The Cleaner Plate Club

No canning in this one. Just two postcards from summer’s end:

1. This is where I am right now.

Well, I’m not in the air. I’m about 15 yards from this spot, though. Crickets are humming. I can hear a group of people laughing across the lake. It’s lovely. It’s not fancy here, but it’s lovely.

2. This is summer’s bounty, right here:

It’s funny — this time of year, you don’t need to know the first thing about cooking to enjoy really fantastic meals. There’s just so much that tastes good, all around. Everything on the table here was local farm-fresh, except for the fish (in one of the round Pyrex dishes), which was cooked with farm-fresh herbs (same recipe as I’ve posted before: it’s one of the ones I’ve memorized, because it’s easy, and everyone enjoys it). Okay, the beer isn’t farm-fresh, either, though I think even the 100-mile-diet people might approve of this beverage choice. Although this photo was taken before we left for vacation, the bounty continues. We’re staying in a great agricultural community in rural Connecticut. Connecticut has really been supportive of Connecticut Grown. They even have an official state troubador who croons about local foods. (I’ll warn you, though: the song is slightly monotonous - listen to one verse and you’ll get the idea).

Anyhow, if I could, I would bottle each of these moments, and stick them on the shelf to be pulled out in the deep of our cold, white, Vermont winter. I send them to you before the frigid air arrives, before the school year gets into swing, before the farmstands shut down, before the night falls too early.

Happy summer-into-fall, all.

Okay, I’m gonna’ cut to the chase on this one: maybe one of my jars of homemade, home-canned zucchini relish is good. Can you guess which one it is from this photo? And which ones I should be nervous about?

Hint: It’s all about head room.

.

The day after I canned all those tomatoes (which the experts have declared I might really want to reconsider eating, given the amount of head room and water), I also canned zuchinni relish. Lots of good recipes out there for zuchinni relish. I’d share mine, but the truth is it came out sort of weirdly liquid-y, which isn’t what I expected at all. A bunch of the liquid just never made it in the cans. Turns out more of it should have; I surely have too much head room on most of these cans.

Anyhow, rather than sharing an imperfect recipe for some relish that I’ll probably be too nervous to eat, I’ll stop here to reflect upon two major lessons I’ve learned from this canning business:

1. I will never again take for granted a can of vegetables. Not ever again. When I say this, I mean it in both the best and worst ways:First, I am lucky, so lucky, that I live in an era where my family’s survival does not depend upon me canning. In the old days? Like, on the frontier? If they didn’t can before winter, they’d die.

No, really, we just finished watching Frontier House, the PBS reality show from 2001. It’s all about stocking up before winter. Otherwise: Starvation! Death! A scathing report by the nerdy-but-earnest PBS Historians!

At any time of the year, I can drive to the supermarket, fill my cart with cans of diced tomatoes, take them home, whip up a sauce, and not think too much about it. This is a relatively new situation for a mother in the entire history of humankind, and I am fortunate to live in an era when I can afford to be really, really lazy.

On the other hand (and here’s the bad part of not-taking-it-for-granted), I have learned enough to be concerned about any canned food. It’s possible that a risky thing like canning lends itself perfectly to industrial processes. I sure appreciated having all your expert eyes on my jars of tomatoes. The industrial process takes human eyeballs out of the equation - if something gets miscalibrated, or somebody slacks off on the processing floor, it can lead to cans so toxic that they explode on supermarket shelves.

2. For the first time, I understand what a gift it is when someone hands me a jar of homemade jam. Or salsa. Or whatever. From time to time, someone will do this for me, they will give me something they canned in their own kitchen. I always say thank you. Of course I do. But I have never once grabbed their hand and kissed it. I have never hugged them. I have never gotten down on my knees and used the words “I’m not worthy.”

But you know what? I might next time. This canning stuff is hard work.

When they hand me a jar, they are handing me hours of their own life, which they gave over to a steamy kitchen on a hot summer’s day.

