God damn it. Alison Roman has once again materialized on my laptop screen in sensible yet stylish clothes and red lipstick, carting a casual hairstyle and a recipe that's making me question everything I know about my own food preferences. 
Alison Roman's Brothy Beans
A year ago, I wasn't a soup person. Soup was a fancy way of serving water and every bowl left me waiting for a real dinner. Then I found Alison Roman and her recipe for what has been dubbed by twenty-somethings everywhere "The Stew," also known as the Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric. It's delicious, of course. It leans sweet with enough umami and leafy greens to feel like a full meal. It tastes like the color gold. And just like that, my culinary world opened up. Now I make all sorts of soup for myself and my family, who never fail to remind me of my previous anti-soup stance.
So you can imagine my dread when Alison Roman released a video profiling her favorite way to prepare my very least favorite food: beans. All my life I've hated beans. Even those stewed in molasses and bacon are on thin ice. What am I supposed to do with a bean recipe straight from the source that opened my heart to soup? Cook them and like them?? If I can't count on this constant in my life, what else about me will mutate across the years?
In his famed science-backed book Stumbling on Happiness, psychologist Dan Gilbert asserts people are more willing to accept that they have changed in the past than admit that they will again change in the future. I readily agree with the first half of that statement, just like Gilbert says I will. I'm a converted soup eater (soup slurper? Sorry). But Gilbert is right, it is hard to imagine future changes. When I was a teenager, I never imagined I'd leave my religion. Now, it's hard to imagine going back to it. It's hard to imagine I'll ever enjoy confrontation or merging onto the Interstate.
There's something freeing about the uncertainty of my future personality. It gives me permission to be a little less black and white in the present. In this disgustingly uncertain year (gross, sorry, had to mention it), my internal refrain has been 'how should I know?' When are we going to travel again/When will we go back into the office/Will I ever feel comfortable in crowds again? How should I know?
Will I ever live down the fact that I spurned ham and navy bean soup for decades, only for my mouth to start watering at a picture of beans on toast with Swiss chard, of all things?? How should I know?
-Claire
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