Obsessiveness

You know how it goes, right? You have five minutes to read a quick article online, but of course you find something fascinating and then it snowballs. Hours pass. And you're still in front of the computer.

I sat down for a minute to eat a salad yesterday afternoon and, like I often do, I went to the New York Times Dining Section online to see what was new, and I happened upon this really cool article on farmer-writers and the consumers who are increasingly becoming intrigued by where their food comes from. Clearly, this was right up my alley. I read half of the article out loud to my mother, and then emailed her the link, which she has already included in her blog.

Of course, as these things go, there were a few organizations and authors mentioned in the article that I wanted to know more about, and so I began yet another day in the life of The Great Online Quest that didn't end until I had about 15 different windows open in my browser and I was beginning to bemoan that there wasn't enough time in the day.

The coolest find of the day was Edible Communities, a collection of regional publications regarding local food. Once I landed on the Edible Atlanta site, I was already pulling out my debit card to subscribe. And then, lo and behold, I dug around in Edible Nation, the most fascinating blog I've found in a while.

So if you need me, that's where I'll be. I have an entire year of posts to catch up on.

The Unlikeliest of Vegetables

You might think a vegetarian would know everything there is to know about vegetables, but you would be wrong. For the past three years, I’ve been fairly fascinated by cooking. I’ve learned all sorts of cooking skills, read countless foodie books, and tried numerous new recipes. But I’d never played with a fresh beet until a couple of weeks ago. I’m not even sure I’ve ever noticed a fresh beet in the grocery store.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against beets. They’ve just not been registering too high on my radar. I remember my grandmother growing and pickling them when I was a kid, and I was a fan of the sweet and slightly tart, chilled pickled beet slices when she would serve them alongside a light summer dinner, but then I’d forget all about them. They just weren’t the kind of thing I went around with a craving for.

Until now, that is.

Three weeks ago, when I happily unloaded my bag of vegetables from the farm, I was completely stumped when I pulled out a small handful of beets with the greens attached. I didn’t have a clue what to do with them. Beets recipes don’t show up that commonly in the magazines I read regularly, and I couldn’t find anything appetizing (if I found anything at all) in the cookbooks that I pull down from the shelf most often.

So I did what any self-respecting independent woman of the new millennium would do. I called my mom. “Boil them,” she said. “Humph,” I replied. Because truly, what kind of culinary challenge comes from boiling a vegetable? The only thing that gets boiled in my house is pasta. Big Mama got a little defensive. “I like my vegetables to be cooked simply,” she sniffed.

After a little Googling, I came upon a recipe for pickled beets that sounded easy enough, and appeared much less sweet than the other recipes I’d stumbled upon so far in my search. It was more of a sliced-beets-in-vinaigrette kind of thing, really, but I thought I would give it a shot. After all, I had zero other options so far.

First step was to boil the beets (maybe Big Mama was onto something here). Then you peel them, slice them, dunk them in the “pickling” juice, and refrigerate them for at least a few hours. I got all stressed out about the boiling part – I always have this big fear that all the nutrients and flavor will go down the drain with the discarded water at the end, but I gave it my best shot. After fighting with the peeling, which didn’t “slip right off” like the recipe claimed it would, I got busy slicing. I managed to slice maybe two beets before my curiosity got the better of me. I mean, what kind of a person would pickle a vegetable without first tasting it plain to see what the blank canvas offered by itself?

It was an epiphany. Plain boiled beets are absolutely delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I was sorely disappointed with the pickled beets when they were ready. I repeated the whole procedure again with my next batch of beets from the farm, and got the same results. Pickled beets just aren’t as good as plain old beets.

So yeah, I should have listened to my mother to begin with. But don’t tell her I said that.

THE PROPER WAY TO TREAT ONE POUND OF BEETS (makes a great lunch for one pregnant vegetarian)

• One pound of beets, greens still attached
• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• Pinch kosher salt or sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Balsamic vinegar or hot sauce, to taste

1. Cut the greens off of the beets and reserve (you'll need them in step 4).
2. If all beets aren't the same size, cut the larger ones into chunks roughly the same size of the smallest ones.
3. Put beets in pan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Continue boiling for 20-30 minutes, until beets are easily pierced with a fork. Drain. Quickly peel beets under cold running water and discard the peeling.
4. While the beets are boiling, cook the greens: roughly chop the greens; finely chop the stems.
5. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
6. Add greens and toss with the oil until the greens have begun to wilt.
7. Add garlic, salt and pepper on top of the greens; cook until the greens are wilted and shiny.
8. Toss with either balsamic vinegar (if you're partial to sweet/tart flavors) or the hot sauce (if you're the spicy type).
9. Serve greens alongside the beets for a seriously yummy and light summer lunch.

It should be noted that both The Carnivore and Odd Toddler have decided to eschew beets season entirely. I'm the only one in the house who enjoys them at all, but the pleasure I'm getting from them is more than enough to make up for the reluctance of the rest of my family.

For the Love of Arugula

As hard as it may be for me to admit, sometimes convenience and efficiency are the name of the game. I’m a work-at-home mother of a three-year-old little boy, I’m 22 weeks pregnant, I’m obsessive about a clean house, and I have a large family which comes with its own set of demands. Occasionally, this will mean that it’s a tad bit difficult to pull together a complete gourmet dinner in time for our uncommonly-early dinner hour. But it would kill me to just open up a box of Tuna Helper, or to stop by the store and pick up something pre-made from the deli. That would be like losing my religion. Publicly, no less, since I tend to flog myself in open forums when I feel I’m falling down on the job.

Normally, this isn’t much of an issue for us anymore. I’ve cut back even more on my client-load, and since The Carnivore tends to come home around 4pm and is thus available to hang out and play with Odd Toddler, I’m freed up for an hour or so to get dinner together. Plus, now that we’re participating in the CSA and are getting weekly share boxes of amazingly flavorful, just-picked produce, I’ve been leaning towards slightly simpler meals in order to let the freshness shine through. After all, it would seem a shame to overcook a beautiful piece of zucchini into limp submission when a quick toss in olive oil and sea salt over a grill pan for 3 minutes is all that’s needed to bring out the best texture and the sweetest flavor.

