New England Baked Beans

I am making baked beans. It is very late in the day to be making baked beans, but who cares? The oven does all the work.

I am very picky about the beans I use. I really only like Jacob's Cattle Beans, and you simply can't find them here in Chicago. In my Vermont hometown, a neighbor down the road grows them - has for as long as I can remember.

Every summer, my parents send me a big box of Jacob's Cattle Beans, divided into quart-sized zip-lock bags. I am down to my last two. I can buy them off the internet if I get desperate, but that just feels wrong. Where I come from they're just beans - a dollar a bag. According to Amazon, they're an heirloom bean -- "gourmet." That makes me smile. How, exactly, do you make baked beans gourmet? Cassoulet, you say? Well, sorry, but that's farm food. And if the French can't make it fancy, who can?