There's little as frustrating as a missed opportunity - especially when the fate of the world is at stake.

I recently attended a downtown movers-and-shakers luncheon (not merely a lunch - how déclassé would that be..?) held by the University of California Press, sponsored by the megabucks financial service firm Northern Trust, and featuring as its speaker Gary Braasch, renowned environmental photographer and author of the recently released Earth Under Fire, one of the latest publications in the growing warming-warning genre.

Despite having at my table not only the lovely-and-talented Ms. Marilyn Bancel (my wife), but also the author of A Day in the Life of Africa and his assistant who happened to be a women's rugby player like my daughter, and despite sharing the room and copious fresh crab salad with dozens of captains of industry, high-level investors, and money managers - all invited by the Northern Trust sponsors - I did not have the assumed lovely time. In fact, I found the event to be a study in frustration.

Why? Because here was a leading environmentalist talking to a room full of high-powered investors, and he didn't spend one single sentence telling them how much money there is to be made in saving the world from climatic catastrophe. His talk focused - as do most discussions of global warming - on the gravity of the crisis, its effects that are already all too visible around the world, and of course those darling polar bears.

Not one word spoken in the language these financial types best understand: money.

It's abundantly clear to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that climate change is coming at us like a runaway freight train pulling 100 gondolas of coal. Even the diehard head-in-the-sanders who doubt mankind's influence over global warming admit that, yes, the world is, indeed, getting a wee bit toastier every day. The evidence is mounting, the effects are increasing, and the momentum is building.

So are the business opportunities.

Necessity may be best known as being the mother of invention, but it's also one hell of a salesman. As the effects of global warming become more and more pronounced, so will the necessity of actually doing something about it. Energy sources will need to be rethought, carbon sequestration schemes will need to be realized, transportation systems will need to be re-engineered, living and working quarters will need to be made orders of magnitude more efficient. And that's all going to take money. Lots and lots and lots of money.

But if all we ever think about is spending that money, we're missing out on the other half of the equation: earning that money. Someone is going to rethink energy, sequester carbon, fix transportation, and increase efficiency. And they're going to sell their ideas, products, services, and systems to the rest of us.

And they're going to make - and they're going to deserve - a ton of money for doing so. That's the way the system works. And if you want to be nationalistic about it, the longer we in the U.S. remain in denial about the technological challenges posed by global warming, the more likely it is that someone in, say, Singapore is going to eat our lunch.

And so when I sat there at that luncheon listening to Gary Braasch go on and on about receding glaciers, disappearing islands, and vanishing species, I groaned inside about the opportunity missed. In that room were men and women who control literally billions of dollars in investment funds, and Braasch didn't even allude to the fact that their decisions could both help save the earth and make them and their clients even richer.

Damn. Makes me wish I were a billionaire. [back to top]

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(Just a quick note: You may have noticed that I've been remiss in my regular postings. Well, first there was Thanksgiving and all its attendant preparations - and then I fell down the stairs. For the past few days I've been flat on my back with my leg elevated to reduce swelling and internal bleeding in my ankle and foot. It's slowly getting better, and I can now return to sitting in front of my trusty ol' Dual 2.7GHz Power Mac G5.)

The struggle over Palestine - which those of us who are in our middle years remember as the "Arab-Israeli Conflict" since the world "Palestine" used to be verboten - has been going on for a long, long time. How long? Well, I remember unwrapping a piece of tough-but-tasty Bazooka bubble-gum back when I was a teen and finding inside not the usual waxy cartoon featuring the red-T-shirt-wearing Bazooka Joe and his red-turtleneck-wearing buddy Mort, but instead a cartoon created by the same artist which indulged in the following schmear of - arguably hilarious - cultural insensitivity:

In the first panel, a ludicrously caricatured Arab dad - bearded, wearing a stereotypical parody of desert garb - pours himself a glass of orange juice. As he drinks it in the second panel, it explodes. In the third panel he appears with the classic cartoon just-exploded blackened head with rising smoke; his son runs in (ridiculously caricatured as well, of course) and asks, "Father! What happened?" Then, in the punch-line panel, the father shouts, "You idiot! I told you to bomb the Jews!"