Last week though, The Carnivore pulled twelve hour days for five days in a row, which meant Odd Toddler was out of sorts from missing Papa, I was a little bedraggled from tending to Odd Toddler’s every demand from morning to night, and it was difficult to even find time to cook, much less make a dinner in which Odd Toddler and I could eat early, and which The Carnivore could easily re-heat when he straggled in the door, late and exhausted. I have a few go-to, quick-and-easy, ingredients-always-on-hand recipes in my repertoire anyway, for those days when everything goes wrong and time is of the essence, but they are the kinds of things that work in any season and don’t take advantage of fresh ingredients (like French toast and cheese grits or linguine with clam sauce). The quantity of produce we receive in our weekly CSA share boxes demands that I find creative ways to use at least one item in each meal, so it can be a bit challenging to not only use the fresh vegetables but to also do so in a quick-cook, satisfying, easily reheated meal.

And I love a challenge.

At some point late in the week, I got a later than anticipated start on dinner and realized at the last minute that the pasta dish I had planned wasn’t going to work out after all since I was out of tomato sauce (and tomatoes aren't yet in season around here). I thought about a pesto sauce, but was also out of basil. And when I leaned towards clam sauce, I saw that I was out of parsley. I had a few options still left to me when I remembered a recipe I had seen in Giada de Laurentiis’ Everday Italian cookbook for an arugula pesto. I love arugula, a spicy, peppery type of lettuce that is delicious in Mediterranean-style dishes, and lo and behold, I had received a large bag of it in the last share box.

Eureka.

All the other ingredients in the recipe were things I keep in the pantry at all times, and in the kind of heat we’ve had here for the past few days, a light pasta dish with some crusty bread and a fresh green salad tossed with a homemade vinaigrette sounded perfect for dinner. Since the food processor could be used, Odd Toddler was conscripted into service (since he has ruled that he is now the only person in the household allowed to push the buttons) and together, he and I whipped the pesto together in no time flat. Honestly, it took as long to make the sauce as it would have to open a jar of store-bought pesto and stir it up.

And it was utterly delicious. The pesto was more assertive than the usual variety made with basil, and the spiciness of the arugula really shined through. And I know I’ve said it countless times before, but I’ll say it again: whole-wheat pasta is the way to go. The nutritional value is light years ahead of white pasta, much less slimy, and far more filling (especially with a sauce as light as this one).

ARUGULA PESTO (adapted from Everyday Italian, serves four as an entree)

• 2 cups packed fresh arugula
• 1 garlic clove
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best, but the canned variety will certainly do)
• 1/2 tsp course salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
• 12-16 ounces whole wheat spaghetti noodles

1. In a food processor, blend the arugula and garlic until finely chopped.
2. With machine running, gradually add the oil, processing until well-blended.
3. Transfer to serving bowl, and stir in the Parmesan, salt and pepper (add more salt & pepper to taste).
4. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in heavily-salted boiling water until al dente.
5. Scoop the pasta with a slotted spoon or a small strainer directly from the water into the pesto, tossing as you go. (A little of the pasta water will undoubtedly drip into the pesto, but don't panic. The tiny amount of starchy, salty water that will get in will help the pesto adhere better to the noodles). Add more pasta until desired consistency and sauce-to-pasta ratio is reached.

Rethinking the Virtuous Shopping Cart

I’m having to undergo a complete brain flip to switch my ways of thinking about food. I’ve long been obsessed with having a Virtuous Shopping Cart, which for many years centered around shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. I would focus on fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and dairy products, doing my best to completely avoid the middle aisles of the store, where all the over-processed foods lurk. Doing without canned soups, or boxed macaroni & cheese, or even cookies isn't that hard to do.

When we decided to start having children, I made the choice to step it up a little by buying organically as often as possible. This was a slight change over my previous shopping habits, but didn’t require all that much thought. If an item, such as milk, was available in conventional and organic, I would pick the organic and try not to obsess too much over the difference in cost (because of course, my background in finance had to go through its own little brain flip in order for me to justify paying more for these items). If conventional tomatoes were on the only ones on the shelf, I would still buy them. It was only when the choice was there, did I actually make the effort. I wouldn't give up an ingredient solely because it wasn't available organically.

Now, however, my new focus on buying locally-grown or produced food items is requiring a sea change in my ways of thinking. For so long, it didn’t occur to me to think twice about buying bell peppers in January, or apples in March, or spinach in October. Health was my only consideration, and so I mindlessly consumed any and all produce at any old time of the year. The environmental impact of my purchasing habits was the furthest thing from my mind. As a matter of fact, with the rampant growth of foodie culture and the obsession with international cuisine over the past 10 years or so, I can recall countless times when I would be proud that my shopping cart included Italian olive oil and vinegar, Greek olives, Jamaican coffee, Central American mangoes, and French cheeses. Though it appeared to make me a cosmopolitan consumer, somehow I was blind to the irony that I was driving one of the most fuel-efficient vehicles available (I had a Honda CRX at the time), yet I was contributing quite detrimentally to an oil-dependent economy in my grocery shopping habits.

So here I am now, after recently reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (my vote for book of the year), and currently reading the less-accessible Coming Home to Eat by Gary Paul Nabhan, trying to set some new boundaries for myself without becoming an utter freak. I’ve always tried to refrain from being too strict on myself because martyrdom truly isn’t my strong suit. After all, when I first made the decision to avoid processed, packaged foods, I didn’t give up pasta. I mean, sure, I could have insisted that I make my own pasta by hand, but more likely than not, I would have starved to death. There were (and still are) only so many hours in the day, and spending six to seven hours on making dinner seemed a little excessive when balanced against my then work schedule, school schedule, and need for sleep.

And certainly I would have starved to death when I decided to eat organically four or five years ago. Only so many items were even available organically around here for a while, and I probably could not have lived on that handful of ingredients alone. Of course, I could have moved further south, joined a commune and given up all earthly pleasures in order to grow all my own foodstuffs, but I’m sure that would have been rife with its own set of problems.

For obvious and absurd reasons then, I will not subscribe too rigidly to a local foods-only diet at this point. After all, I would miss so many things (coffee, olive oil, tuna, flour, etc) and would end up shriveled and cranky, with a pounding headache, in my badly-managed martyrdom. But I am coming up with some rules that I will attempt (not force myself, mind you, but attempt) to adhere to.

