Vegetable humor from today’s Dear Abby column:

“I’m an inveterate punster — ‘If I put a leafy green vegetable on the barbecue, will it be chard?’”

Abby advises the punster to keep his puns to himself. I disagree. Anyone else have a good food pun to share?

This Gazette photo from 2007 looks down Second St. SE toward First Ave.

It wasn’t so long ago that a fellow Gazetteer and I marveled at how fortunate we were to work downtown.

It’s a different scene downtown now, and a rather lonely one come lunch or coffee time. While I’m thrilled that Sub City has reopened, Phong Lan is just a couple of blocks away, and a walk to Brewed Awakenings is a nice extended break, I miss the urban downtown scene and the slow but steady growth in dining (and nightlife) options here.

When I talked with Quinn Pettifer at the Downtown District back in February, she told me there were 37 restaurants downtown. Most of them were affected by the floods. Of course they weren’t the only restaurants in the area hit — there were popular pubs and restaurants and bars in Czech Village, along the Coralville strip, and in other flooded areas, too.

Earlier this month I started working on checking in with the flood-affected restaurants, and asking owners and/or chefs if they’d be willing to share a favorite or signature recipe — something to tide us over while we’re waiting for them to reopen their doors. Check out today’s column for a recipe from C.R. Chophouse, and let me know if there’s a specific restaurant or recipe you’d like to see in future columns.

And if you’re looking for information on which restaurants have said they plan to rebuild downtown, check out Cedar Rapids Downtown District’s list of businesses who told the organization they are committed to downtown. You can also find some information on flooded restaurants — and other businesses — in The Gazette’s relocated businesses database.

But, since I spent last weekend re-packing the contents of my cupboards, I figure it’s time to share.

And yes, you read that right: re-packing. The kitchen remodel was part of a big get-the-house-ready-to-put-on-the-market effort. And it seems to have worked. The house sold in a day, and — even though the buyer hasn’t really said anything to indicate this — I’d like to think it’s all because it had a pretty, pretty kitchen.

East wall:

before

after

My new favorite feature: a built-in dishwasher! In the before picture, you can see the portable dishwasher on the left edge of the photo. It was such a pain to move and hook-up, that I usually just did dishes by hand in the sink. The new dishwasher alone made the entire job worth it!

My least favorite new feature: See those two switches to the right of the sink? One operates a light above the sink. The other operates the garbage disposal. When the electrician re-wired the kitchen, he reversed the switches. So for the last couple of months, every time I meant to turn on the garbage disposal, I ended up with a little extra light instead.

South & west walls:

before

after

Want you can’t see very well in these before pictures is the grime that had built up in the deep grooves of the rough texturing of the kitchen walls. It was nearly impossible to clean, and it wasn’t very safe (I frequently scraped up my knuckles on the texture peaks while opening and closing the shades), so we took a rather extreme route to solving the problem: taking out the walls and putting in new ones.

North & west walls:

before

after

Look at all that natural light! My kitchen table was a great spot for photo shoots (like the header on this blog!), and I can only hope I get so lucky in my new house. (Which, by the way, is still in Cedar Rapids — I’m not going far!)

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, rising prices are leading many workers to cut down on lunchtime dining to save money. Bringing lunch from home is one popular option. A graphic that runs with the story shows how a turkey sandwich, chips and soda can be twice as expensive if you’re getting them from a restaurant vs. bringing them from home.

But turkey sandwiches day in and day out get a little dreary. What are your favorite bring-it-from-home lunch options?

Week 7 of the summer of the CSA brings… more kohlrabi! This time it’s red, though, instead of green. (Or, at least, red in the same way that red onions are called red even though we all know they really look purple.)

I haven’t found a kohlrabi recipe that I really love yet. Any suggestions on a great way to prepare my latest acquisitions?

In the meantime, a picture of my half of this week’s share (the last few weeks, I’ve showed you the entire share): Clockwise from far left, kale, kohlrabi, beets, garlic chives, peas and broccoli (my favorite!) There was also a head of cabbage, which was promptly passed on to a colleague who has a much better appreciation for the veggie than I do.

CSA, week 7

image from Dazed81 on flickr

There’s a great story on NYTimes.com about one of my all-time favorite foods: chocolate chip cookies.

Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret

By David Leite

Published: July 9, 2008

TOO bad sainthood is not generally conferred on bakers, for there is one who is a possible candidate for canonization. She fulfills most of the requirements: (1) She’s dead. (2) She demonstrated heroic virtue. (3) Cults have been formed around her work. (4) Her invention is considered by many to be a miracle. The woman: Ruth Graves Wakefield. Her contribution to the world: the chocolate chip cookie.

The article goes on to say that there was one crucial step left out of the version of Wakefield’s recipe that’s printed on chocolate chip bags: letting the dough chill overnight. Doing this results in richer flavor and more even browning. Plus, a NY Times test showed that chilling the dough was likely to give the cookies the perfect texture — crunchy outside and soft, chewy inside.

