I remember most from that visit is going to lunch at the House cafeteria and being introduced to the Speaker, Sam Rayburn (“known affectionately as ‘Mr. Sam,’ Rayburn was a House institution who exerted his influence through skillful persuasion and humor rather than arbitrary rule.” Ahh, those were the days.)

And I remember the House Cafeteria’s bean soup.

Somehow that recipe has been remembered as “Senate Bean Soup” – with a few added ingredients (isn’t the Senate a little fancier than the House? 🙂

Maybe eating all that bean soup helped the Congressmen (were there Congresswomen then?) live long lives.

Because Andy and I are still obsessing over ChatGPT, I thought I’d see if it could give me a little more flavor-filled recipe update for the “Senate” soup. Here’s what I got (in an instant):

When asked about the origin of the phrase “cool beans,” ChatGPT responds: the exact origin of the phrase “cool beans” is uncertain, but it is believed to have originated in American slang in the 1960s or 1970s….Regardless of its origin, “cool beans” has become a popular expression used to express agreement, a sense of satisfaction, excitement, or approval.

I think we’d agree that there’s nothing better – or more satisfying – than a bowl of steaming-hot soup, a blazing fire, and a captivating TV series on a cold March night. Make a batch of bean soup ahead of time. Reheat – then relax and enjoy it all. Cool beans!