To anyone out there who has ever given me a jar of anything homemade…and to all future givers-of-said-homemade jars: Thank you. Consider your hand kissed. I’m not, in fact, worthy.

3. Despite it all, I’m still mighty proud. Jenn called me Ma Ingalls the other day. Okay, so that was um, generous. After all, Ma would have been able to eat what she canned. But still. Ma Ingalls! To be even a shameful imitation of Ma! It’s an honor! An honor, I tell you!

Next year? We’re gonna’ have a big canning party. You bet we are. And we’re gonna’ be reeeeally careful about things like head room. So maybe more than 2 of the resulting cans will actually be edible.

Okay, so I’m feeling insecure. Some of the follow-up to the last post didn’t help. After reading part 1 of the “I Can Too” series, my friend Monique sent me an email that included the following phrase:

because of stories i have heard from my mother about ‘then, in the middle of the night, we heard loud explosions…’ i, too, have been scared away from canning anything.

Then, my own mom followed with a link to an article that said:

if you are canning at home, including making jams and jellies, you must use a water bath or pressure canner, if you want to avoid food poisoning. By food poisoning they are referring to varieties of bacteria, such as botulism, that grow in a sealed environment. Without hyperbole, death is one of the outcomes of such poisoning.

The emphasis is mine, but still. Gee whiz.

To be fair, Monique also included a link to this article, about making pickles without a canner — which they claim is safe as long as you eat the stuff relatively quickly. And I know my mom was just trying to keep my entire family from by being poisoned by botulism. And I appreciate that. I do.

Here’s the thing: this post in the “I Can Too!” series involves me striking out on my own. No expert. Just me and one friend, also a novice. But when you read that kind of stuff — loud explosions, death — it’s just kind of scary. So this post might be more aptly called The Post In Which I Might Be a Wee Bit Proud, But Am Also Scared Out of My Wits.

Okay, first: the fun stuff.

Barbara Kingsolver says of her afternoons canning, “a steamy kitchen full of women talking about our stuff is not so different from your average book group, except that we end up with jars of future meals.” Which is fun, especially because my canning partner — my friend, Jill — also happens to be a member of my book group (she hearts Michael Pollan, too, by the way). The fates were on our side, as she was even able to borrow a friend’s CSA membership for the week.

So off we went to gather a bucket full o’ tomatoes. Here’s the harvest:

We used the boiling bath, raw tomato method (I’m just so proud that I can use phrases like “boiling bath raw tomato method.” Please take a moment to be impressed). We:

1. Sterilized the jars in the dishwasher.

2. Peeled the skins off of tomatoes (to peel them, we dipped them in boiling water for at least 60 seconds, then the peels pretty much slipped off).

3. Cored them, and cut them in half

(we interrupt this description for a photo

4. Added 2 TBSP bottled lemon juice to each jar (this is critical, apparently, as it increases the acidity).

5. Filled jars with the skinless, tomato halves

6. Added a teaspooon of salt to each jar.

7. Covered the jarred tomatoes with water (not boiling! the instructions on my slip of paper didn’t say boiling! Experienced canners! Take note!).

(another photo

8. Put lids on and tightened screw caps

9. Placed the jars in to our canning pot, covered them with water, and turned the heat on. Once the water was was boiling, we let the jars sit in the boiling water for 45 minutes.

(here they are, not quite boiling yet):

10. After 45 minutes, we removed the jars, and watched them seal up one by one. They sealed beautifully.

I expected these jars of tomatoes to be kind of beautiful. Kingsolver, says “by September, all those gorgeous, red-filled jars lining the pantry shelf make me happy. They look like early valentines, and they are, for a working mother.” From a distance, she’s right; they are kind of lovely.

