When Dan and I combined households five years ago, we also combined cookbook libraries. This was a bit of an intimidating prospect for me, because my cookbook collection was rather meager, and consisted of vegan staples like the crunchy-granola godfather, The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, my own small notebook of hand-written recipes, and little else. Undeterred, Dan moved into our 250 square foot apartment toting a virtual athenaeum of cooking and baking standards and superstars. One of them was The Silver Spoon Cookbook, an enormous compendium of Italian cooking so cherished it is known as “the bible” in some circles.

Over the years this hefty tome followed us from place to place, crossing the country twice, staring down intimidatingly from the bookshelf in every kitchen we called home. I unpacked it again just a few weeks ago when we moved into our new house and noticed that its cover was still clean and glossy, its flirty yellow and gray placeholders unfrayed. Not a page was dog-eared or mauled with sauce residues, long-dried bits of flour, or forgotten vegetable shavings. In other words, we really hadn’t ever used it.

I set about to change that at once. How many different ways could I cook zucchini? Green beans? Carrots? Eggplant? (Oh, the eggplant recipes!) The Silver Spoon knew. What the heck is a cardoon? Again, Silver Spoon. All the answers you need are contained within its 1263 pages. It may hold the secret to eternal life — I’ll let you know when I get to the end.

In the meantime, try this very simple and compulsively eatable recipe with any green or yellow wax beans you have on hand. You may find, as we did, that you can’t help but nip up the beans with your fingers, right out of the serving dish.

Sesame Green Beans

Adapted from The Silver Spoon Cookbook

4 1/2 c. green or yellow beans, trimmed
2 tbs. butter
2 scallions, thinly sliced
strained juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 tbs. sesame seeds
olive oil
salt and pepper

Cook the beans in salted, boiling water for about five minutes, or until tender. (Or steam them.) Drain them and set aside. Melt the butter in a large skillet and add the scallions and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or until softened. Stir in the lemon juice and zest, add the beans, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, dry-fry the sesame seeds, stirring frequently, until they are a toasty brown and begin to release their aroma, about 1 minute. Remove the seeds from heat. Transfer the beans to a serving dish, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and drizzle with olive oil.