Raw Kale Salad: A Green Time of Year

Today at the farmer's market a guy that I don't think that I know directly asked me if I'd seen any bok choy at the market. I said, "No" because, I hadn't.

Then he asked me if I'd seen chard, and since I was right at the Triple T Ranch and Farm booth, I pointed to the basket of Swiss chard. He went over to it, and I remarked, "Why don't you use kale, there's lots of it here today?" He walked away and I have no idea what he did.

But I know what I did, I bought collards and 2 different kinds of kale: dinosaur and Red Russian and made a raw kale salad. This is certainly one of my favorite winter salads when the greens are sweetest. There are many variations on this but this is my current favorite. I think that this will change when the vegetables change with the seasons.

The Veggie Queen’s Raw Kale Salad
Serves 2-4
This is easy to make and you’ll get a great dose of greens. Use your favorites types, put in extras to suit your taste. The only limit to what goes into this salad is your imagination. When you massage the greens, be sure to add the love.

2 bunches kale, collards or other greens, washed and spun dry
2-3 teaspoons raw tahini
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1-2 teaspoons miso (my favorite is South River Miso – brown rice or or mellow white works well) or Bragg’s liquid amino acids
1 teaspoon agave, or more to taste
1 apple, sliced thin, julienned or grated

Remove leaves from large ribs and slice thinly. Put into a large bowl. Add the tahini, lemon juice and miso. Put your hands into the bowl and massage the greens until they are wilted, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the agave syrup and apple. Stir well to combine. This tastes best when eaten immediately.

Note: you can also add sunflower seeds or dried fruit to this salad, or go more savory by adding crushed garlic and sliced onion and omitting the apple.

Notice how the greens shrink by about half when they are massaged with the tahini, miso and lemon juice. If you are eating this by yourself, make half a batch at once.

Let me know how you like this salad by leaving a comment here on this blog, below, or sending me an email at jill at theveggiequeen.com.

Ubuntu in Napa: When the Timing is Right

Sometimes there are evenings that have a touch of magic. I think that my dinner with my friend Fran Costigan, the alternative dessert diva, was one of them.

Fran and I both presented at the McDougall Celebrity Chef weekend, and we were tired. It had been very warm outdoors and for that I am thankful. Due to the heat, we decided to get a patio seat at Ubuntu, a "community-focused, vegetable-inspired" restaurant in downtown Napa, the next county inland from the Sonoma County paradise in which I live.

The hour's drive to the restaurant was about all that I could handle with my degree of dragging. But sitting outdoors, surrounded by flowery landscaping and candlelight, changed my mood. And, spending time with Fran was great.

We perused the menu, and as we did so, I saw the waiter sashay by with a flowery salad. I asked what it was, and was told that it was the Carta da Musica. I knew that shortly we'd be eating that gorgeous creation, described as a salad from "snout to tail." The delicate flowers and creative greens which include a French ice plant with a snappy, salty bite (name now forgotten), herbs and arugula was as tasty as it was delicious. It's served on a Sardinian flatbread, with or without truffled pecorino, and the most incredible Trumpet Royale "pancetta", which was incorrectly described as black trumpet mushrooms by both the waiter and chef. But the lightly fried, paper-thin slices of mushrooms that had been smoked had both the mouthfeel and flavor of bacon. Hmmm, may I have a plate of those non-McDougall mushrooms please? (After all they are plant-foods, aren't they?) The pig was surrounded by "dirt" made of dehydrated beets and hazelnuts. I can almost guarantee that you've not had anything like this before.

Along with our salad we had a couple of "tastes" of wine, which are 2 ounce pours for a reasonable, by Napa standards, price of $4 to $6. Perfect amount of wine, especially for the driver.

After the salad we looked at the menu again and ordered the pizzetta. This one had borage (a cucumber-tasting blue flower) tapenade and vegan cheese, for us.

While we waited for our pizzetta, we were served a highly artistic beet dish, compliments of the house, that was incredibly tasty, albeit a bit too precious for my taste. The cubes of gold and red beet with flowers, beet chips and a rhubarb relish made for tasty bites but just bites they were. It may have been an amuse bouche but wasn't presented as such.

And then our pizzetta arrived. It was perfectly cooked and the flavors were bright, with the borage topping made from local Sevillano olives a perfect foil for the perfectly cooked crust. The vegan cheese was a did not distract from, or overwhelm, the wonderful flavors of the fresh summer vegetables. It is just how I like my pizza, crisp crust, light topping and vegetables plus herbs.

The end of the meal was as much a highlight as the beginning. I believe that the dessert that we had was called a "creamsicle" but it's not like any that I've ever had. I never cared for creamsicles so was reluctant to order this one. But I am glad that we did. My description (no photo, sorry, my camera battery died and Fran shot photos. It was too dark by dessert.) will not do it justice.