But here’s the thing: up close, they look a different from what I expected. They look…kind of like…brains floating in formaldehyde. Am I right? Look:

Since I’ve never done this before, I’m feeling insecure…like maybe we should have packed the tomatoes down further, and then we wouldn’t have needed to add so much water. And since we did add all that water, maybe the whole acidity ratio is off, and botulism spores are going to thrive, and I’m going to poison everyone in my family. I really, really, really don’t want to do that.

So, um. If any of you experienced canners feel like we’ve done something awful by adding that much water, I’d really appreciate knowing. In the meantime, I’m gonna’ let those jarred tomatoes sit on my shelf for a while, and try to see them like Barbara does: like valentines. And not like poison.

While we’re on the subject of canning tomatoes, check out this guy’s account of canning 1,000 tomatoes in a day. It’s from last summer, but he’s cute as a button, so I couldn’t resist. And, if you’re feeling ambitious yourself, you can find everything you need to know about canning at the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

And experienced canners? I’m serious: if you think I should be more frightened than proud, I’d really love to know.

A little while ago — within the last year, I tell you — I came across a book about food preservation. Canning, freezing, and the like. “Not for me,” I thought. “I just don’t do that sort of thing.”

Canning: it seemed so…quaint, somehow. Like a “home economics” major, or bakelite earrings, maybe. Does it still happen? Didn’t canning go out with quilting bees? Maybe grandmothers do it. But not any I know.

And then came a really harsh year of food news. Peanut butter recalls, meat recall upon meat recall, tainted imports, green bean botulism, and — for pete’s sake, people! — cans of chili exploding on supermarket shelves. All of this depressing news, combined with my new love affair with local farms and produce, suddenly got me thinking that maybe those grandmothers of ours were really onto something.

Here’s the thing about canning: it’s not hard. It’s perfectly safe if you follow the directions. It’s actually kind of pleasant. And it can give you local produce all year long. It just requires a little time, and — more important — a little know-how. I have learned this in the last week, because I HAVE CANNED. Scoff no more, Ali! You are a convert now! Part of the canning tribe! Get on out there, and spread the word!

Part 1 of my canning experience takes place in the kitchen of my local CSA farm, where on a steamy Friday afternoon not too long ago, a handful of people, a few of us novices, met for a workshop with Dianne Lamb, who is part of the Univeristy of Vermont’s extension program in food, nutrition, and health.

Here’s the short story: we made bread and butter pickles, using zuchinni and onions. If it wasn’t this recipe exactly, it was pretty darned close.

The longer story is something a little harder to describe. As little as two years ago, almost everything I prepared was out of a box or a bag. I picked my food off of a supermarket shelf. I paid for it with a swipe of my credit card. I boiled water, or pressed some buttons on a microwave, after which I claimed to have cooked dinner. On this afternoon, however, I was standing in the kitchen of what might be the most beautiful farmhouse on the planet. I was working with ingredients that had probably been connected to the soil the day before, maybe even that morning. I was standing next to the very farmers who had grown that food. People were chatting, and laughing, and getting to know one another. It was about as wholesome, as un-corporate, a food experience as I’ve ever had.

We started with zuchinni and onions, which had been sitting in pickling salt (kosher sea salt is fine apparently, just can’t be iodized):

Then we drained it and rinsed it, and started boiling up the brine (the vinegar, sugar, and spices). Once it was boiling, we added the vegetables, and simmered it all for a while:

We took our (sterilized) mason jars, heated them, and scooped the vegetables in, with a little bit of brine. Took a non-metal utensil, and pushed the stuff down, so any air bubbles came out. Then we put the lids on, covered the jars with water in a canning pot, and let it sit in a boiling water bath for a while.

After that, it’s just a matter of waiting for the lids to seal. The whole time, I was sort of like the village idiot, saying things like “Wow. Oh, wow. This really is incredible. It’s such a lost art. I mean…WOW. We’re canning. I can’t believe it. We’re canning. Can you believe we’re canning?”

