Do It Yourself? Maybe...

Lesson Learned (again, maybe):

If you don't really like sprouts, growing them at home won't make them taste any better. Yeah, yeah, they might be healthier, because you are have better quality seeds, etc., but isn't that the problem? For me, they already taste too "healthy".

These were kale sprouts, and they only took four days of changing the water just twice a day, so really not a lot of work. But, well, at a certain point on day three, I though something had gone "off" in the kitchen garbage can. Only to lean in closer and realize that it was the sprouts. I guess it's true that growing up is a messy and stinky business.

I may try growing some arugula micro-greens since I really love arugula and have a small mountain of seeds. Also, the little buggers always seem to bolt before I get to enjoy them as salad.

The Little Lettuce That Could

Bronze Arrow lettuce is the big hero of the salad bowl these days. No caterpillars, no bolting, and, unlike the English queens, if you chop off it's head, it simply grows a new one. I have to confess that it is not the most flavorful lettuce, but it tastes waaaay better than anything you can buy.

One seed must have slipped into a crack in the patio during planting and has now formed a lovely little head. A bit redder than most (must be the daily baking it receives), and certainly somewhat lonelier, but it never complains or whimpers.

I'm a bit torn, though. One the one hand, every time I see this little lettuce, I am impressed with its determination and valor. On the other hand, I wonder if it too would re-grow a new head...

Amaranth, the Showstopper

Amaranth is once again being touted as the next big thing - a superfood even - but it has been around since before the Aztecs and the Incas lost out to the Spaniards. In the 70's, the Rodale Institute tried to pitch amaranth as the grain of the future, but without much success. This summer I just had to try it: not so much for the superfood aspects, but because I had never tried growing any kind of grain before, and this was a very easy place to start.

Amaranth starts really small - the seeds are so tiny that they cook down into a porridge. When they were still young and tender, we ate the leaves - think "mild spinach." Even better, think "Greek diet."  I convinced the neighbors to try some, and they thought the amaranth was alright, although they found the stems a little tough. (Yeah right, try rainbow chard if you want tough stems.)

Some people apparently add the young leaves to the salad mix, but do not try this at my home. Nor rainbow chard in any form, for that matter.

But amaranth sure knows how to grow. Within a few weeks, the plants were no longer suitable for greens (the seed heads were already forming). Instead they became the Purple Sensation on the block. I met more people over the question of just what the heck was growing up front. And the queries only increased as the number and size of the flowering seed heads expanded.

Ultimately, the plants topped out at about 6 ft., with at least a 3 ft. spread (naw, once again, we couldn't use the walkway. So whose dumb idea was this anyway?)

Be aware that those tiny seeds easily drop from the flower heads, so if you plant amaranth, expect to find many, many, many seedlings coming up next year - just in time for a spring "mess o' greens." No worries, though, they are very easy to pull out.

Many gardeners grow amaranth for the wonderful, long-lasting bouquets they produce. The flowers can also be dried for year-round floral arrangements. (Can be, but not by me. I already have enough things that suffer from a lack of dusting.)

So eat the leaves and share the bounty with your friends and neighbors.

Jill and the Romanesco Stalk

February 23rd

It happened last year - I was given a packet of seeds for my birthday from a stranger. I didn't even have to give up the old family cow in exchange. But still, the kid with the beanstalk probably got the better deal.

Nonetheless, I was pretty excited. Romanesco broccoli. I had been looking for these babies for a while (even in Italy, in fact, when I had to be consoled with puntarelle and radicchio seeds instead).

Romanesco is a variant form of broccoli, or cauliflower, depending on who you ask. (Most people you ask probably won't even know what you are talking about, but then most people don't eat their broccoli, either.) Those who know, though, know that it can be rather fussy about growing. Which is why it is difficult to find at the market and costly when you do.

March 3rd

(Years ago, inspired by the most perfectly-formed romanesco - a bridal bouquet of a broccoli - I asked the kind cashier at Monterey Market if she would marry me. It's not as if I really wanted to get hitched; somehow I just lost my head. She almost fell over, but wisely turned me down. We've continued just as friends.)