On the bottom of the glass were beet tapioca pearls, with an intense red color. They were topped with orange sorbet. Mineral (or other fizzy) water was poured over those 2 elements, creating a textured, cold, creamy and spritzy dessert. You have to experience it to get what it's all about. I can just say, that as a mostly non-citified woman at this point, I don't often order $9, non-baked desserts, but I'd get this one again. It was light and delicious and thank goodness, it's nothing like a "creamsicle" except for the orange flavor.

The food and atmosphere of Ubuntu are top notch although the service left me flat, despite our perfectly sweet waiter, named Jeremy, same as the chef, who has a lot to learn about ingredients and wine. Total tab, without tip, for 2 tastes of wine plus a glass, one salad, pizza and dessert was $60, which may fly in Napa or NYC but it's a bit rich for my Sonoma County blood.

I will be going back and we'll see what kind of vegetable treats and tricks Chef Jeremy Fox has up his sleeve in the deep of summer, with all manner of vegetables at his disposal.

If you're going to be in Napa be sure to make reservations and check out their vegetable-inspired cuisine.

Ubuntu also has a yoga studio upstairs. I think that a perfect day for me would be staying at the eco-friendly Gaia Hotel and Spa in American Canyon, taking a yoga class and eating lunch at Ubuntu, and sometime later getting a spa treatment. Something to consider.

BTW, within a day or two, the hot weather vanished and a night on the patio without a jacket would have just been impossibly chilly. So, timing is indeed everything.

Spring Farmer's Markets in Sonoma County

This weekend I went to 2 farmer's markets: one in Santa Rosa on Saturday, the other in Sebastopol on Sunday. I don't often do this but on Saturday I led a group of 4 through the market to buy ingredients for their private cooking class. I was happy to do this, which turned to thrilled when J. one of the tour group said that he's lived in the area for 40 years but had never been to the market. That's a symphony to my ears.

It was luckily a slow market day due to overcast weather, which made it easier to peruse the stalls and traverse the aisles. We have reached spring abundance and I was able to get everything on my list and more. (I did this by showing up about a half hour before our 9 am meeting just to be on the safe side and snagging some locally grown organic strawberries and asparagus.) I didn't have garlic scapes (the curly part of green garlic that will eventually form a flower), baby artichokes or squash blossoms on the list but we had those. And in addition to a bunch of spring kale (a different variety than the regular curly-type), we were also able to get broccoli rabe for our greens sauteed with garlic. The Spring Surprise Saute had a great mix of spring onions, leeks, asparagus, sugar snap peas and a variety of summer squash, which just appeared in the past week. I would have added cilantro to the mix but didn't want to get into who loves and who hates cilantro.

The menu for the day included Creamy Asparagus Soup (which in my book is Creamy Spinach Soup but I say that you can use the formula for almost any vegetable and asparagus is a favorite), Salad with Balsamic Strawberry Dressing (this is a take off of my Sweet Summer Super Salad), Marinated and Baked Tempeh, Quinoa Pilaf with Mushrooms, and the previously mentioned Greens with Garlic and Spring Surprise Saute. I had so much fun leading the group through the cooking. Miraculously, as we were finishing up the dishes and plating, the sun came out and the group headed outside for an amazing lunch. J. loved the tempeh which was a big surprise and S. loved the quinoa, as she'd never had it before.

Taking a group to the market meant that I couldn't really shop for myself so yesterday I went to Sebastopol ready for my weekly vegetable foray. When I saw the Laguna Vegetable stand with their amazingly sweet carrots, I knew that it was going to be an amazing day there. They also had sugar snap peas and young white Tokyo turnips, with great looking tops which I had the young man remove immediately and put into the bag. BIG TIP HERE: You want to remove the tops of all root vegetables right away as they breathe through the tops. Both roots and leaves will stay fresher this way. Everything else looked great, too, but I was moving on.

I stopped to speak to Paul of Paul's Smoked Salmon for a bit. He's a great guy and we have some good laughs together even about serious subjects such as his mother's recent passing. I love people who have a sense of humor, and he's one of them.

As I walked through the market, I got to say hello to people I know and chat with people that I've never met. It's a warm and friendly place. I guess that it's because everyone is happy to be outside, even if it's not sunny, buying produce, flowers and local goods. This is a huge departure from what it must feel like to buy vegetables at the local supermarket, which I try to avoid.

I ended up buying beautiful long beets (about which they didn't know the variety) but didn't want the greens and asked them to give them to pass them along to someone who wants them. I hadn't even left the stand when a woman walked up and asked how much for beet greens. She was handed the bag of my greens. FREE. Now, that is sheer joy, in my book.