People were very kind. Even if it hadn’t been a lost art to them, even if they could believe it — of course they can believe it, because they’ve done it before, and they’ll do it again, and this was just part of it, just part of what they do every year — they didn’t make me feel too silly. They smiled kindly, and allowed me to stare excitedly at the cans after they’d come out of the boiling water bath, cheering each time one of the lids popped (the sure sign that it’s been sealed), and even sent me off with a bag of vegetables for me to pickle myself…a show of confidence if ever there’s been one.

Here we all are: doesn’t it look fun?

Here’s are a few shots of the farmhouse kitchen:

Here’s the view from the kitchen window:

(I mean, come on. Is that a great place to spend time, or what?)

Walking through the door that night, high from my afternoon in the farmhouse kitchen, beaming with pride at my tiny jar of pickles, I said to Blair, “I have a terrific idea! Let’s become farmers!” He smiled kindly at my enthusiasm, just as my fellow picklers had, and gave me a peck on the cheek, and then settled in to talk about the day.

Now, my little jar of pickles sits on my shelf. It’s just one can. It won’t feed our family through winter. But it’s a little something we can enjoy in the cold weather, kind of a summer’s day, preserved. I’m thinking I’ll crack it open during the first snowfall of the year. I’ll let you know how it is.

Soon to follow: Part 2 of the “I Can Too!” series, in which I create something that looks like jarred brains.

You following this whole WikiScanner story? There’s some genius computer science graduate student who created a program to easily check what anonymous Wikipedia edits have been submitted from corporations’ IP addresses. Got a corporate villian in your mind? (Diebold, anyone? How ’bout Wal-Mart? Perhaps you’re more of an anti-ACLU type? Oh, you’ll all be happy. All of you). Chances are, your villian is in there.

You can see how Exxon folks edited the entry about the Valdez oil spill, and you can discover how the Church of Scientology has been managing its own spin. Naturally, I went digging through some of the food companies’ listings.

Mostly what I found is NOT salacious, although some of it’s interesting from a human nature perspective. Like, hey, someone from Coca Cola has been editing pages about Linda Lovelace and Anna Nicole Smith. Others raise questions, like why are folks from the USDA editing entries about Brad Pitt, instead of, say, ensuring the quality of our food supply?

 (actually, the more troubling question is why USDA reps are editing entries about satanic ritual abuse and Jeffrey Dahmer. Yikes!).

In other cases, though, you can clearly see corporate folks spinning their own Wikipedia entries in their best interest. For example, you can learn that folks at Pepsi - in addition to making edits about the J. Geils Band, President Eisenhower, Kashmir, Amy Grant, Victoria’s Secret, and the Hockey Hall of Fame - deleted entire paragraphs related to soda’s potential health impacts.

You can see that Tyson Foods deleted information about the 13 African-American workers who brought a lawsuit against the company for discrimination over several years, including a “Whites only” sign on a bathroom door and the use of racial slurs and racist comments.

Among Monsanto’s edits is a small but significant one; they remove a link suggesting that Monsanto’s herbicide, Roundup, “could be a reason for the global decline in frog populations since Roundup is widely used,” changing the copy to something far more benign.

Don’t think it’s just Big Food types, either; Whole Foods did its share of editing its own page.

It’s just another lesson in being skeptical of what you read, I guess. (It’s also yet another lesson in being careful about what you do, since a record of your actions might just get stored in a giant searchable database somewhere).

As for you corporate spinners - those of you who were silly enough to do your spinning from a company computer, that is - gotcha’.

A while ago I wrote about toxic baby bottles — specifically, baby bottles that leach bisphenol A, a hormone disruptor that is associated with cancers, impaired immune function, early onset of puberty, obesity, diabetes, and hyperactivity, among other problems.

Although the bisphenol A scare is relevant to anyone consuming food and drink from plastic, it was the bottles that most troubled me. Before that post, I’d been regularly using baby bottles that leach the stuff, according to the Guide to Safer Plastics.

