Like my son, when I got back from South America last week I had a hankering for Mexican food and cowboy style pinto beans (they don't do beans in South America, go figure). So, I soaked a big batch and while I sketched at the kitchen table, I rode herd on a big boiling pot for two hours. Then an hour steeping, then a quick boil with bay leaves and an all day simmer. Man, I love those pintos! Learned all this from my mother. She was one of the five Guess daughters and they all made excellent pinto beans. And they learned from my grandmother, Louise "Guessie" Swafford.
Speaking of which, today I talked to my Aunt Jean, The Rodeo Queen. She is the youngest daughter of the five Guess girls and today, she and her husband Bud Linn have several farms in the Fort Sumner, New Mexico area. In addition to being a Kingman rodeo queen in her youth, she is the last surviving Pinto Bean Queen in the Guess family. Here she is in her graduation photo from Mohave County Union High School in 1949:
Long live Aunt Jean The Pinto Bean Queen!
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