I had more than one conversation with a farmer about stores that carry local produce and the small degree to which it really happens. I said that we need to rethink the system and figure out something that works better for all. (I still love my idea of teaching gardening and cooking to all, for FREE. If you know of any companies who might want to throw money at this, just let me know.) Regional food supplies are a good way to start changing things. Maybe each neighborhood has a community garden or group of growers or who knows what?

Dan Kahane (of Graton Greens, or at least that's what I think that his farm is called) and I were about talking about the motto, "reduce, reuse and recycle", and how we might want to add rethink. I told him that means that we have to get more people thinking in the first place. I know you are, and hope that you will work on continuing the conversation with those that you know. Each one of us has the ability to influence change.

I am now going to cook something for a block party this afternoon. Still wondering which of these vegetables I want to use: beets, asparagus, turnips, English peas, sugar snap peas, torpedo onions, garlic scapes, green garlic, summer squash, red romaine lettuce, salad mix and cilantro. I also have organic strawberries, cherries, peaches and nectarines. It may just turn out to be Spring Surprise Salad today. Only time will tell.

Without Mom Where Would I Be? With Food and Vegetables

Family meals growing up were always interesting, and they happened almost every night. My mother made dinner. With a meat and potatoes husband, most of the time, and 3 particular daughters, I am sure that it wasn't easy to make something that everyone liked. This is still the daily dilemma for many Moms today. Although now, if your child doesn't like something, you can open the freezer and hand them something to pop into the microwave. But not then.

My mother never forced me to finish a meal or clean my plate. When I was a very young, and naturally too-skinny, girl she would tell people, "She eats just fine and when she wants to." Mom was responsible for most of my good eating habits, and a few of the not-so-good ones, too. She used to take me to the bakery for a treat (remember those black and white cookies?) at least once a month as I recall. She let me walk to the candy store and buy whatever I could afford, which usually wasn't much. She never made much of a big deal about either activity.

But what my mom really did for me was just let me be the eater that I was, and offered meals with vegetables daily. My best meal memories actually have to do with another Mom, and that was my grandmother, my mother's Mom.

My Nana, as she was affectionately called, was an excellent cook. She loved cooking and really knew how. My grandfather had a heart attack in his mid-40s (he lived until he was 78) so she had him on a special diet based on the Kempner rice diet. She cooked "special" things for him. It was those “special” things that I looked forward to tasting when she'd come to visit us for dinner. I am sure that my Mom could have made the same food as my Nana but it was Nana's domain and she wouldn't let anyone else do it. She carried a little cooler filled with what I deemed “the good stuff.”

My grandfather’s food was perfect for me -- baked potatoes, special tomato sauce, vegetables and usually chicken or fish, which I didn’t ask to eat. It was only recently that I realized that I ate all the vegetables that Nana brought with her whether it was eggplant , broccoli or green beans. I ate plenty of vegetables at home, too, but Nana's always tasted better. Maybe it was the special love that she put in for my grandfather that made the food taste so good.

My very special memory of my Mom, who is alive and doing well, is in the summer when I was 4 years old. She bought, or maybe grew, English pod peas. I don't remember eating them before but when I tasted them, I loved them. I recall her giving me an entire bag to shell. I went to a neighbor’s house and while sitting on a swing, I was shelling peas and eating almost as many of the small, sweet rounds as made it into the bowl for my mother. She would add them to macaroni salad. (Yes, this was pre "pasta salad" days). I am sure that I ate macaroni salad because of the peas, and not the other way around.

After I left for college my mother tended a garden. One winter I came home and my mother cooked kale. I didn’t recall ever eating it before – maybe they didn’t sell it in the supermarket. The flavor of those sweet greens still lingers in my mind today ---one of the best vegetable eating experiences I’ve had, and lead to me eating kale and other greens often.

Food issues with my mother didn’t exist since she let me eat what I wanted when I wanted without ever thinking that it was strange. When I left home and packed on some extra pounds more than once, my mother didn’t say a word, likely knowing that I had the inner wisdom to eat what I liked, and regain equilibrium and return to my natural weight.

I find it fascinating that I have turned into the quintessential mother in my professional life as The Veggie Queen™. I repeat the Mother’s war cry: “Eat your vegetables every day” although I don’t say it quite that way.

So, I have my mother to thank for good eating habits: eating when I am hungry, never feeling as if I need to finish the food on my plate with a strong desire to eat my vegetables. And when I see my mother we can share a piece of pastry or chocolate, and that also feels like a natural part of healthy eating.

Note: After writing this post I took my dog for a walk, and realized that there is indeed another Mother to which I owe complete gratitude, and that is Mother Earth. For no matter how we treat her, she still continues to provide nourishment to millions of people. She knows how to nurture each plant to provide for each person, and it’s our job to listen and learn. For without Mother Earth, we and bounty wouldn't be here.

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If you like this post or have any comments about it, please enter them in the comments section below. I want to hear what you've got to say about your Mom, or other, experiences that have influenced your eating.