Most important of these new, yet still-evolving rules, is that I will try to feed myself, where possible, within some newly-drawn political lines. I’m aiming East of the Mississippi and South of the Mason-Dixon line (you can surely see why I often amuse my mother and sometimes confound my husband). So, since I know good and darn well that strawberries grow within those boundaries, then I will refrain from buying packages marked California-grown. And since I’m also aiming to eat seasonally, when strawberries are available in Georgia in May and early-June, I will eat them to the point of gluttony. After all, I will miss them in August.

My CSA membership has made much of this possible for me right now, along with Saturday morning visits to the local farmer’s market, so that this whole exercise doesn’t yet seem futile. This summer will be mostly easy, even fun, but I’m a little wary of the coming fall and winter, especially with a newborn around the house to throw things completely out of whack. So I keep reminding myself: the point here is be mindful, to eat locally and seasonally as much as possible, but not to kill myself doing it to the point where all the challenge and the fun has been leached out.

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I have already fallen hard from my newly-established and still-precarious pedestal. Cherries are in season in California right now. After piously walking by the beautiful bags of plump, bright red cherries for a solid four days, I completely caved in last week (twice) and have now gone through around five pounds of these luscious fruits over the past week. And I might cave again. Cherry season is so painfully short. So sweet, so juicy, yet so very short.

The three-week Spring Greens session of the CSA is now over, though I still found some vibrant and tender bunches of kale and chard in my first share box of the summer session. Even though I was thrilled to death by the appearance of broccoli and zucchini in last week’s box as well as the aforementioned chard & kale, I focused most of my recipe-sleuthing efforts on the end of the greens harvest so that I wouldn’t miss out on one of my last opportunities to cook with these wonderful greens this year (unless the farm continues to plant and harvest them all summer).

So far, I’ve been stingy with the chard, and have mostly used it in sautees, with crushed red pepper flakes, olive oil and garlic, but I was ready to do something different this week, and I lucked into a recipe for Swiss chard calzones (never would have thought of it myself, even though I've made spinach calzones for years) in Vegetarian Planet. Calzones are easy to make, either with homemade pizza dough, or even with (shudder to think) the convenient little refrigerated packages of pizza dough from the grocery store. I prefer to grill mine, but they can be baked in the oven with similar, though somewhat slightly soggier, results.

This particular recipe called for tomatoes, which would have been delicious, but I substituted some mushrooms and bell peppers that were already waiting patiently in my crisper drawer. The ricotta was fabulous – I usually use mozzarella or feta in my calzones and this was a welcome change.

*****

SWISS CHARD AND RICOTTA CALZONES (serves 2 as an entree, or 4 as a side dish; adapted from Vegetarian Planet)

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 cups sliced red onions
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 2 cups chopped vegetables (such as tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms)
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, leaves chopped, stems diced
• 3/4 cup Ricotta cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• fresh-ground black pepper
• crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 batch pizza dough (or, in times of utter desperation, when you don't have two hours to make dough, one refrigerated package of pre-made pizza dough)
• 1-2 more Tbs olive oil, if grilling
• 2 Tbs cornmeal, if baking

1. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic and the other vegetables, and cook for 5 minutes more, stirring frequently. Add the chard and cook for another 5 minutes or so (until tender, but not mushy), stirring often. Drain remaining liquid.
2. Add ricotta cheese, and season well with salt and pepper and red pepper flakes.
3. Roll dough out flat, and cut into either 2 large equal-sized pieces, or 4 smaller equal pieces.
4. Divide mixture between portions of dough, but only cover half of each piece. Fold empty side of dough over to make a pocket around the filling and crimp the edges with a fork to seal.
5. If grilling, brush both sides of the calzones with olive oil, and cook on grill or grill pan over medium heat for about 3-5 minutes per side. If baking, skip the oil and sprinkle a baking sheet with the cornmeal. Top with the calzones and bake at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes.
6. Serve hot with marinara sauce for dipping, if desired.

A Fool for Kale

Odd Toddler and I picked up our second weekly CSA share on Friday, and I practically swooned when I saw the size of the box and the generous quantities of greens we received. Again, we had one unrecognizable item that I had to email the guy at the farm about, clearly reminding me (yet again) of just how little I actually know. This week’s harvest: tiny arugula, spring shallots, green garlic, radicchio, juntar cilantro, red Russian kale, Swiss chard, romaine, and a leaf lettuce.

Two weeks into this little project, the radicchio is still kicking my butt. It’s a beautiful head of greens, but extremely bitter and therefore slightly difficult to work with. The first week, I followed the advice of Jason from the farm, and sautéed it lightly with a little bit of olive oil, and served it with lemon juice and sea salt. Still too bitter. This week I tried a Giada de Laurentiis recipe in which the radicchio was cooked with cannelini beans in a little bit of broth, and then topped with a pan-fried fillet of tilapia and drizzled with lemon vinaigrette. Not a good idea.

I had tried the Giada recipe previously, but since I’d been unable to find radicchio at the time, I had substituted spinach and The Carnivore and I loved the recipe. This time, since I actually had radicchio on hand, grown locally and organically, I was excited to try the recipe again, this time in its entirety. But a number of things went wrong with the whole plan. First, and I’m feeling a little ignorant for not realizing this sooner, but tilapia is brought in from WAY afar. This isn’t the kind of fish that is being caught off the coast of Georgia, or even Florida. Ecuador and Chile were the locations listed on the labels, thus seemingly negating the positive effects of my very fuel-efficient radicchio. And then of course, we can’t overlook the fact that neither the Carnivore nor I even enjoyed the final product (which I thought tasted a little like dirt).

Current score: radicchio 2, Sarah 0. I’m gonna really have to put some muscle into this next week if we get more of this mean green in our next share box.

With the notable exception of the evil, scheming radicchio, we’ve found it relatively easy to work our entire share box into our weekly meals. Nothing has turned bad in the crisper before we’ve had a chance to eat it, and we haven’t run out of greens before the next box was ready to be picked up. Truly, it’s the best possible scenario. And the surprise hit of the greens season has been the kale. Using the lettuces is easy – I eat salads nearly every day; if not for lunch, then as a side dish with dinner. Fresh herbs and aromatics are always easy to work into whatever we’re already having, and easy greens like Swiss chard can be lightly steamed or sautéed and go well with any entrée.

