Sunday, May 29, 2011

Kale: what the heck?

In the past five months, I've eaten more kale than in my entire life combined.  It started with tasting kale chips from Whole Paycheck, at which point I declared them a sick, cruel joke perpetrated on vegans.  And not cheap, either.  However, and thankfully, the lovely Danielle made them for us on a girls' weekend in Tahoe in January, and I've been hooked ever since.  And then we had the Kale Caesar at Peggy's and that put us over the moon.

As a result we planted two varieties in  the garden this year: Russian and Dinosaur.

Friday night we harvested outer leaves for the first time and made kale chips for dinner guests.  Declared by one to be the very best kale chips she'd ever had.  And she knows from kale chips, so that was intended as a compliment.

But here's what I want to say about kale.

It's an amazing plant.  Check this out.  It appears to grow new leaves wherever there's a cut in an existing leaf.  I mean, look at the evidence.  Isn't that what it looks like?

Kale is, according to what I'm reading, a super-food, cancer-fighting, DNA repairing, calcium containing -- in short, amazing!  Thrives in not-hot weather, which could mean that I could keep it going pretty much year-round, in a bed, like it is now, with lettuce and radishes.

So grateful to have been fed kale in January, so that now, on the brink of June, I have done the "work" to ensure home harvests for the next few months. 

Delicious!


2 comments:

Martine said...

People are kale krazy! It stars in one of f52's top recipes (quite delicious, I must say): http://bit.ly/kzUzQw

Ariane said...

So kale-razy! I loved this exchange on Modern Family, between Mitch and Cam, whom I adore.

"Guess what the new spinach is? Kale."
Kale should remain a garnish. “It’s not ready to anchor a
meal.”

XX