The NY Times ran an article about the Facebook game everyone loves to hate, Farmville. You can read it here. The statistics they gave are pretty insane. Sixty-two million people have signed up, and 22 million people play every day.

I have a little farm. How could I not? It’s really adorable – all of those tiny vegetables!!

Here is the scary pumpkin-headed teddy bear:

Raarrrr!

And the scary pumpkin-headed puppet body (with bendable limbs):

My pumpkin, before carving:

And in it’s jack-o-lantern form:

It's creeping me out.

The burn marks were applied with the heat gun. I highly suggest that technique. It makes crackling popping sounds and smells wonderful.

Have a fun and spooky day!

Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber (ca. 1602)

I am way into this painting by Juan Sánchez Cotán. He was a Spanish Baroque painter, and one of the first realist painters of Spain. When I first saw this painting (in a book, but it is on exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Art if you want to check it out), I first thought it was something much more contemporary. It has this really surreal quality to it that I like, and the composition is really fascinating. It’s hard to believe it was painted around the same time that Cervantes was writing Don Quixote. (Although, I plowed my way through Don Quixote last year, and thought it was hilarious. It was the new, more modern, translation, so that helped. I only got through Book 1 though.)

The painting really reminded me of the space boxes we worked on for Space Analysis class at Pratt, except with vegetables. It makes me really want to create some space boxes with vegetables inside them. That cabbage is really activating the space!

Brussels Sprouts - the best vegetable of all!

My very favorite vegetable is (are?) Brussels Sprouts. I was quite devastated to visit the farmer’s market today and find out there were STILL no Brussels Sprouts ready. I have been waiting a very long time and am getting impatient. It may not surprise you to find out that Brussels Sprouts are from the same family as Cabbage, but did you know they are also in the same family as Kale, Collards, Broccoli, and Cauliflower? They are all originally bred from Wild Mustard, which is native to western Europe. It’s all basically the same plant, bred to grow in different forms. The Brussels Sprout we eat is really just one of many immature buds that grow on a single stalk.

I have cooked Brussels Sprouts in many different ways, but I like them best simply split in half and sauteed until browned (with lots of butter, naturally). It’s best to make sure they are all face down in the pan (Don’t crowd the pan, please. A single layer only.) When the cut faces are browned, add some stock or water and cover so they steam a little. When the stock has evaporated and they are soft, they are done. The longer you cook them, the stinkier they get, so keep that in mind. I like them a little on the soft side, but you can decide for yourself. They are also really good if you shred them and fry them with pine nuts. They do look really cute whole and shiny with butter sauce too. Really, there is no bad way. Except THIS way.

They are called Brussels Sprouts because they originate from Belgium. So don’t forget the “S” on the end – it’s “Brussels”, like the city. Have you ever bought a whole stalk of them? They look like this:

Brussels Sprouts on the stalk

I have done that a few times, but each stalk doesn’t really hold that many sprouts and when you are riding on the subway and poking other passengers with your Brussels Sprouts sticks, it seems smarter to just buy them loose. My whole household likes them so I have to buy many, many at one time. I don’t ride the subway now, but I can’t find any, so it doesn’t matter, sigh.

I thought it was super awesome, and it got me really thinking about how we feel about the way our vegetables look. Everyone likes the kooky misshapen vegetable pictures on the internet, or checking out the newest cute shapes of watermelon the Japanese have created, but when we are out at the farmer’s market, what do you pick? I have, for some time now, made an extra effort to choose the less-than-photogenic produce. If it’s really badly bruised, I will pass, but otherwise I try to just pick whatever is nearest, or if I am interested in a particular ripeness for a timing reason, I go with that. But sometimes, I pick the ugly ones on purpose.

I have a few reasons behind this. One of the most important is that I am rebelling against the idea that what consumers want is a perfectly adorable on-the-vine tomato with no taste. Those ones you see at every grocery – the ones that taste like nothing and cost twice as much as the others that aren’t as cute but that also taste like nothing. I don’t want either of them. The tomatoes I love look horrific, but taste fantastic. I don’t care if my orange is bright and uniformly orange. I want it to taste delicious. As a way to tell my farmers that I want them to go on doing what they are doing, I buy the ugly ones. The thing is, though, is that they aren’t ugly to me. They might be lumpy, or asymmetrical, or have non-uniform coloring, or a weird spot on one side, but I think they are beautiful. Each one is different, like people or snowflakes, and they each have their own character.

I do not want the farmers at the market to be stuck with a pile of misshapen vegetables at the end of the day, and think “Wow, people don’t like tomatoes that aren’t bright red and identical and spherical with a little green vine coming out of each one. Maybe I should plant those stupid ‘Holland’ tomatoes since that is what people seem to want.” I also don’t want the farmers to have to raise their prices because some perfectly good produce ends up as waste.

And you know what? When I take these vegetables home, I make them stars! They shine in front of my camera lens – they are naturally gorgeous beauties! These shy performers just needed someone to have confidence in them. And you can too!

What a beauty!

The Turnip

Today I would like to write in praise of the turnip. We’re in the midst of fall here, and our fresh delicate things have long faded away and are quietly becoming replaced by our hearty, sturdy, humble root vegetables.

For whatever reason, root vegetable school have been separated into the cool kids and the not-so-cool kids. The cool kids include the dazzling rainbow of beets, glorious radishes, fingerling potatoes, vibrant baby carrots and even the sweet potato. The homely rutabaga and the plain turnip get overshadowed by their more colorful peers. But these are the friends that will stand by you all winter long, and if you want to eat seasonally, you should introduce your turnips to your other best friends, winter squash and kale. But first, maybe take some time to get to know them yourself.