But after that post? I went ahead and ordered glass baby bottles from here. (In case they’re sold out, as they’re selling out everywhere, you can also order them here. And here. And here.

(Did the glass bottles break, you ask? Sure, over time, a number of them did. They could stand up well to a drop on a wood floor, but pavement and ceramic tile were tougher on ‘em. Still, they lasted a surprisingly long time. They also felt really satisfying, too…kind of heavy and solid and old fashioned).

We’ve mostly moved beyond bottles these days, and are now into the sippy cup phase. Again, I find myself lost in the Troubling Land of Terrifying Toxins (I’m not going to report all the scary things about bisphenol-A here. Not today. But if you want to get started on your own frightening journey, with references, start here).

The rest of us, including 5-year-old Merrie (“no, Mom, I’m FIVE-AND-THREE-QUARTERS”) are drinking out of glasses only. Yes, we break glasses from time to time. That’s why we don’t use expensive glasses.

But Baby Charlotte? The girl’s a mess; she needs a sippy cup. Fortunately, Z Recommends did a Sippy Cup Showdown— which reviewed both metal cups for toddlers (including Kleen Kanteen, Sigg, and Thermos Foogo), as well as BPA-free plastic cups.

Worried about any plastic cup, even BPA-free, Ma Green bought the Kleen Kanteen, but doesn’t love it…and so is harboring dreams of becoming a non-toxic sippy cup mogul (keep me on your press list when you do, Ma!). Debra Lynn Dadd seems to like it a little better…though she’s bummed that it’s made in China.

Truth be told, it looks like the best combination of non-toxic and functional isn’t yet on the market…These guys won’t be selling the Safe Sippy until next month. (hey, Safe Sippy folks…if you want to send a few advance products my way, Baby Charlotte and I will be happy to review ‘em!)

In the meantime, I decided to go for the Kleen Kanteen Sippy Cup, Spout, and Adaptor combo. But I also decided to get some non-sippy cups, including these tiny ceramic mugs (speech pathologists and dentists everywhere should be thrilled).

If you’re already stocked full of sippy cups — or, for non-parental types, ANY kind of plastic foodware — be sure to check the bottom of the cup for the number plastic it’s made from. If it’s #s 1, 2, 4, or 5, don’t fret too much. If it’s #3 or #6, or #7, it probably is worth replacing. Scratched or worn plastic containers are definitely worth replacing. Don’t use plastic for hot foods or drink…and never heat anything inside plastic.

And, um, sorry folks, but plastic’s likely to leach in the dishwasher; hand-wash to be safe.

Update: related post on how and why things are changing, at Toxic Plastic & BPA: A Cleaner Plate Club Bedtime Story.

A couple of stories on taste (the food kind) struck me yesterday:

1. The “duh” category. Or perhaps, more kindly, we should put this in the “Here’s Why McDonald’s Should Sell Carrots” category. The short story: McDonald’s branding makes kids think food tastes better. A study of preschoolers demonstrated that kids thought that foods in McDonald’s packaging tasted better than the identical foods in generic packaging. The results are pretty profound, too; 76.7% of kids preferred french fries branded with golden arches to the exact same fries without the packaging. In case you were wondering why McDonald’s spends $10 billion dollars annually (enough to give every hungry child in this country almost $800/year!) marketing to children in the U.S., this study proves it: marketing works.

2. The “Foodies Can Be Hoodwinked, Too” category. Adulterated olive oil (and/or other oils that get treated with chlorophyll and beta carotene to make it look and taste like EVOO) is now a huge source of agricultural fraud. According to the original report by Tom Mueller, published in this week’s New Yorker, it’s a huge concern in the E.U., and fraudulent EVOO has been found here in the U.S. as well.