But the kale had me slightly stumped at first since I was striving hard to not serve different greens, each cooked the same way as the one before it, every night for the three weeks of this particular harvest. I wanted variety in our menu, while working within the constraints of what was in season at the time (and doing my best to also eat within some fairly arbitrary geographical limits that I’ve set upon myself). We enjoyed the Kale and White Bean Soup last week, but I certainly didn’t want to serve the same thing again this week with our new bag of kale. So I cocked my head just so and stared at my cookbook shelves for a few minutes, finally noticing my copy of Mollie Katzen’s Vegetable Heaven.

See, I have a LOT of cookbooks, although I’m of the mind that one can never have too many, and it can actually get a bit daunting to find just the right one when I’m trying to find just the right recipe for a given ingredient (in this case, kale). I’m not sure when or from where the Vegetable Heaven cookbook came into my life, but I think I’ve had it for at least a fair number of years, and I do know this was the first time I’d even used it. A little shameful, to be sure, and I can’t believe this was the first time I’d really spent some time reading it. It’s fascinating. And I’ve now marked a few recipes that I want to try as soon as some other vegetable seasons begin. For now though, after doing an index search for kale, I ran across a recipe for Bitter Greens with Sweet Onions and Tart Cheese.

That’s just singing my song. I love onions. I love greens. And pregnancy rules be scorned loudly, I love feta cheese and refuse to completely give it up. Since the feta would be heated in this recipe, it seemed logical that any errant scary bacteria would be killed anyhow. And besides, for pregnancy books to say its okay to have an alcoholic drink every now and then, but that you can NEVER have feta seems like a bit of sacrilege. That’s for another blog though. I have some rather vehement opinions on this. As a matter of fact, if you’ll pardon a tangent here, I have a lot of siblings, some of whom have obviously suffered from fetal alcohol effects. None of them are suffering from the overuse of feta by their birth mothers.

Regardless of where I stand on the liquor versus cheese issue, the recipe seemed like a winner. Vidalia onions are obviously local enough for me (same state) and are in season right now, along with the kale. So I threw all caution to the wind on Saturday night and served the Bitter Greens with Sweet Onions and Tart Cheese for dinner, atop brown rice cooked in vegetable broth, with a wee bit of butter and a little bit of salt. Let’s face it, brown rice doesn’t have a lot of taste to begin with, and could use the added boost. I planned the greens dish for my entrée, but was a little concerned about the meal being too, um, vegetarian for The Carnivore (and I wanted to hedge my bets in case the recipe was disappointing in any way) so I surreptitiously suggested it would be a good night for him to fix a small piece of meat to go with his dinner. Just in case, you know.

As it turned out, the recipe, along with the rice, was filling enough to be the main dish for two, and was incredibly, wonderfully delicious. As a matter of fact, even the leftovers were fabulous for lunch for the next day. And The Carnivore, from whom I had hidden the title of the cookbook I was using, loved the dish as much as I did. I think kale will be supplanting collards as our favorite green.

•••••

BITTER GREENS WITH SWEET ONIONS AND TART CHEESE (from Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven, serves two as a main dish or four to six as a side dish)

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 4 cups sliced Vidalia onion (or other sweet onion)
• Salt to taste
• 12 cups (approx. 12 oz.) fresh greens, coarsely chopped, large stems removed (this sounds like a lot, but it cooks down considerably)
• 1/2 lb feta cheese, crumbled
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the onion and salt lightly. Saute over high heat for about 5 minutes, then turn the heat to medium, cover, and let the onion cook until tender and caramelized (about 10 more minutes).
2. Add the greens in batches, sprinkling lightly with salt after each addition. If the pan fills up before all the greens have been used, cover the pot and allow the greens to wilt for a minute or two before adding more.
3. When all the greens have wilted, stir in the feta, and cook for another couple of minutes. Add pepper and additional salt to taste.
4. Serve over brown rice cooked in vegetable broth.

The Great Resistance

You would think any resistance to a week of greens recipes would come from the The Carnivorous Husband, but instead it is Odd Toddler who is giving me the most grief. I'm beginning to miss the earlier days when he would happily eat anything I put in front of him. These days, he tries to live solely on a diet of yogurt and Nutella. If he sees ANY form of greens on his plate (whether it be a chiffonade of fresh basil on bruschetta, lettuce in a salad, or a nice pile of steamed kale), he makes a gutteral sound and croaks out, "But mom, I don't like the nasty stuff." I console myself through his dinnertime pouts by hoping this is just a phase. And by quietly handing him a small carton of Yobaby.

I picked up our first bag of CSA produce on Friday, and was even more pleased than I had hoped to be. So pleased, in fact, that I happily stuffed leaves of fresh-picked lettuce into my mouth at every red light (hey, I'm 18 weeks pregnant - if I want to eat plain lettuce in my car, I have every right). The first bag included swiss chard, kale, radicchio, green garlic, and a leaf lettuce that I can't identify but which I have used in salads every day since.

This was my first encounter with green garlic and I was completely stumped by it at first. When I pawed through my bag on Friday, I thought at first glance that the garlic was a type of green onion. The stalks looked exactly like scallions, but the bulbous root end left me scratching my head. Instead of doing any research though, I (wrongly) assumed it was just a green onion that I was unfamiliar with and so I popped it into the fridge without another thought.

It was at the Oconee Farmer's Market on Saturday that I got the first inkling that I was wrong. I went by a table that advertised garlic and I quickly back-tracked to pick some up. It was one of those forehead-slapping moments when I saw the only items on the table bore a strong resemblance to my chubby-bottomed scallions. I picked up some local strawberries (the only strawberries I've seen anywhere lately that didn't come from Watsonville, California) because Odd Toddler had instructed me not to come home without some, and raced back to the house to pull the questionable green things out of the crisper drawer for some emergency surgery. Once I had the concept that they might be garlic in my mind, it only took a sniff for me to recognize the unmistakable scent of garlic, and a little cutting into the chubby part yielded some white flesh surrounding a couple of tender "cloves" of garlic. I fired up the computer and went online to see what I could find out with a little Googling, and I stumbled upon Gourmet Sleuth, a REALLY cool website in which you can search not only for recipes using specific ingredients, but where you can also get pictures and information of the ingredients themselves along with planting and storing instructions. Handy for amateurs like myself.

