Leeks

Beyond a supporting role

By Margarett Waterbury

April 23, 2013

I’ve always thought it was fitting that leeks were the national symbol of Wales — not because they share any particular inherent qualities, but because both have a tendency to be overshadowed by their showier, more attention-grabbing companions.

It’s not that leeks are forgettable, exactly. Most people recognize them, and there’s something striking about their sturdy, unglamorous shape. It’s just that they’re often overlooked — relegated to the bottom shelf in the produce section, chopped and cooked beyond recognition into soups and sauces, or puréed alongside potatoes, forever playing a supporting role.

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Escarole

An ideal beginner’s chicory

By Margarett Waterbury

January 2, 2013

I recently stumbled across a magazine article about dieting that asked, “What do you do when you’re so tired of salad you simply can’t eat any more vegetables?”

The question struck me as odd, because I’ve never been so tired of salad that I couldn’t eat any more vegetables. There are so many delicious combinations, so many wonderful varietals, and such a range of diverse tastes from season to season. I simply cannot fathom ever getting truly sick of them.

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Fennel

A wispy, aristocratic vegetable

By Margarett Waterbury

November 27, 2012

The first time I ever tasted raw fennel was, appropriately enough, in Florence, Italy, the namesake city of the plant’s most well-known varietal.

Down the street from my school was a bar that served enormous lunch salads in deep white bowls: bitter greens blanketed in a thick layer of olives, oil-cured tuna, cubes of provolone, tomatoes, and thin green slices of what I thought at the time was the strangest-tasting celery I had ever had.

I ate them near-daily. Only later did I realize those crisp crescents weren’t celery at all, and that there was more to fennel than those little licorice-flavored seeds my grandmother put in her biscotti.

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Asafetida

Even stinkier than garlic

By Vijaysree Venkatraman

July 25, 2012

“Eat no onions or garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath,” a Shakespearean character entreats actors in the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Alliums are aromatics, eaten precisely for their smelly qualities. But what if you’re forbidden onions and garlic for life?

Some vegetarians in India are required, for religious reasons, to shun onions and garlic. They have come to rely on a potent resin as a replacement: asafetida.

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The great scape

Curls of green

By Jackie Varriano

May 29, 2012

In the first few months of the season, the thing I love most about the farmers market is that with each week, the list of available produce grows longer. Every Saturday morning holds new surprises as well as old favorites I’ve waited for since last season.

One of these old favorites is the garlic scape. A tender green shoot sent up from the root of hardneck garlic, a scape stalk looks like a curling, twisting green onion. (It’s similar to but not the same as green garlic, which is just immature garlic shoots.) The taste isn’t as strong as that of mature garlic; I call it “garlic lite.”

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Morels

Pleasure in the hunt

By Jackie Varriano

April 30, 2012

We’re smack in the middle of spring, the perfect time to grab a mesh bag and a walking stick and go hunting — mushroom hunting, that is.

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Chia seeds

The latest superfood

By Jennifer Ward

January 11, 2012

Remember the Chia Pet? The kitschy little animal-shaped clay planter that, with minimal care, sprouted a green mop in a matter of days?

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Peachy keen

How to pick a peach

By Katherine Sacks

September 2, 2011

Anyone who’s eaten a peach won’t soon forget its lusciousness, but the range of flavors among varieties might surprise even the most ardent peach lover. There’s the subtly sweet, white Sugar Lady; the tangy, bright yellow Flavorcrest; and the oh-so-aromatic, orangey Sun Crest. But that’s just a start.

Fresh peaches, of course, are delicious out of hand. But as a pastry cook in Los Angeles, I learned to use every type of southern California peach for cobblers, sorbet, breaded and baked desserts, ice creams, and soufflés. And it doesn’t get any more American than a peach pie; after all, American fruit lovers have picked the fuzzy stone fruit since European colonists first brought the species to the Eastern seaboard. (A native Chinese plant, the peach was introduced to Europe through the Silk Road trade routes.)

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Fiddleheads

When humble ferns are the star of the show

By Jen Smith

May 11, 2011

As April sunshine melts the last patches of snow, hungry locavores slip on their mudboots and head into the woods. Peering into shaded groves and soggy fields, these foragers are looking for a taste of the changing season, a brightly flavored reminder that summer is on its way. For a few short, exhilarating weeks, spring is fiddlehead season.

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Winter radishes

Celebrate the last of the season

By Emily Horton

March 28, 2011

The first time I encountered a watermelon radish, I confused it with a turnip. For weeks, I raved about this unusual turnip — the one with the creamy exterior and the rosy middle — to produce-enthusiastic friends. Finally, one Sunday at the farmers’ market, I pointed them out to my friend Kate.

“Oh, these?” she laughed. “They’re radishes. But yeah, they’re great!”

In my defense, sturdy watermelon radishes — one of many heirloom radish varieties, in this case a type of daikon — arguably have more in common with turnips than with the more familiar dainty French breakfast and cherry belle radishes.

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