welcome

To a new season.  To a new week (in which, hopefully, I will return to a normal posting schedule).

Isn’t this kale lovely?  I only planted ornamental kale, a choice I might have been regretting by now, when the plants are just bursting with vigor and color and health — except that I do not like the taste of so-called “edible” kale.  It’s probably a question of cooking; collards were the leafy fall vegetable of choice in my childhood bioregion, and so I learned about how to properly prepare these tasty, bitter greens.  But kale was practically unheard of.

Maybe I just haven’t found the right recipe yet.  Does anyone know of a sure-to-wow-them kale recipe?  I might try it with what’s available at the grocery store and have some kale plants that aren’t just for show next year.

Of course, a tiny voice inside is saying that kale from your own garden soil has to be a completely different experience from kale purchased at a national chain store, the poor leaves having been probably grown on a huge farm where the soil has become nothing more than a nutrient-drained sponge awaiting its twice-yearly application of petroleum-derived fertilizer to be able to grow anything at all, and then the harvest having been trucked over a thousand miles before being carried a few more to my kitchen countertop.  Almost all of the other food we grew ourselves this summer was a completely different — and better! — experience than what one could get in a grocery store.  (I say almost because of the zucchini, which were, to my senses, nearly identical.)

But I’d have to know that I can cook it in a way I’d want to eat it before putting seed in the ground next year.  Otherwise, that “edible” kale would basically revert to being ornamental kale — and it might not be as pretty as this one.

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