KALE - WHYWOULDYA?

In recent years, kale has become the darling of the food world. You’d think it was a new vegetable like the broccolini that’s been around for just over ten years. No. Kale has been around since Hector was a pup – at least it seems that way to me. I’ve never known life without kale, and I’ve never known many who liked it. My mother liked it, my sister liked it, I absolutely hated it. Still do. Well, maybe I’ll eat some fresh in a tangy salad, but if you were me and had been raised on overcooked vegetables that you absolutely had to eat, come hell or high water, you wouldn’t touch the stuff. I think my sister was from another planet.

What prompted me to write about kale is a recipe for “Potato Kale Breakfast Hash” in a recent shelter magazine. Frozen kale and hash browns, are to be cooked up, with all the expected additions, and served with fried eggs on top. Gross and disgusting. The ruination of the hash and the eggs.

My mother’s cooking forte was soup. She made wonderful soups of many varieties. I do remember her pea soup. She must have loved that pea soup color, because most green vegetables she cooked were done to match. I didn’t know that asparagus and string beans should be bright green, and I didn’t know I could love them so much. From dining out, I came to realize that vegetables were more palatable if they weren’t cooked to death. I eventually learned to steam anything but root veggies just until I could smell the aroma. Done!

We are exhorted to expand our food horizons and think up new ways to eat. I think I’ll leave my horizons just where they are.