Yes, folks, the conflict over Israel/Palestine has been gong on a long, long time - and now, after leaving it to fester for a full seven years, George W. Bush, that celebrated peacemaker, is going to try to kiss the boo-boo and make it better.

Good luck, George. I really, really, really, hope I'm wrong, but I don't have a lot of faith in the Annapolis summit that's scheduled to begin tomorrow.

First of all, the three principal actors - Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Palestinian National Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), and our own Dubya - are all weakend leaders unpopular at home and out of control of their own governments. Olmert's approval ratings have dipped into single digits due - among other things - to his perceived mishandling of the war with Hezbollah and the corruption scandals surrounding David Appel and Ariel Sharon's "Greek Island Affair" that reach into his campaign for Mayor of Jerusalem. Abbas's Fatah movement is in a life-and-death struggle with Hamas that has deteriorated to such a degree that Abbas was evicted from the Gaza strip after dissolving the Hamas-led "unity government" in June of this year. And George Bush is ... well ... George Bush, with a credibility level on the middle eastern street hovering well below zero, and creaking relationships with noted Arab democracy champions such as Suadi Arabia's King Abdullah.

Sounds promising already, doesn't it?

And then there's the fact that the agenda for the summit has not been set, but will, instead be developed on-site - never a good sign if decisiveness and progress is your goal. Adding to that uncertainty is the fact that Syria has agreed to attend only if Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights is given consideration along with the occupation of and settlements in the West Bank, the proposed partition of Jerusalem, Israel's security concerns, the right of return for members of the Palestinian diaspora, and other exceedingly touchy areas. What's needed are delicate and subtle negotiation skills, a low level of rhetoric, the imagination of true statesmen, and a spirit of principled compromise that can balance self-interest, fairness, and long-range thinking. What we have instead are Olmert, Abbas, Bush, and a fractious cast of oligarchical leaders from other unstable states.

Personally, I'm not holding my breath. But, as I said above, I really, really, really, hope I'm wrong. [back to top]

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Every once in a blue moon a piece of technology comes along that simply puts a big ol' smile on my face - and one such innovation will hit the market on December 7th: the Gibson Robot Guitar.

No, the GRG isn't robotic in that it plays itself. No, it's far, far better than that: The Gibson Robot Guitar tunes itself.

If you've ever wrestled with getting a guitar juuuuust perfectly in tune, you'll know why the inventor of the GRG should be considered for the next Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, global warming and all that climate change brouhaha may be important, but a guitar that tunes itself? We're talking Major Advancement here.

Guitars simply don't want to stay in tune. Whacking away at strings cause them to slip 'n' slide away from perfect intonation. Changes in temperature and humidity cause strings to expand and contract. Imperfect tuning heads unwind and aging strings relax. The fates conspire.

But the GRG uses a combination of intonation-sensing technology and robotically rotating tuning heads to tune up its six strings with the touch of a button - well, actually with several touches of a button. Check out this video to see what I mean:

Not only will the GRG tune up in standard EADGBE, but also in drop-D, open-G, and other alternate tunings. It even has a built-in feedback mechanism to help you perform such set-up agony as bridge-screw adjustment.

Sweeeet!

And the GRG is no mere gimmick. Its pickups, for example, are high-quality humbuckers: a mellow 490R and a spicier, hotter 489T. Its fretboard is an ebony, 12-inch-radius beauty. Its body is of the same multi-chambered construction as a Les Paul. This ain't no toy, boy.

The GRG will be in limited production this year, with full production set for late next year. If you want to see one - or play one - yourself, Gibson has a store locator on its website. Oh, and while you're on their website, check out the videos page for a bit of Web 2.0-style user-generated amusement.

Now if only Gibson would produce a 12-string model. If you've ever tried to tune one of those finicky beasties, you know what a world-changing development that would be. [back to top]

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In the ongoing debate about the use of torture by American forces and intelligence agencies, one question has been troubling me: Why bother torturing at all?

It's universally recognized that information obtained through torture is notoriously unreliable. The people who administer waterboarding, stress positions, sensory and sleep deprivation, and all of the other tools in our arsenal of unpleasantness must know this - after all, they're experienced professionals who have watched many a stressed victim tell them whatever they want to hear.

