The Lima Bean Story

When I was a little girl, my father made lima beans for dinner one night. I remember staring at them on my plate, expecting them to be absolutely awful.

We grew up in a household where "dinner was dinner." My parents cooked full meals almost every night—usually a protein, a vegetable, and a starch. I never really struggled with eating my greens or finishing my plate, but those lima beans? I thought they were gross.

Not long after, I remember visiting my grandmother, Dorothy, and telling her how much I hated them. She genuinely could not believe it. To her, lima beans were delicious.

I remember saying, “Grandma, no they are not.”

She just smiled, accepted the challenge, and told me something along the lines of, “I can make them taste good.”

And she did. She turned them into succotash.

There was sweet corn, onions, butter, and perfect seasoning. She didn’t necessarily change the lima beans themselves; she just knew how to care for them differently. She understood balance, texture, flavor, and comfort long before I even had the words for those things.

And suddenly… lima beans were delicious.

That moment stayed with me.

I’m now a 45-year-old woman. My grandmother passed away when I was a sophomore in high school, so she never got to see me become a chef. She never got to see Tiny Onion. She never got to walk into one of my dinner parties or watch people gather around food I made.

But somehow, I still feel her around me.

Maybe she sprinkled something into my spirit that day over a bowl of succotash. Or maybe it happened long before that, and I just didn’t realize it.

What I do know is this: I think about her lima beans often when people tell me they suddenly love a vegetable they thought they hated. Brussels sprouts. Beets. Carrots. Collards. Mushrooms. Lima beans.

Sometimes people don’t truly hate the ingredient. Sometimes they just haven’t yet had someone prepare it the way they will like it. 

I am grateful not only to carry my grandmother’s middle name, but also this gift of hers. Dorothy made people feel loved through food. Nearly 29 years after her passing, people still talk about her cooking like they had it yesterday.

That says everything to me.

It’s a beautiful day to make something people remember.