Vegetables

We’ve had a bit of a cold snap around these parts. A little autumnal chill that hints at the jacket weather to come. The kind of weather that begs for closing up windows and putting on warm socks. Of course, yesterday it was too warm for long sleeves, and even though there was apple pie …

Last week was the first week for peas at the market. It’s a time I look forward to every year, and it never seems to come soon enough. There’s something special about really fresh peas. When I was growing up in Michigan, even though I wasn’t much of a vegetable eater as a kid, I …

April Bloomfield’s first book, A Girl and Her Pig, was a big deal in the food world when it came out a couple of years ago. I heard plenty about it, but because I was vegetarian at the time, I mentally added it to the stack of meat-centric books that just weren’t for me and …

For much of my life, I was largely indifferent to cauliflower. It was something I might pick from a veggie tray if the carrots and cucumbers were gone. Raw, it was Bunnicula’s broccoli, sort of crunchy and faintly bitter. It was, I guess, okay. I felt similarly about steamed cauliflower. It was milder and softer. It was fine. …

This has become my salad of the summer. More specifically, this basil vinaigrette has become my salad dressing of the summer. I love basil. When it’s in season at the farmers market I come home with a big bunch of it every week. I, like most people, usually use it to make pesto or sprinkle shreds of it …

I was late to the pickle game. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I discovered the charms of these vinegary briny nuggets. Even now, I go for long stretches without eating anything pickled, and to be honest, classic dill pickles are fine, but they don’t do much for me. Dan, on the other hand, …