So why do they keep torturing? Some of them, of course, may simply be sadists; some of them may be seduced to the dark side by the total control they have over prisoners; and some may just be following orders. But if torture doesn't elicit reliable intelligence - and every professional whom I've read on the subject says that it doesn't - why then keep doing it? The people running America's intelligence agencies can't be so stupid as to continue such world-condemned procedures if doing so weren't benefiting them in some way.

Right?

Then it dawned on me: Torture is not about obtaining information; torture exists to suppress dissent.

If you know that at any moment you may be snapped off the street or out of your home and taken incommunicado to a "secure and undisclosed location" to be tortured, you'll damn well think twice about doing anything to anger the powers that be. If an entire population knows that one false step will bring on the dogs, chains, or waterboards, all but the most courageous - or foolhardy - will toe the line.

You don't need to feel a whip to know that it hurts. You don't need to have been tortured to know that it may break you. And if you believe that an occupying power is both savage and arbitrary, you'll do whatever you can to stay out of its clutches.

And so an occupying force benefits not from an individual's torture but, instead, from the belief throughout the occupied population that torture awaits those who step out of line.

And this is why Mukasey and his ilk won't firmly renounce torture - it's not to the benefit of the American military to have the Iraqi population think that torture has been firmly and effectively outlawed. Torture is far more effective as a broad-based psychological tool than it is as an interrogation methodology.

So don't expect torture to be publicly removed from the American PsyOps arsenal any time in the foreseeable future. After all, the guys running the Global War on Terrorism aren't stupid. Just ruthless. [back to top]

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We don't understand war here in America. To us, it's something that happens "over there" - something that soldiers do, and not something that civilians endure.

Today honors how on the eleventh hour of the the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the ... well ... eighteenth year, World War One ended. This "War to End All Wars" was the first in a string of major "over there" wars in which our neighbor's kids may have died, but during which we didn't worry about our homes - and ourselves - being burnt to a crisp, as did citizens of other countries in World Wars One and Two. We've had it easy.

I'm a pretty decent student of modern history, but the obscene mistake that was World War One remains a mystery to me. Oh, sure, I understand all the proximate causes and all the inter-governmental rivalries and wealth-control disputes, but I've come to the conclusion that the depths of horror to which World War One sunk was a case of governments over-reaching, failing to negotiate, and simply - well, to put it in the vernacular - fucking up. Hubris + nationalism + "honor" = death, death, and more death. Oh, and did I mention death?

A multi-million-death fuck-up. And for what? So that Germany could be so humiliated at Versailles that Nazism was incubated? That worked out great, now, didn't it?

And today we celebrate the end of World War One with a holiday that has been expanded to celebrate the soldiers - not the civilians, mind you, 'cause this is Untouched America™ - that have been killed in all our wars. I'm a bit of a stats freak, so let's look at American military war deaths, starting with...

• Revolutionary War: 4,435
• War of 1812: 2,260
• Mexican-American War: 1,733
• Civil War: 184,594
• Spanish-American War: 385
• World War One: 53,513
• World War Two: 292,131
• Korean War: 33,651
• Vietnam War: 47,369
• Gulf War: 148
• Iraq War (as of today): 3,860

Total: 11 wars, 624,079 dead. But that's just a list of American soldiers in American wars. (By the way, Iraq's looking pretty good, eh?) Here are a couple of other stats you might find of interest:

Some of the soldiers killed in World War One:
• Germany: 1,773,700
• Russia: 1,700,000
• France: 1,357,800
• Austria-Hungary: 1,200,000
• Britain: 908,400
• Italy: 650,000
• Turkey: 292,131
• United States: 53,513
(A bright shiny dime to those of you who even knew that Russia, Italy, and Turkey were involved in World War One.)

Some of the soldiers killed in World War Two:
• The Soviet Union: 13,600,000
• Germany: 3,250,000
• Japan: 1,506,000
• China: 1,324,000
• Poland: 850,000
• Romania: 520,000
• United States: 292,131
(Still looking like a bit of comparative cakewalk for our "Greatest Generation," isn't it? Oh, and were you taught about Chinese military losses in World War Two? I wasn't, either.)

