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Leeks and Liturgy
Seasonal eating
POSTED 06/05/10, 01:19 PM EST BY STEPHANIE ORTOLANO
Last week I was doing some grocery shopping and I was skeptically eying some California broccoli. I knew I wanted a green addition to that night's dinner, but was I ready to eat all those miles? Luckily, there was still local asparagus which somehow I had missed on my first pass and I grabbed a few big handfuls. Why do I make it such an emotional decision to select fresh vegetables? I don't get quite as worked up over things like, say, olive oil or rice. Although I do try to be intentional with those products as well. I was very interested in checking this site for food rating, which goes beyond just food and considers "health", "environment" and "society". (It's still in Beta and I had more than a few internal errors while checking it out, but I think the concept is great.)
I am so glad that I can start eating greens out of my garden, and from my local farm (we actually bought a share in a farm down the street that delivers!). Our (first!) share included spinach, chard, kale, mesclun, salad mix and beet greens. Add to that my own chard, kale, collards, and the vine leaves I'm going out to get momentarily and we are going to have lots of greens on our plates every night this week! And strawberries are already here...
Wild grapes are abundant around here. Vine leaves, when they are young, are what you would normally buy in a jar to make dolmades, stuffed grape leaves. One of my Indian cookbooks has a recipe for a "great vine leaf rissole" which includes chickpea flour and coconut as well as thinly sliced blanched vine leaves. Much less labor intensive than dolmades, but I might make some of those as well...