How Being Too Busy to Cook Reignited My Love for Cooking

The red beans and rice of my childhood became a go-to meal in grad school

Photo: Diana Miller for Getty Images

As a child growing up in a sweltering, quiet Southwest Houston neighborhood with parents from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a meal like red beans and rice was fundamental. It was a substantive meal that could last for days, and it bridged the ties between black culture in Louisiana and Texas. The Texas kitchens of my childhood and young adult life were excellent environments for learning about good food. There was sweet and tender barbecue during summer days; succulent grilled vegetables to address my overconsumption of fruit and lack of interest in collard greens and, well, really anything green. There was “okra mix,” a decadent, stew-like dish with nearly all of the seafood one can find in South Louisiana. And, of course, red beans and rice.

With my geographic and cultural upbringing, it was genetically impossible for me to not enjoy exceptional food; but my love of cooking didn’t arrive until I was an older child, when I could understand that food, especially red beans and rice, was a conduit to culture. When my mom, a schoolteacher who was naturally gifted at almost everything she did, got me in the kitchen to be her “helper” for this meal, she towered over my 7-year-old, 4-foot tall body, as well as the large polished pot that we used to make complex Southern dishes. As she drained the beans she’d left out to soak the Saturday night before — contrary to most Southerners, we’d often enjoy our beans on Sunday evening after church instead of Monday — I’d begrudgingly pull the ingredients together.⁠

Chicken broth from the pantry; cans of RO-TEL tomatoes⁠ — only the ones with the chilies in them; onions to dice; garlic, because you should always use garlic; and andouille sausage that we’d picked up from Baton Rouge markets during trips to my parents’ hometown. All of these items, fused with the red beans atop the rice my mom would prepare just before dinner, created a robust, smoky smell of herbs and spices that permeated through our house.