One of my goals in this posting, as if you haven't already guessed, is to get you to realize that honoring "our" war dead is parochial; when any country in the world suffers, humanity (that's us) collectively suffers. And the world has suffered one %$#@! of a lot due to the rapaciousness of the ruling classes in the last century. But I digress... Here's my final list: some of the civilian casualties during World War Two:
• China: 10,000,000
• The Soviet Union: 7,770,000
• Germany: 3,810,000
• Yugoslavia: 1,400,000
• France: 470,000
• Japan: 300,000
• Britain: 62,000
(Yes, China had by far the most civilian casualties in World War Two - did you know that? If not, track down your high school history teacher and give him or her a piece of your mind.)

So today we in America are honoring our war dead - but we're almost criminally ignorant of the numbers of dead worldwide during the insanity that was the twentieth century. Remember, folks, we're all in this together - and we here in the US have had it pretty damn easy when it comes to war dead.

So far.

And I'm sure you realize that the fact that we here in the US have been relatively unscathed during the horrors of the past decades is a prime energizer of our bellicosity - right? [back to top]

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I've had a couple of casual conversations with My Fellow Americans™ since this whole Pakistani thing blew up over the weekend, and I've been surprised to hear how little folks know about that country. I've also been doing a bit of refresher-reading on Pakistan myself, and have been surprised by a number of salient data points.

For example, I was unaware that Pakistan ranks 46th in GDP despite being the world's sixth most populous country (vastly out-performed by its more-populous brethren, which are China, India, the US, Indonesia, and Brazil). It also has the second-worst air quality in the world; it doesn't appear as if industrial smokestacks are causing all that coughing.

So, in the interests of public education, here are a few facts about this important "ally" (well, of Bush, at least). I've also included some comparative stats on other countries (and California) when doing so might put the Pakistani facts and figures into perspective. My central data source is The Economist's wonderful annual Pocket World in Figures (2007 Edition). Figures are for 2004 unless otherwise noted.

AREA AND POPULATION:
• Area: 804,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 35th
• Area of Russia: 17,705,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 1st
• Area of Canada: 9,971,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 2nd
• Area of China: 9,561,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 3rd
• Area of the US: 9,373,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 4th
• Area of India: 3,287,000 sq. kilometers; rank: 7th
• Area of California: 404,000 sq. kilometers

• Population in 1950: 37 million; rank: 13th
• Population in 2007: 165 million; rank: 6th
• Projected population in 2050: 305 million; rank: 4th
• US population in 1950: 158 million; rank: 3rd
• US population in 2007: 301 million; rank: 3rd
• Projected US population in 2050: 395 million; rank: 3rd
• Population of California in 2007: 37 million
• Projected population of California in 2050: 55 million

• Average life expectancy: 64.8; rank: in neither top nor bottom 50
• US average life expectancy: 77.9; rank: 40th
• Andorran average life expectancy: 83.5; rank: 1st
• Japanese average life expectancy: 82.8; rank: 2nd
• Swaziland average life expectancy: 29.9; rank: lowest in the world (Does this totally and completely suck, or what? Obviously, I need to do some further investigation.)

• Literacy: 49 percent; rank: 15th lowest
• Education spending: 1.8 percent of GDP; rank: 6th lowest
• US education spending: 5.7 percent of GDP; rank: not in top 20
• Yemeni education spending: 9.5 percent of GDP; rank: 1st
• Cuban education spending: 9.0 percent of GDP; rank: 2nd

• Prison population: 86,000; rank: 12th
• US prison population: 2,135,901; rank: 1st
• Chinese prison population: 1,548,498; rank: 2nd
• Russian prison population: 828,900; rank: 3rd
• Brazilian prison population: 336,358; rank: 4th
• Indian prison population: 322,357; rank: 5th

FINANCE:
• GDP: $96.1 billion; rank: 46th
• US GDP: $11,712 billion; rank: 1st
• Japanese GDP: $4,623 billion; rank: 2nd
• Chinese GDP: $1,932 billion; rank: 6th
• Indian GDP: $691 billion; rank: 10th

• Balance of payments (deficit): -$808 million; rank: 39th worst
• US balance of payments (deficit): -$668,070 million; rank: worst in the world
• Japanese balance of payments (surplus): $172,060 million; rank: 1st
• Chinese balance of payments (surplus):$68,659 million; rank: 3rd

