Invasion of the Vegetables 2

I’ve written about my farmers’ market love affair before, but now I am positively racked with vegetable gluttony. I try to resist the farmers’ market – I can’t possibly fit any more giant celery or giant leeks or giant chard in the refrigerator – but it calls to me. Maybe if I just walk around and admire the vegetables I won’t bring any more home.

But who can resist?

I used to easily pass certain vegetables by; I don’t like radishes and who knew which part of a fennel you ate? But I went one day with my friend Rob, and he said, “If you roast radishes, they get mild. If you roast those salad turnips, they get soft and juicy. Just try it.” I have bunches and bunches of radishes now, and I get more each week. I roast and roast and roast … when I’m not making gallons of soup.

I invite friends over to reduce my inventory. I used to think of it as “making dinner,” now it’s “making room in the fridge” and the dinner is incidental.

It’s not just my weakness either. My friend Judith was traveling so she showed up at my house, abandoning her Brussels sprouts and turnips as she left town. (Yes, it reminded me of those old jokes about secretly delivering excess zucchini in the middle of the night to your unsuspecting friends.) Judith even had a kohlrabi thing, which looks like some terrible mutation but that’s what a kohlrabi is.

I positively scour cookbooks, magazines, and the Internet for recipes. Oh, yikes: I’ve turned into a Foodie! A vegetable-only Foodie. I make things with names like Fennel Leek Soup, Curried Brussels Sprouts with Currants, and Asian Sesame Zucchini Noodles (out came the spiralizer). All the extra leaves go into Minestra di Riso e Fagioli alla Genovese (soup).

Kohlrabi nearly stumped me: my $30 America’s Test Kitchen Vegetarian cookbook doesn’t even have kohlrabi in the index. Martha Stewart, however, has “8 Delicious Ideas” for kohlrabi. That’ll be tomorrow’s experiment, tomorrow’s New Thing.

I found a recipe for turnips and other root vegetables, and the photo in the magazine looked great. The recipe called for parsnips and celery root (which hadn’t made it into my kitchen yet) so I had to visit the farmers’ markets again. I had to. I found the parsnips, and one woman showed me what a celery root looked like, but she didn’t have any for sale. She told me that we could even eat the funny little rooty-looking things that stick out of the bulb.

So off I went to New Sagaya and their odd vegetable collection. (Yes, I’m prowling for vegetables. I’m a veritable vegetable Lewis and Clark.) While the man went to check for celery root in the back, I looked at all the other vegetables. Oh, no! The thing I thought was a turnip – and built the whole recipe around – is really a rutabaga! Hmmm, they look sort of similar.

I Googled “Can I substitute a rutabaga for a turnip?” and am always astonished to discover when lots of other people have had the exact same question before me.  Turns out that rutabagas were invented by crossing cabbage and turnips and supposedly, they turn a brilliant orange when they’re cooked and mashed.

When I moved from New York to California, I discovered brand new vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, things I’d never heard of. I’d grown up on French Style Green Beans from a can; gray, slimy-ish, soft and mushy green beans. I left New York believing that vegetables had to be canned to be safe to eat, like pasteurizing milk. When I discovered FRESH vegetables, my whole diet changed. In San Francisco, I lived near the produce market and bought my food daily.

Then I moved to Alaska. In the grocery store back then, I’d see vegetables for sale that would have been spoiled rejects in California: wrinkled, limp peppers; spotted green beans; soft, squishy zucchini. In California, they were compost. In Alaska, they were food.

That all changed with Costco, but the farmers’ markets offer new bounty with Alaska’s own giant, spectacular vegetables. The farmers’ markets are glorious temples of vegetables, and I worship at them. There are just two Saturdays left, and then they’re closed for the season.

Sob.

The Joys of Guerrilla Knitting

Last fall, I took a fiber arts class. I’ll have more to say on that because it was part of my quest for a new life, but we had to do some research. I did mine on Guerrilla Knitting – knitters cover things in the urban environment by going out and Yarn Bombing them. The class loved the idea, said I should get one going.

Okay, I knew how to do that. I can do outreach. I can get the word out far and wide through all sorts of unorthodox channels. I can make something happen. It’s what I do.

So I arranged for us to Yarn Bomb the trees in front of the Museum, give them sweaters for the winter. The Urban Foresters gave their endorsement.

Then I had to learn how to knit. Only knit. I didn’t even progress to purl, but all this was a New Thing, just what I was looking for. We held Knit-Ins. I learned how to make stripes, how to knit with two balls of yarn at the same time, how to mix colors. With fat, bulky yarn and big fat needles, projects just zoom along; it’s very gratifying. While I was watching my never-ending DVDs, I could knit and knit. Before spiralizing, I was a Knitting Fool.

Knitters came out of the woodwork! Knitters were posting gorgeous photos on our Facebook page. They were knitting stars, flowers, words; they were well beyond stripes. Pioneer Home, Senior Center, Native Hospital – sweaters were coming in from all over. Balls and balls of yarn were donated. (Only later did I realize this was really thinly-disguised de-cluttering: knitters accumulate massive yarn stashes. They have to move some out before they can justify getting more. And if it’s going for a good cause, well hallelujah!)

Experienced knitters were teaching little knitters. TV stations were calling. Photographers were interested. Radio. We were going to be a First Friday happening: come and attach the sweaters to the trees. No experience necessary. Be part of public art.

Temperatures fell and fell. Uh, oh. Who would want to attach sweaters to trees and risk frostbite? But the day dawned and it was sunny … and windy and freezing. Out we went to the Museum with bags and bags of knitted pieces.

And people came! People who wanted to put theirs up. People who hadn’t knitted but who wanted to be part of it all. People on their lunch hour. People with kids. Kids hiding behind trees. People with cameras. People taking breaks to warm their hands and attach more. It was the happiest day of my whole year! It was everyone’s happy day! (Listen to me on TV) 

What was it? Was it the beauty in an unexpected place? (Look at the photos.) I think so much of our experience of art is as a spectator, and here we were all participants. We could all Do Art!

Jealous? Sorry you missed out on this? Now you have your chance: another big event is happening, and you can Yarn Bomb a whole street. Come out First Friday, September 4 to the big block party on D Street at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art, 5-10 pm. Be part of public art! (I won’t be there; I’m on a postponed vacation.)

Yes, there is a Third Third moral to this story, but for now, it was merely the highest high spot in a year of muddle. The highest high spot. So what did I do with that little bit of insight? Or what didn’t I do?

The Quest for New-ness

When I think about the downsides of living in Alaska, it has nothing to do with cold or even dark. It has to do with what I call the “one-road-north-one-road-south” problem. By the time you’ve lived here 30 years, you have traveled every square inch of what you can do in a 3-day weekend. So then exploration and discovery are more involved and cost more.

But when Sophie went off to college, I resolved to try something new every week. This lead to adventures like joining a curling team, a bowling team, a magic class. And it doesn’t even have to be something with such a big commitment.

Recently, for instance, I discovered

You’re supposed to be able to turn zucchini into long strips of spaghetti. Think of the healthiness! The calorie savings! So I got a Spiralizer. It looks like this with a potato in it.

The potato is supposed to stick to the grips on the top so that when you press down and turn the crank, it rotates through the blades. The hard part was keeping the potato up there. It kept falling down and thumping around in the bowl. But when I sliced a bit off the top so it was flat, it stuck right in the little grips.

I became a spiralizing fool.

This is called keeping your brain active and your curiosity alive.