As it turns out, in case I'm not the only foolish one who had never used green garlic before, this is a milder-tasting version of the regular dried heads of garlic you can pick up at the grocery store, and, like leeks, you can use both the white end and the light green part of the stalk. Interestingly, one stalk of green garlic equals one or two cloves of regular garlic. I've had fun using these in all manner of recipes this week. To me, they taste like a cross between scallions and garlic; very fresh, with less bite than regular garlic, but still with a little assertive oomph. I've found green garlic and regular garlic to be virtually interchangeable in saute and soup recipes, and the green variety to be incredibly good in simple vinaigrettes (which I made a lot of this week to drizzle over the lettuces I had also received).

I tried new recipes every day this week, delighting in finding ways to use the chard and the kale, neither of which I had cooked before. My mother raised me on steamed greens, which we would dress with vinegar and salt and eat daily in the early spring when I was kid. I loved greens then, and I love them possibly even more now. So many years had passed in the interim however, that I had forgotten what a beautiful, buttery taste chard has.

The winning recipe of the week though, was a quick and uber-easy Kale and White Bean Soup that I adapted from the March issue of Cooking Light magazine (the original recipe called for collards, but it didn't seem like much of a stretch to substitute kale instead; and of course I tinkered around to make it a vegetarian dish).

As much as I may love simple, steamed greens, I have The Carnivore to think about, and I do my best to not make it so glaringly obvious to him that he married the child of a reformed hippie. The soup recipe was a standout because it truly let the kale shine through as the star of the dish, without trying to mask the delicate flavor of the green or turning the texture into mush. My favorite thing about kale is the great curly, crunchy bite to it, and only a quick wilting was required by this recipe.

I can't wait to see what's in next week's bag of greens...

KALE & WHITE BEAN SOUP (serves four - great served alongside a goat cheese & roasted red pepper sandwich)

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1 cup finely chopped yellow onion - I used a vidalia
• 3 garlic cloves, minced - I used three whole stalks of green garlic
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper - as coarsely ground as possible
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 6 oz shredded or chopped kale
• 2 tsps minced fresh thyme (or 3/4 tsp dried thyme)
• 28 oz vegetable broth
• 1 (15.5-oz) can Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed

1. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; saute until onion is tender - about 5 minutes.
2. Add wine, pepper and salt. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes or until liquid has almost evaporated.
3. Add greens, thyme and broth. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until greens are wilted but still slightly crunchy to the taste (sort of an al dente texture). Take care not to overcook the greens.
4. Add beans; simmer 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

And, um, sleep in separate rooms if you're easily offended by particularly plentiful and odiferous gas.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

I have been fascinated by CSAs for some time now, and have longed to join one. I first read about them a number of years ago, and then, around the time Odd Toddler was born, I found out that at least one of these Community Sponsored Agriculture farms existed here in my area. The concept is great. A specified number of members pay an up-front fee to essentially sponsor a farm. The farmers plant sustainable crops, often organic, and then prepare weekly bags of produce for the members during the growing season. The benefits for everyone are great. The farmers get some financing and have guaranteed “buyers” for their crops. The members receive local, seasonal vegetables, fruit, herbs and other treats (depending on the farm) that has been grown in a manner in which they approve.

The idea is extraordinarily appealing to me on a number of levels. Organic produce is usually prohibitively expensive in the grocery stores, and is rarely locally-grown. Most fruits in my local grocery store come from Central and South America, wasting enormous amounts of resources (such as gas) in their world-travels before they make it to me. Not to mention the US governmental oversight on these items appears to be lax, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to discern the amount of chemicals used in the growing and “preserving” process. And I’m loathe to eat a grape that frankly must have been picked at least a week or two before it gets into my hands.

Last week, while shopping at Publix with a painful hankering for some fresh fruit, I was stymied on all fronts. The strawberries were from California, the grapes were from Chile, something else – now forgotten - was from Ecuador, and the cantaloupes were from Honduras. Have we maybe gone too far in our desire to have what we want RIGHT WHEN WE WANT IT? Was it really so bad in the good old days (say only 10, 20 years ago) when you just couldn’t find blueberries in your grocery store except during the summer harvesting months? Were we such deprived consumers that it would kill us to go a couple of months without red bell peppers?

We’ve now gotten to the point that seemingly anything we want can be obtained not only any month out of the year, but at exceedingly low prices, at any grocery store in town. Of course, most of the produce is completely tasteless (come on – I know you’ve noticed that tomatoes no longer taste like, well, tomatoes), and surely it hasn’t escaped our notice that it just isn’t possible for fresh strawberries to STAY fresh for an entire week while they truck themselves cross-country to our table.

Though I hadn’t joined a CSA before now, I have tried to be more mindful about my produce purchases for the past year. While I haven’t completely denied myself every out-of-season item, I’ve been more careful to read the teeny-weeny little stickers to see where everything comes from, and when I plan our menus for the week, I have tried to include vegetables that are more or less in season locally (even though it has proved virtually impossible to FIND these items locally unless I were willing to do my shopping only during the summer months at the local farmers market). But this is no longer enough for me. I’m blessedly pregnant now, and am militantly hyper-vigilant about eating organically when pregnant or breastfeeding - caring for a miniature person is an awesome responsibility.

I’ve also been looking for a new cooking challenge.

The biggest complaint that I’ve read about CSAs is that, of course, you don’t get to give the farmer your grocery list and have them pick the items that you are craving at the moment. You get, obviously, what is growing at the moment, essentially only what is local and seasonal. To me, this is a minutely minor sacrifice. And a beautiful challenge for a cook. Look, if collards are all that’s growing for a month, I’m more than up to the challenge of searching far and wide for imaginative recipes in which to stave off any boredom after eating the same vegetable every day for weeks. And if I don’t find asparagus in my weekly pack from the farm, well, I doubt I’ll die of roasted-asparagus-deprivation.

So, over dinner last week, I broached the subject with The Carnivore that I married. I explained the CSA concept; I briefly enumerated the benefits to the environment, to the local economy, and to our health; and I, at length, detailed the creative cooking challenge that I craved. And of course I mentioned that everything was going to taste WAY better than the produce I’ve been buying at the supermarket. The Carnivore listened carefully, and then asked about the cost. I took a deep breath – I was prepared for this; I’m an accountant – and said, “Well, that’s the only drawback.” The up-front fee was a little disconcerting to him. After all, who wants to pre-pay their grocery bill for the next three or four months?