• Industrial output: not in the top 50
• Manufacturing output: not in the top 50
• Services output in 2003: $47 billion; rank: 41st
• US services output in 2004: $7,807 billion; rank: 1st
• Japanese services output in 2004: $2,920 billion; rank: 2nd

• Energy consumption in 2003: 69 million tons oil equivalent; rank: 26th
• US energy consumption in 2003: 2,280 million tons oil equivalent; rank: 1st
• Chinese energy consumption in 2003: 1,409 million tons oil equivalent; rank: 2nd
• Russian energy consumption in 2003: 640 million tons oil equivalent; rank: 3rd

TRANSPORTATION:
• Road network: 254,410 kilometers; rank: 20th
• US road network: 6,378,154 kilometers; rank: 1st
• Indian road network: 3,851,440 kilometers; rank: 2nd
• Chinese road network: 1,809,829 kilometers; rank: 3rd

• Number of cars per 1,000 population: 7; rank: 8th lowest
• New Zealand number of cars per 1,000 population: 619; rank: 1st
• US number of cars per 1,000 population: 468; rank: 12th

CREATURE COMFORTS:
• Color TVs per 100 households: 38; rank: not in top 50
• US color TVs per 100 households: 99.6; rank: 1st

• Telephone lines per 100 people: 3; rank: not in top 50
• Bermudan telephone lines per 100 people: 86.2; rank: 1st
• US telephone lines per 100 people: 60.6; rank: 10th

• Air-quality score (based on particulate matter and ozone): 8.2; rank: second lowest
• Ugandan air-quality score: 98; rank: 1st
• US air-quality score: not in top 25

COMPARED TO THE US:
• Population per sq. kilometer: 195.7
• US population per sq. kilometer: 31.7

• Population under 15: 38.3 percent
• US population under 15: 20.8 percent

• Population over 60: 5.8 percent
• US population over 60: 16.7 percent

• Urban population: 34.8 percent
• US urban population: 80.8 percent

• GDP per head: $610
• US GDP per head: $39,430

• Principal exports: cotton fabric; $1.9 billion per year
• US principal exports: capital goods and industrial supplies; $534.7 billion per year

• Doctors per 1,000 population: 0.7
• US doctors per 1,000 population: 2.5

SUMMARY:
That's a lot of data to digest, to be sure, but it's safe to say that Pakistan is poor, young, and crowded - and hugely important. Its economy is growing marginally faster (3.8% per year) than its population (2.04% per year), but suffered a consumer-price inflation rate of 9.1% in 2005, the last year for which figures are available. Add political instability, the lack of a country-wide middle class, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and you have a volatile mix, indeed. [back to top]

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Pervez Musharraf has suspended Pakistan's constitution, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it - even if we wanted to.

First, a quick peek at some of the geopolitical realities in that benighted swath of the world:

• From Palestine to eastern Iran, the average devout Muslim-on-the-street feels that it's his or her cultural duty - at differing levels of intensity - to protest and/or repel the incursion of the West and its neo-colonialist intentions.
•  As we did in Iran pre-1979 and as we are currently doing in Saudi Arabia, we've put our money on a repressive strongman (or, in the case of Saudi Arabia, strongfamily).
• There's a class of educated, intelligent, crafty, and patient Islamists (think Osama) who are patiently working to free that sector of the world from Western domination, and who aren't fooled by puppet governments such as the failed one we're nurse-maiding in Iraq.
• There's also a class of educated, intelligent, crafty, and patient trans-culturalists (think Benazir) in both Pakistan and Iran that are patiently working to free their countries from brutal internal extremism.

Of those last two mentioned classes, Musharraf is arresting the latter and blaming the former for his suspension of the Pakistani constitution - and there's little we can do about it.

Should we withhold military aid from Musharraf's government? Not a good idea. Not only is the Pakistani military involved in a campaign in the Waziristan region against some of the nastier fundamentalist Islamic insurgents (albeit not a terribly successful campaign), but it's reported than many among the generals aren't too happy about Musharraf, themselves. Cutting off military aid would not only diminish their already-weak effort to defeat the most brutal of the Islamic fundamentalists, but it would also turn those generals against our influence if and when Musharraf overplays his hand.

