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ear stood upright in a wide bowl, knife run down the cob

cut the kernels from the ears, then reverse the knife and scrape the stripped cob hard from top to bottom to collect the starchy milk left in the base of each kernel — it is a natural thickener and it is the difference between a fresh-corn succotash and a bag of corn in butter. Have the beans thawed and drained before anything hits the pan; a frozen bean dropped into a hot skillet is a shot of cold water at exactly the wrong moment. Frozen corn and frozen limas are honest year-round ingredients and this recipe is built to work with them; cut-from-the-cob corn is the summer upgrade, not the requirement.