Beck's Beans and S'rooms

This recipe is dedicated to Kristen Beck! Read about her story after the recipe.

This is a great way to fix fresh green beans. Elevate them above the simple side dish. Adding mushrooms with a bit of garlic and almonds really packs in the flavors. You could use this as a vegetarian main dish or a side for a fancy dinner!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup red onion chopped
• 2 ounces mushroom, sliced (about 1 ½ cups)
• ½ cup low salt beef broth
• 1 Tbs yellow mustard
• 10-ounce green beans, trimmed (about 3 cups)
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• ¼ cup almonds

Directions

Rinse and slice the mushrooms. 

 
Then rinse the fresh green beans.
Chop the red onion and freeze any left-overs.

Snap the ends off the beans.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the almonds and stir. Keep an eye on this so they don't burn. They will be toasted when you can smell the aroma coming up. Remove them to a dish and set aside.

At that point add oil and ¼ cup chopped red onion. Stir and add the mushrooms.
Saute for about 6 minutes.

Place the green beans into the skillet and stir to combine.
Add the Tbs of mustard and the ½ cup of broth, cover quickly.
Let the steam from the broth cook the beans. Cook 6 minutes or until beans are crisp-tender. Stir in butter and serve.

What a wondeful aroma will grace your table with these simple beans.
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Such an honor to be serving my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

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Kristin Beck

Beck is a retired United States Navy SEAL who gained attention in 2013 when she came out as a trans woman. She published her memoir, Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL's Journey to Coming out Transgender, detailing her experiences.

Beck served in the U.S. Navy for twenty years and is the first openly transgender former U.S. Navy SEAL.

Designated as an elite antiterrorism special forces unit, the legendary SEAL Team Six — the one that killed Osama Bin Laden — until recently benefited from the storied first-in-line, first-at-the-front, and first-to-jump tactical contributions of a team member formerly known as Senior Chief Petty Officer Chris T. Beck. 
 
Today, Kristin Beck, the former SEAL paratrooper, expert marksman, and multiple-battleground veteran, has earned enough medals for courageous acts in military service to her country to crowd the buttons of her dress-blues U.S. Navy uniform.

Recognized as the first former U.S. Navy SEAL to come out as transgender, Beck is modest about her accomplishments, which include (among several other military honors) a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during her service in the Middle East.
"Beck was often the 'breacher,' the first one through the door on hundreds of raids in Iraq and Afghanistan, and became a team leader, a senior chief," said reporter Dan Noyes in 2014. Beck paid the price, receiving a Purple Heart for ... many injuries in combat and a Bronze Star with the 'V' for valor."

Beck was christened Christopher T. Beck in June 1966 and grew up on a farm. As early as the age of five, she was drawn to feminine clothes and toys but was encouraged to adopt masculine roles by her parents. Before transitioning, she married twice and has two sons from her first marriage. She recounts in her memoir how her gender dysphoria contributed to her inability to emotionally mature while being in a male body, adding conflict to her sexual identity, although she never really felt gay. Additionally, her duties as a U.S. Navy SEAL kept her on missions away from home, which distanced her from family members. Before enlisting in the United States Navy, Beck attended Virginia Military Institute from 1984 through 1987.

Beck served for 20 years in the U.S. Navy SEALs before her transition, taking part in 13 deployments, including seven combat deployments. Beck completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training with class 179 in 1991 and subsequently served with SEAL Team 1. She was a member of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU), a special counter-terrorism unit popularly called SEAL Team Six, and received multiple military awards and decorations, including a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. She told Anderson Cooper she wanted to be a SEAL because they were the "toughest of the tough".

Beck retired from the Navy in 2011 with a final rating as Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator when she began transitioning by dressing as a woman. In 2013, she began hormone therapy, preparing herself for sex reassignment surgery. During an interview with Anderson Cooper in early June 2013, she stated that she never came out during her military career and that "No one ever met the real me". After coming out publicly in 2013 by posting a photo of herself as a woman on LinkedIn, she received a number of messages of support from her former military colleagues. 

 

Warrior Princess

Beck co-wrote Warrior Princess with Anne Speckhard, a psychologist at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. Speckhard was doing a study on the resilience of the U.S. Navy SEALs, that is, the coping mechanisms employed by SEALs to deal with their intense job demands. Speckhard first met Beck at a counter-terrorism conference. After Beck agreed to discuss coping mechanisms, a follow-up meeting took place in a gay bar, with Beck now dressed in female attire, to Speckhard's surprise. A five-hour meeting led to Speckhard agreeing to help Beck write her life story.

In the book, Speckhard notes that Beck had a desire to die honorably "so that [she] wouldn't have to wrestle anymore with the emotional pain that stemmed from the lack of congruency between [her] gender identity and body". In her introduction to the book, Beck writes:

I do not believe a soul has a gender, but my new path is making my soul complete and happy...I hope my journey sheds some light on the human experience and most importantly helps heal the "socio-religious dogma" of purely binary gender.

OutServe Magazine praised the book, calling it "one of the smartest and most important books of the year". The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was repealed in 2011, the ban on openly transgender people serving in the U.S. armed forces still remained. Days before the release of Warrior Princess, Metro Weekly's Poliglot column reported that the Pentagon had celebrated LGBT Pride Month in a memo while avoiding mention of transgender military personnel; the Pentagon memo read in part: "We recognize gay, lesbian and bisexual service members and LGBT civilians for their dedicated service to our country." While restrictions on sexual orientation were lifted in 2010-2011, restrictions on gender identity remained in place due to Department of Defense regulations until 2016, when the Obama administration ended the ban on transgender Americans serving in the military. Now the Trump administration is ordering a re-instatement of that ban.

In January, the ban on military service got the go-ahead from the Supreme Court. The US policy under question bars from military service, with some exceptions, people who have gender dysphoria — a disconnect between a person's gender identity and their sex assigned at birth — or are seeking to transition or have transitioned, people whose medical diagnosis would require a transition during service, and people who can't demonstrate "stability" in their assigned sex for at least the three years before applying to serve. The Pentagon has claimed that gender dysphoria impairs functionality. 

 

While the Pentagon insists the above criteria did not equate to a ban on transgender military service, it's unclear whether most transgender people could meet those requirements.

"Due to lower courts issuing nationwide injunctions, our military had been forced to maintain a prior policy that poses a risk to military effectiveness and lethality for over a year," the Department of Justice has maintained. 

 

Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote last February that the inclusion of such people in the military would decrease the "readiness, lethality, and effectiveness of our military." 

 

Beck, called the Trump administration's position on transgender military service "bulls---."

The Pentagon had been "intentionally confusing" on the issue of trans service and that it failed to even define the concepts of lethality and effectiveness.
"I was a Navy SEAL for 20 years — I was pretty lethal," she said.

While Beck's unique point of view found no home in the Trump administration or with the Pentagon officially, the top leaders of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps all said in April that they found no issues with transgender people serving.

Lady Valor

Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story, a documentary, aired on CNN on September 4, 2014.

The Retired Navy SEAL is ready to fire up her acting career ... and she's calling on Hollywood producers to start considering more LGBT actors for LGBT roles. 

Kristen, says she just signed in January, with acting agency Nine9 ... and she's ready to get to work. 

Kristin says she knows tons of transgender actors ... and she thinks Hollywood should do a better job of at least giving them a chance to land LGBT roles.

Gay and lesbian representation increased in major Hollywood films in 2018 (18.2 percent) — but there were still zero trans characters.

We applaud your service and look forward to seeing more from you: Kristen Beck!