Scarlet Queen Turnip. It is Not a Radish!

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

June 4, 2010

My grade for naming red root vegetables at the Wednesday Boulder County Farmers’ Market = F. Well, maybe more like a C minus. Once I learned that Scarlet Queen Turnips are not radishes, I was able to identify the actual radishes on the table next to the turnips.

It’s the greens that should have been the dead giveaway. Turnip greens are more than twice the height and width of the radish. But, at the time, my brain could not entertain the possibility of the existence of a brilliant red turnip.

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Jerusalem Artichoke, I Mean Sunchoke

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

April 8, 2010

The Jerusalem Artichoke got the “most interesting vegetable” award (at least in my book) at the Boulder Farmers’ Market last week. I’d seen them last fall. I was even given one as a sample by a generous farmer who noticed me hovering around them with a look of befuddlement. But alas, I tucked it into one of the many pockets of my purse, where it was left to a fate of dehydration and neglect. Cleaning out my purse a few weeks later, it no longer resembled its former self. The markets were done for the season, and my Jerusalem Artichoke aspirations were placed on hold.

At the market this week, I approached a crop of Jerusalem Artichokes and hovered again, maintaining enough distance to keep the farmer from engaging with me. I listened to the comments of passers by. “Oh, it’s ginger” one woman said with confidence when a friend asked her what it was. Another said it was a sunchoke. Finally, I asked the farmer who told me it was a Jerusalem Artichoke. It’s the root of a flower that is related to a sunflower, and has nothing to do whatsoever with an artichoke. These Jerusalem Arthickokes had been left in the ground over the winter, and dug up for last weeks market.

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Vegetables Old and New at the Boulder County Farmers’ Market

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

April 5, 2010

Despite winds strong enough to knock me off balance, I strolled enthusiastically along the rows of vendors at the Boulder County Farmers’ Market this past weekend. It was Opening Day. Farmers’, out of touch since the Fall, greeted each other with questions like “how’d your bees do over the winter?” And they graciously answered my questions as I tested out my accumulated veggie knowledge after almost a year of vegetable exploration.

“You stored this over the winter, right?” I asked about the potatoes. Last year at this time, I’d thought they’d been pulled fresh out of the ground. I perused the market, self-administering a veggie quiz along the way.

Grown fresh or stored?

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Monday Dose of Market: Baby Food, Burritos, and Biodynamic Wine.

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

March 23, 2010

Biodynamic is a new word for me. Posted next to the new display of Jack Rabbit Hill wine at Denver Urban Homesteading, was the definition of biodyamic agriculture, pulled from wikipedia:

“Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming with homeopathic composts that treats farms as unified and individual organisms,1 emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants, animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs2 insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food.3”

If your eyes glazed over when you read that, like mine did, perhaps attending Jack Rabbit Hill’s wine tasting event at Denver Urban Homesteading is more your speed. You can taste their Pinot Gris, Barn Red, and Pinot M &N on April 23rd at 6pm as well as hear how Jack Rabbit Hill answers the question, “what is biodynamic farming?”

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Flat-Leaf Parsley. Impressive.

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

March 18, 2010

I’ve never been impressed by curly parsley. I first ate it as a curious kid at a restaurant trying to be fancy by using parsley as a garnish. (It might have been a Long John Silvers.) It was tasteless, it strangely tickled the roof of my mouth, and the small leaves lodged themselves between my teeth after a few chews. Its relegation to garnish status made perfect sense.

As an adult, I was dismayed by how many recipes called for parsley. Was there a highly-funded pro-parsley conglomerate lobbying cookbook authors and publishers to include the insipid herb in their recipes? But then, I found flat-leaf parsley. It was zesty. It had girth. It was so hard to tell apart from cilantro.

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Monday Dose of Market: Native Greens Greenhouse

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

March 15, 2010

An invitation to Ski Country to stay with relatives visiting from out of state + a slow internet connection = a week off for The Weekly Veggie last week. The snow was soft, the sun was out, and my nephew, who I taught to snowboard on Monday, was better than me by Friday.

Local vegetables were hard to come by. But after visiting Native Greens in Kittredge, CO a couple of weeks ago, I now know there is hope for local vegetables to be grown in greenhouses all over Colorado. Even in mountain towns with a shorter growing season.

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Sprouts. Fast Food Vegetables.

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

March 4, 2010

“From seed to salad in only one week,” says Good Sprout News about vegetable sprouts. Sprouts are nature’s fast food! And, “they can be locally grown and available in all four seasons.”

Radical. But so simple. All the hunting I’ve been doing for local Colorado vegetables in winter, and really, I didn’t have to go any further than my kitchen for an astounding array of vegetable variety.

Before this week, if you asked me what type of sprouts, sprouts are, I would have said “sprouts are sprouts.” If pressed, I might have said “bean” or “alfalfa” sprouts. But then I noticed radish sprouts and brought them home for my husband, who has been packing vegetable sandwiches for lunch. They were spicy… And then, daikon radish sprouts. They were even spicier.

Cracks began appearing in my sprout-es-sphere.

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Monday Dose of Market: Backyard Greenhouse Bounty

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

March 1, 2010

Have you ever thought about building a greenhouse in your backyard? Ed has. A lot. From inexpensive yet effective materials, to passive heating and vegetable yields, this greenhouse in South Denver is more than a casual hobby. Stepping through the sliding glass door out of the snow, Ed welcomed us into his world with socked feet, standing on a small patch of grass. The warmth enveloped me and I immediately began planning my own backyard greenhouse in my head.

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Arugula-gate?

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

February 25, 2010

While campaigning, Obama asked a group of Iowans, “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” Obama was trying to make a point that prices at grocery stores have risen, yet farmers haven’t seen their prices go up. Detractors were quick to point out that there are no Whole Foods stores in Iowa. Arugula-gate was born. Suddenly, arugula became a symbol of elitism, a vegetable litmus test.

I wonder how arugula felt about all this.

After all, arugula hails from humble origins. It’s a weed, native to the Mediterranean and Middle East. It’s not arugula’s fault that its mustardy spiciness has gone unappreciated in the U.S. until the nineties when it started appearing in overpriced salads (you may have also seen it called Rocket.)

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Monday Dose of Market: Vendors at the Denver Indoor Farmers Market

From theweeklyveggie.com — A Vegetable Ignoramus Expands Her Repertoire by Cristin Couzens

February 22, 2010

Last week, I was so taken in with the baby chicks for sale at Denver Urban Homesteading’s Indoor Farmers’ Market, that I didn’t post pictures of other vendors from the market. There is a surprising amount of variety for February! While fresh veggies are in short supply, vendors like Ginger’s Gourmet had the good sense to put up concoctions like zucchini relish last summer.

Denver Urban Homesteading is stocked with heirloom vegetable seeds from Baker Creek. It’s nice to see increasing interest in heirloom vegetables, but dreaming about all of these tasty varieties is amplfying my impatience for the arrival of spring.

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