Trendy Vegetables – Introducing the Watermelon Radish

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watermelon radishes

Watermelon radishes with a simple salad — and a side of tomato bisque. Delicious.

I have to admit, when my eye fell on the splash of bright red at the farm market, I was immediately drawn to it. These dull, gray Chicago skies were starting to get to me, last weekend, so I was immediately happy to see some true color shouting out amidst all the dirty (but delicious) root vegetables. My curiosity about this fresh-looking upstart drew me right to it and the farmer proudly introduced me to his watermelon radishes.

Eating a Watermelon Radish

Even from the outside, watermelon radishes look a bit like very small watermelons, with a greenish tinge to their skin, which seems a bit thicker than a regular radish’s, and a size that looks a bit bigger than your standard grocery store radish.

Inside, these babies pop with color. They look enticing. They taste milder than a regular radish — not so much bite to them, and perhaps its just the suggestion of watermelon that makes you think so, but the texture seems a bit looser and you really want to imagine watermelon when they first hit your tongue.

Watermelon Radish Salad

Watermelon radish

Watermelon radishes from the farm market.

What else? I made a quick, simple salad to enjoy these radishes for the first time. I sliced them then and thick to see which gave a better experience — my vote is for thick in the future — and tossed them with some red-leaf lettuce, carrots, olive oil and a bit of red wine vinegar.

 

 

 

Articles and Stories to Wine About

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beer on an assembly line.

Photo credit: National Archives, Flip Schulke, 1930-2008, Photographer

I have worked around and in the wine business for quite many a year. From the retail side, restaurant side, collecting side but mostly from the production side.

When I am out at parties or at bars and most restaurants I prefer to drink a winemaker’s best friend, beer. Does this make me a wine snob? Despite my insistence that I am not, I am viewed with skepticism. So often I hear people say “I like it even though it is crappy wine,” or “Even though it isn’t good enough for you, I like it.”

As you like it

Well allow me to dispel the myth: Not all wine people are wine snobs. Just because I don’t like a wine doesn’t mean it is bad wine and when that happens, which is 95% of the time, I just drink a cold beer. A delicious and refreshing cold beer.

“Just taste it, it is not that bad,” “Taste it and tell me why you don’t like it.” I say: Let me enjoy my cold beer and you enjoy the glass of wine that I chose not to drink.

Wine the way you like it

My grandmother genuinely enjoyed a couple of glasses of Almaden Chablis from the jug each night with two ice cubes. She looked forward to it and I would have a glass of beer along with her. Never did it occur to me to say “Grandma, you are drinking bad wine.” And I will tell you why. Because she liked it!

So begins a once or twice a week rambling about my life in wine. From stories in the vineyard and winery to long meals with good friends and family.

Farm Fresh Popcorn for Oscar Night

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pocorn kernels

Popcorn kernels  at the Green City Market.

We love the dog sitter. He’s one of those great kids who is gonna be somebody someday, and we’ll tell folks, “No kidding, he used to dogsit for us…”

I always try to stock up on snacks for him, but the last overnight we planned came up too fast and as we were leaving I timidly said, “well…you know how to make popcorn, right?”

“Sure,” he replied, “Just pop the bag in the microwave.”

Something to pop about

We’re old-fashioned here at the house, and we love making popcorn on the stove, the way Mom used to. In fact, the method I use was taught to me by my BFF’s mom, Alice, who liked to get a pan hot with oil, toss in the kernels and pour salt on top of them before they even  popped. She would put a paper towel on top of the pan and secure the paper towel with the lid to catch some of the extra oil and then pop away!

Even more old-fashioned is the over-the-fire popcorn basket of yore — I’ve never had the opportunity to give that a try, but if our next home has a fireplace, I’m for sure going to.

For the Oscars, I want to make a nice big bowl of popcorn and enjoy the evening from the couch, celebrating the long-lasting relationship between the movies and popcorn.

Farm fresh popcorn

Have you tried fresh farm market popcorn? Available at all the markets, its grown locally and helps your local farmer pop a bit of extra income in these lean winter moths. Buy some and take the opportunity to show your child that popcorn doesn’t originate in a bag — they’ll love the experience of stove-popping with you, and they’ll appreciate 8,000 fewer chemicals, too.

Don’t forget the butter and the salt — and if you want to know more than you really want to know about popcorn, visit the Popcorn Growers Association site to read about the history or popcorn and the movies and find some great recipes.

Wanna Make a Rutabaga?

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Rutabaga

Rutabaga with caramelized onions and honey.

Growing up, I had Irish aunts who seemed to be from another time. They used words like “pocketbook”, “davenport”, and “icebox”. They still  stocked white gloves in their drawers in case, I suppose, the trend for white gloves ever returned, and they cooked as if the depression was still on. I remember hearing the word “rutabaga” in their house for the first time. I think their kitchen was the only place I heard that word. I thought rutabaga must be some old-world food that they kept in their “root cellar”.

I have avoided rutabaga all this time.

What is a rutabaga, anyway?

Turns out rutabaga was the result of a liaison between a turnip and a cabbage at some point in the 17th Century — according to a very lovely entry in the University of Wisconsin Extension’s Alternative Field Crops Manual. Maligned for the first part of the 20th century for being a bit too difficult to grow, the root vegetable enjoyed a renaissance in the 1970s, and can now be found on grocery store shelves.

