枕詩やレジャーのメリット

  

Schrambling_swiss chard union square greenmarket-6344
I want to love Swiss chard, but it's hard. As a cook, I get frustrated because it's like buying one cut of beef that needs two techniques. You can't just chop leaves and stems and braise or sauté them together; you're stuck with the vegetable equivalent of cartilage. But as an eater, I also find the taste evokes that old New Yorker cartoon ageloc me, if you change "spinach" in the caption to "brassy."

So I cringed a bit at the Greenmarket the other Sunday when we ran into friends who were having us over to dinner the following Tuesday to watch one of the presidential debates. What did I spy in her bag but . . . spinach brassica.

Luckily, I know Diane's a seriously good cook, and she came through with not just the ideal menu theme for ledge-clinging Obama supporters (comfort food in the form of baked ziti with turkey sausage) but also exemplary chard. As she described in an email later Jewelry hong kong: "We caramelized a Vidalia onion, then put in the stems, and then the leaves with balsamic vinegar." That touch of acid was perfect, especially since I've been seeing recipes lately for pickled chard stems.

But she also noted: "How is it we always manage to serve you food you don't really like?" And I guess I am probably the most finicky professional eater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But at least I will (almost) always try whatever is put in front of me monthly rental apartment.