Other tips from the article on baking the perfect cookie: Make sure all your ingredients are room temperature, use the best quality ingredients you can find, don’t overmix, and be sure to include the salt.

Click here to read more. And click here for the newspaper’s new “archetypal cookie recipe.” I think it’s time to bake up a batch of cookies.

We’re about a third of the way through the CSA season, and now even the cat is getting into this trying new vegetables thing.

Kitty eats kale

Of course, he’s kind of a non-discriminate leaf and flower chewer. (If only he actually kept down all that greenery he pilfers.)

So, for week 6, along with the kale the kitty samples, we got: clockwise from left, garlic scapes, kohlrabi, cabbage, lettuce, kale, broccoli and peas. (This is the full share again.)

CSA, week 6

I used the kale last night to try a recipe that Hy-Vee dietitian Christy Frese shared with me after reading my column about trying kale for the first time. It was good – I liked the contrast between the greens and the salty olives and feta. And it was quick and easy to make. But… and this is probably not something you should say to a dietitian… my husband and I agreed that we prefered the kale and pasta that was cooked with bacon fat (see the recipe here). Still, I’ll probably try this recipe again – and try it with some other greens – later in the season.

Penne with Greens, Olives and Feta

Penne with Greens, Olives and Feta
Makes 4 to 6 servings

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
1 garlic clove, minced
1 large bunch greens (such as spinach, mustard greens, kale, or broccoli rabe; about 1 pound), thick stems removed, spinach left whole, other greens cut into 1-inch strips (about 10 cups packed)
12 ounces penne
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pitted Kalamata olives
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (about 3 ounces)

Mix parsley, lemon peel and garlic in small bowl; set aside.

Bring large pot of salted water to boil. Add greens and cook just until tender, 1 to 6 minutes, depending on type of greens. Using skimmer or slotted spoon, transfer greens to colander to drain. Return water to boil. Add pasta and cook just until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain, reserving 3/4 cup pasta cooking liquid. Return pasta to pot; add greens and 3 tablespoons oil and toss. Stir in olives, feta, and enough reserved pasta cooking liquid by 1/4 cupfuls to moisten. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Sprinkle with parsley mixture and serve.

Source: Bon Appetit magazine, April 2008

Have a favorite kale recipe? Post it here and share!

It’s not often that I’m not a) reading about food, b) thinking about food or c) eating food. I like to use my job as an excuse for this. But, as I wrote in today’s column, when I’m sick, even I’m not in the mood for much beyond saltines and noodle soup. What about you? What do you crave — or maybe just what are you able to stomach — when you’re sick?

First off, an apology for my shaky camera skills this week. Second, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice I skipped a week of CSA reporting. Unfortunately, that’s because I missed a week of CSA-eating. The stomach flu hit my house last week — both my husband and I were down for a couple of days each – and my bag of produce didn’t even make it home, let alone get eatten.

So, week 5. This is the entire share: Clockwise, from top left, spinach, kohlrabi, collard greens, cucumber, summer savory (an herb), broccoli and garlic scapes. 

Things like garlic scapes are one of the reasons I wanted to join a CSA. Not garlic scapes specifically, but foods that I had never tried before, possibly couldn’t get anywhere else, or had never even heard of. Garlic scapes fit all three of those categories.

Here’s how Susan Jutz of ZJ Farms (my CSA) describes them: “Scapes are the flower stalks found on members of the Allium family (onions, leeks, chives, and garlic). Garlic scapes, which only appear on the finest hardneck garlic varieties, curl upward as they grow, ultimately straighten, and then grow little seed-like bulbs. When the garlic scapes are still in full curl, they are tender and delicious.  We remove them about three weeks before we harvest the garlic, sending more energy to making a bigger bulb of garlic.”

When I picked up my CSA share on Monday, Susan told me that most people throw away the scapes — and she did too, until she saw them selling for $16 a pound at a market on the east coast a few years ago.

You can find some garlic scape recipes here: http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/SimplyMJ/articles/column39.asp  

What kinds of new or unusual things are you getting in your CSA shares?

This morning, The New York Times’ Well blog has a list of “The 11 best foods you aren’t eating.” The list of healthful foods “that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts” includes beets, cabbage, Swiss chard, cinnamon, pomegranate juice, dried plums (prunes), pumpkin seeds, sardines, turmeric, frozen blueberries and canned pumpkin.

I’ll admit, I’m not eating most of these.

I do use cinnamon pretty often — though mostly in baking, and I don’t think you could consider snickerdoodles a healthful food by any stretch. And turmeric comes into play when I make Shimp Vindaloo, one of my favorite quick-and-easy Indian dishes. Frozen blueberries go in phases, usually becoming a morning staple (mixed with low-fat granola and vanilla yogurt) for a few weeks after I run across a list like this.

What about you? Do lists like this affect what foods you buy?