Beans are a passion with me. Not a big, over-riding, life-changing, mind-altering sort of thing, you understand, but a passion nevertheless. I've only been fooling around in the kitchen, pretending to be a cook, for a half-dozen years or so, but once I found myself seeking wonderful things to cook, I gravitated immediately to beans. Who wouldn't?

The humble bean is a marvel of bio-engineering. Inside its hard-shelled, self-protective skin lurk life-sustaining carbohydrates, fiber, and protein. Everyone knows that if you can't get actual meat, beans (along with a little grain) will provide the necessary protein to keep you going. They're fat-free and won't even pump up your cholesterol. Beans are about as nutritious as vegetables get.

Beans last a long, long time. Consider the Anasazi bean, a close cousin to the popular pinto bean. It was unknown until ancient beans were found in the Anasazi ruins in the Southwest. Since the Anasazi disappeared over a thousand years ago, these were old beans. Talk about effective food storage! These beans germinated and grew, giving life to new generations of this ancient bean. Beans are tough little buggers. You have to love them.

Beans taste good. Oh, you'll find a few grinch-like souls around who eschew the things, but most people find beans to be pleasant, tasty fare. Some of us go a little further and develop a passion for nature's perfectly packaged food.

Beans are versatile. You can make almost anything out of beans. I don't encourage this odd behavior, but you can make bean cakes, bean drinks, bean pies, and even bean fudge. They tell me they taste good; I'm willing to take their word. But us normal folks can make all sorts of delicious things with beans, from simple bean soup (one of my favorite things in all the world) to baked beans, from three-bean salads to cassoulets. If it gots beans in it, I likes it, as Popeye might once have said. (Actually, he had a thing for spinach; I'm the one who loves beans.)

Beans come in multitude of varieties. Common beans seen every day include pinto, kidney, red, great northern, white, lima, black, and navy. Less commonly known beans include cranberry, cannelloni, fava, Anasazi, garbanzo, and a whole list of fun beans you can buy from specialty retailers. We won't include the jelly bean, of course. (Guess what my favorite candy is?)

Each bean has its own distinctive flavor, its own texture, and its own special uses. This is where the fun begins: we can make literally hundreds, even thousands, of wonderful dishes from these great little sources of perfect nutrition. I'm collecting bean recipes, making bean dishes right and left.

I'm even running a couple of websites devoted to the bountiful bean and its fans. Bean Lovers, on Suite 101 (where this article originally appeared) will guide you to all the significant bean sites on the Web. Here at Bean Bible, we'll concentrate on giving you the information directly. Look for lots of recipes, cookbook reviews, bean product reviews, and every other sort of beaniness I can come up with.

Oh, by the way, the fact that I'm a CPA--an accountant--has nothing to do with my love for beans, even if accountants are known far and wide as "bean counters." I hardly ever count beans. I just cook and eat them.

(Note to editor: Do I get extra points for writing an entire article about beans without ever once using the phrase, "musical fruit"?)

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