Right, then. I planted the seeds this past summer for a fall planting - the preferred time - and nobody showed up.  So I replanted, replanted and finally got two seedlings. One didn't amount to poo-poo, and the second one wasn't going anywhere fast until it got a load of full-strength horse manure dumped on its head.

March 10th

And then we got somewhere. What started out as a small inch-wide bud expanded to the size of a softball. Every day I had to go observe its progress. I was in love again. I was boring my neighbors. Harvesting was easy and the roasted cauliflower recipe from Epicurious was great. Just be prepared for major shrinkage. Or maybe my people actually do eat their broccoli?

I can't say that I will be growing romanesco again anytime soon. But even without the giants, the golden eggs and the bag of gold, I got a fairy tale's worth of entertainment.

March 16th
In the roasting pan

Cinderella's Kid Sister

Puntarelle, in fact, is no relation of Cinderella. Rather, it is a type of chicory and one of the darlings of Roman cooking.  Although it's not well known here or even in other parts of Italy, I'd heard that it is quite delicious, and difficult to find in the market or on a menu.

So I thought, if you can't find it, go out and grow it. But first, you need the seeds (I know, this is beginning to sound like a chicken and egg story...).  But I got lucky. In Italy last fall, while looking for romanesco broccoli seeds (which I never found), I came across a packet of puntarelle seeds and they, ahem, sort of just followed me home.  (A number of years ago, a very different kind of seed also "followed" me home from Bhutan, but that is another story, and those seeds are all looonng gone.)

Once home, I planted the seeds and waited. And waited. And waited at least twice as long as the seed packet made me believe possible. But in April, I finally had something to talk about.

And, put politely, it was very obvious that my puntarelle were really something to talk about. They were all, shall we say, most manly.  You'd of thought it had been raining testosterone instead of water. Or maybe Cinderella had a kid brother?

Unlike most "greens," the focus is not on the leaves, but the the stems and the shoots that are tucked in at the center of the plant. The shoots are finely sliced and made to swim in ice water for an hour or so to remove some of the bitterness and curl the slices. It also keeps them very crunchy.

This part can be  time-consuming, so you really have to like the people who are dining with you. (And they damn well better like the salad, too, and tell you so. Repeatedly.) It may appear seasonally on restaurant menus, such as Locanda in the city.

Drain the slices, pat dry in a towel, and gently mix with a dressing of finely minced garlic, mashed anchovies, olive oil, vinegar and/or lemon juice, and salt to taste.

Buon Appetito!

If you want to plant some yourself, search for "puntarelle seeds" or "chicory catalogna seeds" and plant late summer/early fall for a holiday season harvest. That's what the Romans do.

Breaking News! Wild Shoots! Out in Oakland!

I know, I know, collards are not the most glamorous vegetable on the plate, even if eating your greens is very cool right now.  But if you wait around long enough, you get something even better (can that be possible!) than the leaves.  You get the shoots.

The shoots are tender (stalks included), mildly broccoli-esque, and if you pick them regularly, will keep producing for a very long time.

Saute them in olive oil with garlic and onions; do the southern Italian thing by adding raisins, pine nuts (actually, most often now I use almonds or pepitas since pine nuts have gotten so dear) with a splash of balsamic; or chop them up for use with those other healthy greens you have on hand.



In fact, collard shoots are very reminiscent of my favorite broccoli: the trendy "piracicaba broccoli."  Found on menus from as far away as Blue Hill at Stone Barns (one of my lovely sisters is on the Board at Stone Barns) to Bar Agricole in SF, piracicaba is somewhere between broccoli raab and a heading broccoli, only sweet-flavored, and very easy to grow.  Winter or summer.  Eat the small heads and the tender leaves, wait, and more will appear over a number of months.

Piracicaba seeds are available from Bountiful Gardens, (although they misspell the name and mash the pronunciation.  It's "peer-a-see-CA-ba".  I told 'em, but they just weren't listening).  Bred by Brazilian agronomists, so of course it's trendy.