Should we withhold humanitarian and developmental aid from Musharraf's government? Putting aside for the moment the moral question of making the poor suffer for the rapaciousness of the rich, to make the miserable of Pakistan even more miserable would clearly play into the hands of those who want to incite the entire area to be even more fully and militantly anti-Western. Also, the Pakistani middle class is, on the whole, not pro-Musharraf - do we want them to also aim their resentment westward?

Oh, and then there's the little matter of overflight rights to resupply our Afganistan-mired forces through the Bagram airbase. Tick off Musharraf and he'll have the opportunity to appear to be a hero to the man in the street when he bans American planes from Pakistani airspace. Problem...

There have been no mass protests in Islamabad (although there have been some in Lahore and some in Karachi) - possibly because the Average Joe (Ali?) in Pakistan has little identification with the educated trans-culturalists. Benazir Bhuto is scheduled to meet with Musharraf this weekend (I'd love to be a fly on the proverbial wall of that meeting!) to discuss power-sharing arrangements, but don't expect much to come of it. And don't expect Bhuto to pull a Cory Aquino and lead a "people power" charge - the Philippines (in those days) was not deeply infected by a well-organized fundamentalist cadre. Truly, Iran 1979 is a more-imaginable model: Musharraf falls and fundamentalists take over.

Simply put, if Musharraf can crack down on his liberalization-seeking opponents and by doing so give himself a stronger hand when playing whack-a-mole with the Islamic insurgents that are a far greater danger to his dominance, what's the downside for BushCo?

So, expect a raft of pro-democracy rhetoric from Washington about Musharraf's suspension of the Pakistan constitution, but don't expect any firm action to support those in Pakistan who seek a more liberal society.

It's not in my nature to feel sorry for lawyers, but tonight I'm feeling solidarity with those poor suckers who were busted in Karachi and Lahore today. It's not going to be a pleasant next couple of months for them.  [back to top]

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Here in Freelancerville, filet mignon and black truffles are right off the menu. More modest food is in order - but modest doesn't have to mean unappetizing. Here's a can't-miss, hearty dinner that's based on a buck-ninety-nine's worth of beans. This recipe serves four - or three, if you're a happy little piggy like me.

INGREDIENTS:
• 500 gm of dried canellini beans - If you can't find canellini's (which are readily available here in San Francisco's oh-so-charming Italian district, North Beach, but only in metric package weights), other more-common white beans such as the ubiquitous Great Northerns will work nearly as well.
• 250 to 300 gm of pasta - This is a rather hearty dish, so you'll do best with a rather hearty pasta, such as penne, medium-sized shells (known as conchiglione), fusili rigati, or whatever. I'm a fan of Gragnano, but even such standard brands as Barilla or De Cecco are better than fresh pasta.
• 1 head of garlic - Not one clove; one full head. You can, of course, use less if you're not a true garlic lover, but you'll be missing a treat. Separate the cloves and peel them - unless you have a wonderful Rosle garlic press, which can crush unpeeled cloves. (Thanks, Jeanette!)
• 1 medium-sized sweet yellow onion - Chop it up nice and fine - it's there for flavor, not for chunky chewiness.
• 12 good-sized fresh basil leaves - "Good-sized" means around three inches long. If yours are bigger or smaller, adjust accordingly (well, duh...). I really recommend fresh basil for this dish - it makes a big difference. Slice the leaves crosswise into strips about a millimeter or two in width.
• 1 handful fresh parsley - Dried parsley is okay, but nowhere near as "bright" as fresh. Chop the fresh stuff up rather coarsely. Use about a tablespoon or two of dried.
• 1 heaping tbsp. dried oregano - As I've mentioned before, I'm a fan of Mexican oregano, such as that from Ranch Gordo, but practically any kind will do. Mexican oregano tends to have a faint citrusy tone that I particularly like.
• 3/4 cup of chopped meat - I'm a big fan of a good pepperoni for this dish, but I've also seen it made with smoked ham or bacon bits - or without any meat at all. Whatever you choose, chop your meat-of-choice into fairly small cubes, say, 5 mm or so.
• 4 tbsp. olive oil - Don't use your fine, light olive oil in this dish - a good full-flavored one is better suited.
• 1 1/2 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper - Some people like more, some people like less. Start with less, and you can always add more later. Start with too much, and, well, ever try to pick pepper flakes out of a pasta sauce? Thought not.
• 1/4 tsp. dried red-pepper flakes - Don't overdo it!
• 1/2 cup or more of coarsely grated parmesan -This is optional - and decent parmesan is so freakin' pricey that it'll up the cost of the meal a few bucks - but it's soooooo gooooood...
• Sea salt to taste -Personally, I like a lot. A lot.