The turnip is one of the few vegetables that are in season in the winter. For this, we should be proud of them. But for whatever reason, our poor little turnip gets no press. Popular imagery of turnip consumption usually includes pictures of people with holes in their sweaters cooking over an open fire. But many food associated with the poor or with immigrants have been elevated gloriously. Polenta – peasant food! The important message here is that turnips are versatile, delicious, healthy, and are one of the few vegetables available locally all winter long (at least in the Northeast. You California people just enjoy your avocados and fresh fruit and know that I am jealous. I will just eat my cabbage and turnip soup and sigh wistfully).

I find the turnip actually quite beautiful, and couldn’t resist taking some home from the farmer’s market when presented with this gorgeous basketful.

Creamy white skins with lavender blush

But what to do with the turnip? Epicurious.com lists a lots of recipes for puree, roasting or gratin. I use these techniques for cooking just about everything, but I think today we need to come up with a sparkling new suit for the turnip, because today he the King of the Prom!

Since he is King, he should wear a crown, so that is what I made. My vegetable carving is not so good (at least I am getting some practice in before it is time to carve my pumpkin). If anyone tries to tell you carving vegetables is easy, they are lying. It’s not. I am pretty good at making things with my hands, and turnip is a difficult material to work with. And it’s a subtractive process, meaning there is no going back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t use cheese to stick it back together.

Turnip carving is hard

The King and his friends

The crown was roasted with olive oil, and I made a puree by boiling all of the scraps (waste not, want not) and blending with a little arugula. I know I said I wasn’t going to roast or puree, but I lied. The little cubes are turnip too, sauteed on high heat with salt until browned. The crown and filling were not very good, but the cubes were delicious.

With all the leftover shavings, I decided to make a raw salad. This is pretty delicious, maybe the best of all of today’s experiments. Simple and easy, and really fresh tasting. Sometimes I feel like winter food is always so heavy, and while I often want mac & cheese or mashed potatoes, sometimes I want something a little lighter. Just shave your turnip with a potato peeler and toss with olive oil, sea salt, lemon juice, and add some crumbles of Parmigiano-Reggiano (I used crumbles instead of shavings since the turnip is already shaved.) I had one of the last decent tomatoes of the season ripening on my windowsill, so I added that, but come January those won’t be available, so you improvise when the time comes.

Turnips - they're not just for orphans anymore!

If you have any other ideas for turnips, please email them to judy@vegetableradio.com! Happy turniping!

The mushrooms are grown in reused plastic bottles of substrates of grain, sawdust and ground-up corncobs.

Brown Beech mushrooms in the grow room

Hen of the Woods

It took a while for the facility to get up and running, and for the mushrooms to grow up big and strong, and so we are now just seeing them at the grocers. One positive is that the facility supposedly really sustainable, using and reusing recycled materials as substrates, and the only waste product is distilled water. It’s also extremely energy efficient. So that’s good.

It’s also good that people have more options besides button mushrooms. I will still prefer to find my own, grow my own, or buy from a person that did. However, these are good in a pinch, or just to switch things up, and they are quite affordable. But I do find the whole growing process fascinating.

The LA Times article also mentions why some mushrooms are easier to grow than others. Buttons, shitakes, creminis, portobellos (did you know that a portobello is simply an overgrown cremini?) all grown easily in a variety of substrates, but certain mushrooms we love, like truffles, chanterelles, morels and porcini are mycorrhizal, which means they need to grow on living root structures. This is more difficult to do, thus we have no widespread cultivation. Although, now that I have experienced the difference between cultivated Hen of the Woods and wild, I prefer the wild. Maybe there are certain things in the world that are supposed to be rare and special, and are better that way.

Today, while visiting a local Asian market, I came across these:

And, amazingly, they were only $1.99! And there is a cute mushroom face mascot! I haven’t tasted them yet, but once I do, I will let you know how they are. They look a little wet and squishy in the package. The mushroom man at Union Square always had beautiful huge mushrooms that looked straight out of the forest. I tend to dislike vegetables that come in plastic, but I had to try these.

I do know that some growers are now cultivating Hen of the Woods. I saw them at Fairway this summer in little styrofoam packages by some industrial mushroom brand. For all I know, the USG mushroom man is growing them and not foraging. I am even planning on cultivating them myself. I have been doing some major mushroom research, and discovered some great ways to grow your own mushrooms that don’t require turning part of your home into a sterile laboratory. This will be a fun project coming up that I am excited to share with you!

update

I tried the cute-faced, plastic-packed Hen of the Woods. They were just okay. The texture was a little rubbery, and the flavor was not so complex. It really looked like a dark brown Oyster Mushroom. It wasn’t variegated and feathery like a Hen of the Woods.

Today in Klaistow, Germany was the Berlin-Brandenburg Pumpkin Contest at the Buschmann and Winkelmann Asparagus Farm. Check out these whoppers!

On October 12, there was another giant pumpkin contest in Half Moon Bay, California. I love giant vegetables. If I had one of these pumpkins, I would carve it out and make myself a little pumpkin house.

Don Young from Iowa (below) was the California contest winner. Congratulations Don! That’s one big pumpkin – although it looks a little cantaloupe-ish to me, but no one asked me to be on the judges panel. At 1658 pounds, his pumpkin set a new record!

p.s. The German winner was only 860.2 pounds.