White and Greens

We had our first dusting of snow earlier in the week. It’s gone now, of course, but a promise of what’s yet to come. Micro-farming has helped me appreciate the winter months more. I still don’t like the cold (which, in my mind, is anything below 60 degrees), but I’ve come to appreciate the seasonal changes in rhythm and focus. Now, instead of working in the garden until 8 or 9 pm, I sit by the woodstove and thumb through the seed and tree catalogs that have begun to arrive. Outside, I admire the neatly stacked wood pile, the result of Richard’s work through the summer and fall, cutting and splitting dead trees. There’s a cycle to the year, and it feels right.

What gardening there is these days is mostly harvesting. The leeks will be fine for a while, even with the snow. And the greens are protected by their plastic blankets. The hardiest, like kale, don’t need the cover to survive, but the added warmth is encouraging them to continue to produce new growth. Some days I remember to pick a bowlful of greens before going to work in the morning. Other days, I head out with a flashlight in the after-work darkness.

Yesterday, working at home, I made it out before dark, harvesting nearly a pound of kale for dinner. Most of it was “Red Russian,” smaller, but far more tender than other kale varieties. The “red” in the name refers to its purple stems and leaf veins; the leaves themselves are green. This crop remains, surprisingly, from a spring planting of a mesclun salad mix. Most of the other greens in the mix have long gone to seed and been pulled. But the kale is still producing, too large now for salad but perfect for braising.

I wasn’t a fan of kale until I learned to cook it well. Our favorite: sautéing a entire head of garlic in olive oil, then adding the kale leaves (stripped from the stem) with just the water remaining on the leaves after rinsing them; when they have cooked down, season with tamari and balsamic vinegar to taste. Now we can’t get enough. Last night, I added some cooked white beans at the very end and served it over pasta for a quick dinner-in-a-bowl. The pound of kale disappeared in a single sitting.