He asked for a few days to think it over, and I, well-versed in negotiation tactics, thanked him for his open-mindedness about the idea and especially expressed my appreciation that he didn’t just laugh and dismiss the whole thing as a little too hippie for his taste. He grinned at me over his plate and replied, “Well, you are a hippie, but I love you.” Hey, he’s voted Republican in more elections than I’ve even been eligible to vote in. I was proud of him for humoring me. And I also knew he was aware of the benefits. I love to cook; it wasn’t lost on him that any cooking challenge that I looked forward to this much was going to serve him well come dinnertime. But, for the record here, I am most assuredly NOT a hippie.

For the next two days, I bit my tongue often in my barely-successful attempts to refrain from nagging The Carnivore about joining a CSA. I knew the deadline for membership had to be getting close, and I also knew that the local CSAs, especially the one I was most interested in, filled up quickly. Then, on Thursday, The Carnivore opened up the Atlanta newspaper and went to hand me the food section. He did a double-take when he saw the cover story, and then he scratched his goatee, sighing a little. “This is probably like singing to the choir,” he said, “but here’s a story on that thing you were talking about.”

Very cool. I hereby express my thanks to the entire feature-writing team at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I grabbed for the paper, eager to read more, especially since this would be the first relatively-local article that I had seen on Community Sponsored Agriculture, but then I hesitated. “Wait,” I said, “would you like to read this first so you can maybe better understand what I’m saying about the whole thing?”

“No,” replied The Carnivore,” it’s not that important what it says. The only thing that matters to me is that this is something you want.”

I love this man.

But still he said nothing about being willing to make the financial commitment. And since I only contribute about 20% of the total household income, I felt pretty strongly that this wasn’t a decision I could just make on my own. And I’m not stupid. I needed total buy-in from him on this if it was going to work on an ongoing basis for our family.

A few more days passed, and I got more anxious with each passing hour. Then, yesterday, I got an email from the Full Moon Cooperative announcing the spring and summer CSA program along with the details and the costs. Ecstatic, I called The Carnivore. The price was only a little more than HALF what I had told him earlier, and the season was beginning this week. And, most importantly, there was no time to waste. The shares were limited to 15 for the spring 3-week program, and to 40 for the summer 10-or-so-week program. “I know what I want for Mother’s Day,” I practically shouted into the phone. I quickly explained the two seasonal options to him, sure he would at least agree to the short season, and giggled while I told him the lower-than-expected price.

“Sure,” he said easily, “go ahead and join.”

“Just the short spring option?” I asked nervously, “or can we afford the commitment to doing both spring and summer?”

"Both," he answered. And I swear I could hear the smile in his voice; he knew he was scoring major points with me. I would, without a doubt, marry this man again.

Our first weekly pickup is this Friday. I’m practically vibrating with anticipation. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT IS IN OUR FIRST BAG.

The Golden Grain of Salt

Somehow, even with all that went wrong this year, I'm apparently genetically incapable of thinking it was a bad year. After all, how can any year spent with Odd Toddler be bad? So I keep getting the Tori Amos "Pretty Good Year" song in my head every time I think about waving goodbye to 2006.

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, but still have tended to make a half-hearted attempt each year. Resolving NOT to do something, or to ALWAYS do something seemed to be too self-limiting and weirdly negative, so I long ago found a way around it. Most years, my resolutions would be something fun and easily accomplished, like "This year I will visit a new city," or "I will take a non-credit short course through the continuing education center and learn something new." Last New Year's Eve, I was 13 weeks pregnant and feeling great. I called mom, laughing, and said "I've got it. I know what my New Year's Resolution will be. In 2006, I resolve to give birth to my second child." (See, it never occurs to me that something can go wrong). Three weeks later, I gave birth to a stillborn preemie. Six months later, I had a miscarriage. And three-and-a-half months after that, I miscarried again.

I thought about trying again on the same resolution this year, but I'd rather not set myself up for failure. We're still gunning for that elusive second child, but The Carnivore and I have both found some sort of peace with the whole debacle now and it isn't something I feel comfortable making a resolution about. If anything, all of this has implanted some new sensitivity gene in me (something I always used to be woefully lacking in), and has made me even more desperately thankful for what I DO have.

Regardless, we have had a good year in spite of it all. Business has been good for The Carnivore, and Odd Toddler has become more fun, more interesting (and more odd) with every passing day. I wouldn't trade a minute of my life, but at the same time I'm excited about the new year as well. New adventures with Odd Toddler, new projects around the house and land, and of course, always the possibility of a new baby. But here I am, staring down the face of a new year, and wondering if I should have a resolution at all. It seems like cheating to not resolve to do SOMETHING, so I thought myself to be incredibly clever when I came up with [what I thought was] something great. I stood in front of Big Mama, and announced, "I've got it. I have a New Year's Resolution. This year, I resolve to try a new recipe." She stared blankly at me for a moment, and then hesitantly repeated what I had said, "You're going to try a new recipe." "Yeah," I replied, excitedly, "See, I try new recipes all the time, so this way I can't fail." She looked at me a little longer, and then nodded and walked away.

Next, I went to The Carnivore. "I have a New Year's Resolution ready. This year, I resolve to try a new recipe." I got another blank stare in return. One hand stroking the back of his head, he then looked mildly crestfallen and asked, "Only one new recipe? All year?" "Nooooooo," I answered, "I just mean that I can knock out my resolution early. I'll be sure to try a new recipe by the end of the day on January 1st, which means I can already scratch it off my list and be done." "Hmmmm," he said absentmindedly, and ducked back behind his newspaper.

I'm feeling very misunderstood right now. And I'm scrapping the whole dumb New Year's Resolution concept entirely. Besides, I've come up with something better...

This time of year, I love reading everyone's annual "Best of..." lists. You know, Top 10 books of 2006, Top 10 albums of the year, and so forth (and thank God we are well past the beginning of the new millenium when we had to endure all those bloody long-winded Best of The Century lists). In yesterday's AJC Food Section, they gave their annual Golden Whisk Awards, and I had one of my completely absurd "Eureka!" moments. Instead of planning for the New Year, I will embrace the old year. Thus, this year, I will give out my first annual Golden Grain of Salt Award to the best new recipe that I've tried from a newspaper, magazine, or cookbook. These won't be recipes that I have developed (I can't give an award to myself), but will be recipes that I have clipped, cooked, and loved. The awards committee will consist of me and The Carnivore, and possibly some small weight will be given to Odd Toddler's demanding palate, but I doubt it.