PREPARATION:
The night before. Put the beans in a container that'll hold at least a quart and a half of water and that you can either close or tightly cover with platic wrap. Cover them with cool water, making sure that the water is about three times as deep, total, as the beans - that is, if your beans fill the container to two inches, fill the water up to six, minimum. More won't hurt anything. Pop the beans in the fridge, and let them soak for a minimum of 12 hours.

Two hours before dinner. Take the beans out of the fridge, drain off all the water, place them in a stout-bottomed pot, add about the same amount of water that you just drained off (or a wee bit less) and put them on the stove. Bring them to a decent, but not over-powering boil, then put the lid on the pot loosely (that is, allowing steam to escape), and turn the stove down to low. Way low. You want these beans to simmer gently until they're nicely soft, which should take about an hour minimum and an hour-and-a-half maximum. Don't let any beans poke up above the simmering liquid (just add more water if they do), and try not to overcook them - but if you do, your sauce will taste as good; it just won't have any individual beans in it when it's done.

When the beans are done. Turn them off, and turn on the water that you're going to use to cook the pasta. If the beans aren't level with the top of the water, drain off some water until they're just peakng out above the water level. With a soup ladle, scoop about two cups of beans (along with some of the water they've been cooking in) and dump them into a blender. Blend them to a total puree. If you don't have a blender, you can mash them up with a potato masher, wooden spoon, or whatever. Don't worry about texture - as I said, this is a hearty (read "crude") meal. Then take your newly mashed puree and dump it back into the beans; stir it gently until the puree is distributed, then let it sit during the next step.

Make your kitchen smell great. As you may know, briefly frying chunks-o-meat helps bring out their flavor, and now's the time to flavorize your choice of meat. Of course, if you've picked bacon, skip this step. But if you've picked peperoni or ham, first get a dry frying pan moderately hot, then dump the meat into it, also dry. Stir frantically until all the meat pieces are lightly browned and - in the case of the pepperoni, the chunks have released some of their lovely fat. Then stir the meat into the bean mixture - gently so that you don't crush any more beans than you absolutely must. Depending upon the type of pasta you plan to use, now might be a good time to start it cooking.

Make your kitchen smell even better. Now add two tablespoons of olive oil into that same pan, heat it up nicely, and toss in your chopped onion. Between stirs (you don't want the onion to burn, just turn translucent) use a garlic press to crush each clove of that head of garlic into the slowly frying onions. By the time you've finished with the last clove, your onions should be close to done. Give them another minute or so - thus letting the garlic work some of its magic - then stir the concoction in with the beans.

Herbs and spices. Now turn the beans back on low - they should have retained quite a bit of their heat, in any case - and stir in the basil, parsely, oregano, and black and red pepper. Warm the pot for a few minutes, and then taste some of the mixture - making sure to get all of the major elements into your spoon - and adjust the spices to your liking. It'll most likely need quite a bit of salt, but you can decide whether to put some in now or let your eaters ("diners" seems a bit high-falutin' for this dish) do so later. If you want, you can now add some or all of the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil - totally your call.

Serve it up. When the pasta's done and the beans are pleasantly hot, place the pasta in individual serving bowls, pour the sauce over it, serve it up (give your eaters spoons, not forks) and pass around some sea salt and more pepper (and that coarsely chopped parmesan, if you've got a steady job).

Variations. Some people add drained tomato chunks to this dish. Some add celery - though I can't imagine why. Some make it soupier than I do. Some serve it over rice, and not pasta - which I do more often than not. If you do make it with rice rather than pasta (Riso Fazool?), it makes fabulous leftovers - just drizzle a little water into it before you reheat it in the microwave.  [back to top]