It’s one of those unsightly, often misshapen vegetables that makes you either feel a bit sorry for it, or spurs you to believe perhaps there’s something really great inside that dirty exterior. So today, I picked up some rutabaga at the Green City Market and decided to give it a try.

Cooking Rutabaga

Most recipes seem to suggest mixing rutabaga with its earthy companions — carrots, parsnips, turnips — for a hash, but I wasn’t in the mood for too much frying. Instead, I diced and boiled the rutabaga, then mixed it with some caramelized onion and honey.

Rutabaga’s got an earthy, interesting taste. “savory” was my husband’s word for it. I’d serve it as a side to a real juicy pork chop, or with stew — something that could really stand up to the texture and flavor of the rutabaga.

In all, as part of an “eat more vegetables” campaign, I’d say the rutabaga has got a place at our table for a change of pace every once in a while. And making it today gave me a chance to think of my aunts cuisine — so Irish with their cottage hams and cabbage. The simple meals they made for us came directly from the heart. As my dear old aunts would say, “Oh, heavens to Betsy, I haven’t had a rutabaga in ages!”

Get Experimental this Valentines Day

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Flowers for the living experimental station

Flowers for the Living takes place February 14th — check it out now!

Looking for something different to do this Valentine’s Day? Attend a party and support the organization that brings you the 61st Street Farmers Market all summer. Experimental Station is planning quite a bash — Flowers for the Living features Chicago duo H.N.I.C. and special guests.

The evening begins at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 14th, and costs $15 per person or $25 per couple, so grab a date and get to Experimental Station at 6100 S. Blackstone Ave.

Experimental Station is a place you can go to get involved — from the farmers market in the summer to the bike shop where you can buy a bike and learn how o fix it — to arts and culture, this is the kind of neighborhood “station” every neighborhood should have.

Enjoy Valentine’s Day with them and give a little love.

 

Chicago Chocolate

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bannana cream truffles

These truffles at Katherine Anne Confections had — if memory serves — a bannana creme pie flavor.

We’ve written about Katherine Anne’s Chocolate before, not just because her freshly-made chocolates, caramels, and marshmallows are inspired deliciousness, but because she embodies the small business entrepreneurship that this big town needs.

Catherine hosts what I like to call “chocolate release parties” and welcomes people to her shop to create confections with her. You really get the idea very quickly that she loves what she does and that she is passionate about sharing what she does with other people. And since what she loves is chocolate, it’s not very hard for others to love it, too.

Whatever you’re doing over the next week, consider participating in one of these activities with Katherine Anne:

  • SATURDAY 2/9, 12-6PM: handmade cards from a local artist will be for sale: a calligrapher will be writing complimentary love notes.
  • SUNDAY 2/10, 12-3PM: Illinois Sparkling will be pouring their delightful bubbly for you to sip while you hang with us.
  • WEDNESDAY 2/13, 6:30-9PM: Valentine’s truffle-making party! You know the drill on how awesome these are. We’re providing extra champagne for this one ;)
  • THURSDAY 2/14, all day! We’ll be pouring even MORE bubbly (we have a problem, we know) and adorning all boxes with a pretty floral sprig.

Chocolate Tasting at Garfield Park Conservatory

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The Wednesday before Valentine’s Day (well-timed) The Garfield Park Conservatory is hosting a chocolate tasting program. Find out about the history of the caco plant and learn how the concoction of caco and sugar turns into a confection.

Register now for “From Bean to Bar” taking place Wednesday, February 13, from 6 – 8 p.m. Only $20!

 

Winter Vegetable Soup

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soup over snowy chicagoFinally there’s snow in Chicago. It was creeping us out, not having any snow. Warm January days when the temperature climbed almost into the 60s felt wrong somehow. Now with the snow falling properly — we’re expecting a few inches — we’re ready to focus on that other favorite complaint Chicagoans like to focus on: a few extra pounds.

After all, Chicago is one of the meat-eatingest, beer-drinkingest restaurant towns in the Midwest (aw, heck, in the whole country) and without  lot of cold air to help us shiver the calories off, some of us have found a few extra pounds hanging around this year.

The weather has me craving meat stew, or bean soup, but I’m dedicated to getting in shape for the No Boundaries running program that start in about ten days at FleetFeet so I read all those delicious bean soup recipes and decided to go ahead and eschew the beans for hearty winter vegetables and lots of flavor. I chopped leeks, zuchini, butternut squash, and roasted tomatoes, and let this soup simmer on the stove for a few hours, filling the house with all the same satisfying smells you’d get from a higher-cal option, and turns out it rewards with just as much — flavor, a bit of crunch, and a satisfying feeling of being full when you’ve finished a bowl.

Read the Winter Vegetable Soup recipe.

Winter Vegetable Soup

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1 – Tbs olive oil
2 leeks, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, chopped

winter vegetable soup

This hearty winter vegetable soup is delicious served on its own as a soup or a “fake stew”, and it’s low-cal.

2 small zucchini, diced
1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced
2 stalks celery, sliced
1 12-oz. can roasted tomatoes
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups water
celery leaves, 1 – 2 bay leaves and 1 tsp peppercorns for a bouquet garnis
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in an 8 – quart pot, and add leeks and garlic, cooking until fragrant. Add zucchini, squash and celery and heat for a few minutes until soft, then add the tomatoes, stock and water and bouquet garnis. Simmer until squash as cooked — at least 20 minutes. For a ticker, stew-like consistency, boil down to desired thickness.Remove bouquet garnis and serve.