It is entirely possible that I'm taking myself too darn seriously, but hey, if you don't like it, you can always get your own blog.

And so, without enough fanfare, The Carnivore and I are proud to announce that the 2006 First Annual Golden Grain of Salt Award goes to Rustic Bread with Dark Chocolate, Olive Oil and Salt. I first found this recipe early this year in an article on chocolate in the AJC Food Section. The recipe published in the newspaper was adapted from Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America by Jose Andres with Richard Wolffe. And, interestingly, an even more (and I think overly) adapted version made it into the 2006 Golden Whisk Awards.

I first made this for The Carnivore back in March (I think) and we were hooked from the first bite. The interplay between the bittersweet chocolate and the large granules of salt was beautiful in and of itself, but the addition of the glossy and slightly fruity olive oil created an unbelievably complex and totally unexpected flavor. A month or so later, I made this for my mother-in-law and she raved about it too (proving that The Carnivore and I don't just have weird tastes - I think). The recipe is easy enough to make on any old weeknight, but would even be elegant enough for a dinner party dessert.

The recipe calls for a rustic bread (thick crust, light interior) and this caused me some grief at first. I stood around at the bakery for a few minutes, shuffling my feet and asking questions until someone suggested ciabatta bread (which can be found in the Publix bakery and most small local bakeries), which turned out to be perfect. According to the published recipe from the AJC, sourdough would be too dense.

My next point of contention was with the chocolate. The recipe simply specified dark chocolate, but the grocery stores are slap full of choices now and it can become a bit overwhelming. Where you used to find milk chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and dark chocolate, you are now bombarded with various percentages of cocoa and even geographical choices. Naturally, I have tasted my way down this entire grocery store aisle now, and can safely recommend the mild (not too bitter, not too cloyingly sweet) and easily obtainable 60% cacao dark chocolate. There are many brands, and I'm partial to Lindt, though I can be just as happy with Ghirardelli. Word of caution: the 85% cacao dark chocolate is more bitter than an unroasted coffee bean, and has the approximate consistency of dirt (and frankly doesn't taste much better). Avoid it if you can.

RUSTIC BREAD WITH DARK CHOCOLATE, OLIVE OIL AND SALT (serves 4 people, so long as they exhibit self-control)

• 4 (1/2-inch thick) slices rustic bread, such as ciabatta
• 4 oz dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
• 4 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• Coarse sea salt, to taste (regular table salt will NOT work)

1. Toast the bread until tan, and then place on a foil-lined baking sheet.
2. Scatter the chopped chocolate over the toasted bread.
3. Bake at 200 degrees until chocolate melts but doesn't start to run all over the place, about 5 minutes.
4. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and serve warm.

The Sous-Chef Shrimp

Odd Toddler rarely gets to eat dinner with us any longer, which takes some of the entertainment value out of dinnertime but which makes it much easier to clean up afterwards. The odd one crashes at 7:00 every evening, after an early evening snack of fruit, yogurt, and (ugh) jelly beans. The problem is that The Carnivore and I never seem to make it to the dinner table any earlier than 8:30. This wasn't the case for the past few years, but we seem to be reverting to our old ways now that life is returning to normal (read: we no longer have a helpless little baby in charge of the schedule).

Life with toddlers is much more fun than life with newborns, though I would give my right arm to actually HAVE another newborn in our lives, and every day seems like an adventure now. It may take an hour to pick up three items at the grocery store, since we have to stop and get a free balloon, pick out a gumball, discuss the different tomatoes, talk about spices, say hello to the lobsters in the tank, etc; but I much more enjoy simple, annoying chores like grocery shopping now that I get it to see everything through the eyes of a two-year-old. He really gets off on going to Walmart (my idea of Hell), and filling up the car with gas can provide endless entertainment. But lately, the little guy has taken more of an interest in cooking, and he'll knock me down to be the one who gets to pulse the sauce in the food processor, or scoop the coffee into the French Press, or even to carry the vegetables from the refrigerator to the chopping block.

I'm loving it. All of it.

Sometimes, when I'm stirring something on the stove and dicking around with the final seasonings, I will sit Odd Toddler on the counter and hold out the wooden spoon to get his opinion. Taste tests are his favorite part about cooking, and he watches me carefully to make sure he does his part correctly. He'll lean over the spoon, sniffing it carefully and trying to make appropriate noises. Then he'll take the smallest taste, smack his lips together, swallow, and exuberantly proclaim, "That's YUMMY for me, mom!"

So of course its mildly disappointing that Odd Toddler rarely gets to sit down with The Carnivore and I at dinnertime and discuss the meal with us. Because of course we discuss every aspect of every meal, deciding whether or not a new recipe is a keeper, whether there is enough salt or if another herb or spice might be lacking, which ingredients might be tweaked, and so on. And every night The Carnivore makes my efforts worthwhile when he thanks me for a delicious dinner (even if we analyzed the final result to within an inch of its life and deemed it not entirely delicious after all). Its nice to be appreciated.

I've been on a new-recipe-every-night kind of kick lately, and have found the time to pore over some new cookbooks and get some quality time with my cooking magazines. Variety can be difficult within our self-imposed dietary restrictions, so I'm always looking for new riffs on pasta dishes, and I enjoy adding seafood to our meals once or twice a week as a way to appease The Carnivore's desire for flesh on his plate without his having to succumb to his disgusting red meat cravings. For the past couple of weeks, I have eyed a Creamy Cajun Shrimp Linguine recipe from the September issue of Cooking Light magazine, but there were a few elements of the recipe that gave me pause and it took me a while to get up the nerve to give it a shot. I finally went for it on Monday evening, and The Carnivore and I were very pleasantly surprised (Big Mama claims its her new favorite). The flavors were simple yet tasty, the texture was great and the overall look and taste of the dish was restaurant-quality, but the dish was amazingly quick and easy to prepare. Most surprising though is how rich and creamy the sauce tastes, while being quite healthy and relatively low-fat. Maybe its time to quit dissing Cooking Light all the time. The only tweaks I made were switching vegetable broth for the chicken broth, using whole-wheat noodles instead of icky white ones, upping the butter a little, and doubling the Cajun seasoning measurement.

