lsanderson | Bean Counterculture

Pot Luck: Sando at home with his son, Nico (right), and Eli Welling-Sanchez.
By CHRISTINE MUHLKE
Published: March 26, 2009

The chef-driven crazes for, say, heritage pork bellies, mule-ground grits and backyard purslane have elevated humble ingredients to cult status. But it took Thomas Keller to glamorize beans. At the Yountville, Calif., farmers’ market several years ago, he was one of the few shoppers at the Rancho Gordo bean stand; today at Per Se in Manhattan, there’s a box marked “Rancho Gordo Beans,” stocked with some of the 25 heirloom varieties now sold by the Napa company. More

It's like deja-vu all over again. He was on The Splendid Table they broadcast at the clack of dawn.