Jack had a gig with Larry (aka Morganfield Burnett) a coupla Saturdays ago, so the Nut and I went, too. It was down at Lake Casitas, just outside of Ojai -- not the most convenient place in the world to get to, so I had no idea what to expect. Turns out that somebody decided that our town's annual African American Festival was too easy to find in its old location, so they moved it 45 minutes south and inland and hid it behind several hundred RVs. Consequently, there were approximately fifteen black people there, and cadaver-white me, and the Nut wearing his "Are You My Daddy?" t-shirt:
Nice, huh? Don't thank me, thank the people at T-shirt Hell.
There were some good booths, of the African-masks-and-kente-cloth-clothing ilk, plus soul food up the wazoo. And, for some reason, Italian ices, which were a big hit with the Nut. But there was one booth in particular that kept me guessing:
The Bean Pie Man. "Ladies, if sweetness is your weakness, then have no fear, cause your sweet man is here!" (That's him on the left in the orange chef's toque.) I, in my ignorance, was initially repulsed by the idea of bean pie. But Jack, culinary adventurer that he is, walked right up to the guy, asked him what the hell was in a bean pie, liked what he heard, and bought one, along with a couple of slices of blueberry cheese and pineapple cheese, both of which had enough sugar in them to knock every last tooth out of your head.
Well, the next morning Jack thought it would be a good idea to feed the Nut a little bean pie for breakfast, and at last I, too, ventured a bite. Reminiscent of pumpkin pie, it was made with white beans and about 50 cups of sugar. The Nut was running around in a complete sucrose rage for about five hours after that. And the bean pie sat in the refrigerator for ten more days until it was dispatched to the garbage. But not before Jack said to me after dinner, ten nights in a row, "How 'bout a little bean pie?" He got a big chuckle out of that every time.