CREAMY CAJUN SHRIMP LINGUINE (serves 3, adapted from Cooking Light)

• 1 cup water
• 14 oz vegetable broth
• 6 oz whole-wheat linguine noodles
• 1 lb medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 3 Tbs unsalted butter
• 8-oz sliced mushrooms
• 1 large red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 2 tsps all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps Cajun seasoning (I used Emeril's Bayou Blast)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2/3 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Combine 1 cup water and broth in a Dutch oven; bring to a boil.
2. Break pasta in half; add to pan. Bring mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 8 minutes.
3. Add shrimp to pan. Cover and simmer for 3 minutes or until shrimp are done; drain.
4. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and pepper to pan; saute 4 minutes or until moisture evaporates.
5. Add flour, seasoning, and salt to pan; saute 30 seconds.
6. Stir in half-and-half; cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
7. Toss together the sauce, the pasta and shrimp, and the parsley.

Getting Cozy (Not Complacent)

Pumpkin was kind enough to stroke my ego last week with a short list of recipe requests, and I was tickled that someone else had noticed that Soup Season has begun. My only complaint about summer is that it precludes all manner of my chowder recipes. And I luuuuurrve chowders. In these parts of the world, we only get about four months of cold weather, and two of those months would be laughable to anyone who lives 100 miles or so north of us. I'm more of a South Florida kind of person as a general rule, but very few things can make me feel as cozy and comforted as a big pot of soup simmering on the stove.

I experimented with some different soup recipes last winter, but was often frustrated by how seemingly few options are available to those who eschew meat in their diets. To add to the issues, The Carnivore is rarely impressed by tomato-based vegetable stews. Our options were dwindling.

I have one great Italian Vegetable Soup recipe that can be enjoyed year-round (yes, even in summer - though possibly not in South Florida), along with a great onion soup. For the winter, I save my small handful of chilis, New England style chowders, and bean soups. But my problem is that I crave variety. And ease of work. Two often very conflicting criteria. Plus, the more Vegetarian-ish a soup is, the more The Carnivore sighs heavily and asks me if I can go by the store to pick him up some meat.

A week or so ago, while Odd Toddler and I were snuggling under an afghan in our pajamas, watching Lord of the Rings for the seven hundredth time, my annual soup cravings started again. Sadly, there were no memorable recipes from last winter, so I kicked the soup idea around in my head for a few days before running into a time crunch while making the menu and grocery list for last week. I grabbed a couple of past issues of Cooking Light on my way out the door and reached for the recipes I'd marked to try, hoping something would strike my fancy on the fly. Lucky me, there was a Leek and Potato Chowder in the Reader Recipes section that sounded worthwhile, and called for an intriguing list of ingredients.

I was excited to make the soup on Friday night, and asked The Carnivore to stop by the store and pick up some French bread on his way home. Alas, I made it almost to the end of the recipe before realizing the arugula in the crisper drawer had died a sad and science-project-like death. I stood in despair by the stove for a few minutes before admitting defeat and starting over on a completely new dinner. The unfinished soup was set aside and refrigerated overnight to be completed on Saturday.

Saturday came, along with yet another trip to the store (the only store in this whole dang town who actually carries arugula, and I was finally ready to finish the soup. The Carnivore built a fire, the soup simmered on the stove, the bread was crisping in the oven, and my little family was happy and healthy. All the good things about winter were coming together at the same time. Of course, I still had my doubts about the soup, even as I was cooking it. The cook's notes at the top of the recipe mentioned that the author had developed the recipe for a vegetarian hiking retreat (not something I wanted to mention to The Republican Carnivore ahead of time).

I've mentioned it before, but its worth repeating. Recipes that are deliberately vegetarian can lean towards the pointless. This particular vegetarian looks at all Vegetarian Recipes as possibly suspect.

After a few taste tests, and a few additional tweaks to the original recipe, I was cautiously hopeful that I had a winner. When everything was ready, I ladled the soup out and served it with warm, crusty French bread. I took the first couple of bites and was more than a little surprised at how delicious it was. The creamy base of the soup came from pureed potatoes rather than milk or cream, and while it sounds great in theory, I had been worried that the lowfat trick would affect the texture and the depth of flavor. I found though that a complexity of taste could be faked with the addition of some cooking sherry (I love adding this stuff to bisques and chowders), and a little (okay a lot) of added salt and pepper helped punch up the flavor of the potatoes .

And most surprisingly, The Carnivore loved it (and even mentioned that he thought the texture was wonderful - imagine his surprise when he found out the texture came not from cream, but from the potatoes themselves). Even Odd Toddler enjoyed the soup, although his pleasure came mostly from dunking his bread in the soup and then slurping up the soggy crumbs. We're thrilled to have a new and different, and extremely healthy, chowder to add to our winter soup repertoire.

POTATO LEEK SOUP (serves four, created by Lisa Gilbert, heavily adapted by Sarah)

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 2 to 3 leeks, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced and rinsed
• 2 1/2 lbs cubed Yukon gold potatoes (keep the peel on for added texture and fiber)
• 5 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups thinly sliced (or chopped) arugula
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/8 cup sherry (cheap cooking sherry is fine)

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add leeks and saute 5 minutes or until tender.
2. Add potato and vegetable broth, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 25 minutes or until potato is tender.
3. Place 3 cups of potato mixture into a blender (remove center piece of blender lid to allow steam to escape) and blend until smooth.
4. Return pureed potatoes to pan; bring to a simmer.
5. Stir in arugula, salt, both kinds of pepper, and sherry; simmer for another minute or two until arugula wilts.
6. Serve with warm bread.
7. Snuggle in front of the fire with your family and be thankful that you aren't going cold or hungry.

Please remember that Tuesday, November 7 is Election Day. Our right to vote is just one of the many things that make this country so great. It doesn't take much time or effort to educate yourself about the issues and the candidates , and it is hardly an inconvenience to go to the polling place and cast your vote. It is abysmally sad that only about 45% of registered voters are expected to hit the polls for the midterm elections. The polls are open for twelve hours. Make the time to get your voice heard.