(I’m kinda’ ticked about this; there’s some serious heart disease in Blair’s family, and — since we want him around for a long, long time — we’re very aware of what kind of oil we’re using on a regular basis. The idea that someone could be tricking us into a less-healthful alternative just feels like an entire industry is flipping us the bird).

The best way to detect true EVOO from the adulterated stuff according to Mueller? A panel of taste testers.

(Want more on olive oil? Susie J has some tips on making grocery store olive oil taste like the gourmet stuff. And, in case you were wondering, olive oil has some great non-food uses. Just ask Chris J. It can clean garden tools, treat head lice, free a stuck zipper, and lubricate your most romantic moments. Hey, look, you asked…Actually, you didn’t).

3. The “Think of the Possibilities” category. There exists a miracle fruit that tricks your taste buds into thinking things taste sweeter than they are. It makes lemons taste like lemonade, bologna taste like cake. According to folks who have had miracle fruit parties, it really works. Perhaps this is how I can get the kids to enjoy their veggies…

If you’re tired of tasting, and want to start FEELING for a change, check out We Feel Fine, an exploration of human emotion. It’s got nothing to do with food or eating, but it’s cool nonetheless. What it is: all kinds of statements about how folks are feeling are constantly pulled from the blogosphere, stored in a database, and get represented visually as little swirling dots. You can click on any of the thousands of dots (different colors = different emotions) and get a statement, sometimes accompanied by an image, that represents a real person somewhere, experiencing an emotion. Rage, boredom, grief, love, despair, loss of virginity — it’s all there. It’s basically an interactive visual exploration of human emotion, and it’s easy to get sucked in.

I recently tried to give my babysitter a big old honkin’ zucchini.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “Too much zucchini these days. This is New England. I lock my trunk in summer, or people deposit bags of the stuff.”

You laugh, but tomorrow is actually National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night. Yes, that’s an official holiday.

Barbara Kingsolver knows all about that. In her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (it’s great, folks! You should get a copy), she describes zucchini season in her small farming town. After weeks of cooking with zucchini, handing bags of zucchini to every visitor, and even wondering if someone could make a car that runs on zucchini, she says:

One day we came home from some errands to find a grocery sack of them hanging on our mailbox. The perpetrator, of course, was nowhere in sight.“Wow,” we all said—“what a good idea!”Garrison Keillor says July is the only time of year when country people lock our cars in the church parking lot, so people won’t put squash on the front seat. I used to think that was a joke.I don’t want to advertise the presence or absence of security measures in our neighborhood, except to say that in rural areas, generally speaking, people don’t lock their doors all that much….So the family was a bit surprised when I started double-checking the security of doors and gates any time we all were about to leave the premises.“Do I have to explain the obvious?” I asked impatiently. “Somebody might break in and put zucchini in our house.”

Kingsolver has a few disappearing zucchini recipes up her sleeve, including Disappearing Zucchini Orzo and Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies (which her daughter swears is indistinguishable from the non-zucchini type)

I also tried some zucchini recipes recently:

1. Tomatillo Zuke-a-mole

(looks like a soup here - picture it surrounded by chips or veggies for dipping).This is adapted from a recipe in Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: the Essential Reference by Elizabeth Schneider. You can find the original recipe here. I made some variations, as I had some added ingredients (tomatillos from our CSA), and didn’t have any lemons.

Ingredients

2 medium-sized zucchini

8 tomatillos of various sizes, outer shell peeled, and sticky stuff washed off

12 cloves garlic (various sizes, separated, still in skins)

1 large onion (sweet varieties preferred, i.e. Vidalia, Walla Walla)

1 teaspoon coarse salt

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1/4 cup

A big handful of herbs - basil plus flat-leaf parsley

Juice of a lime

salt and pepper to taste

Directions: Preheat oven to 375. Slice zucchini in half, lengthwise. Dehusk tomatillos and wash. Separate garlic cloves but keep skins on. Quarter onion. Place vegetables in roasting pan and slather with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the teaspoon of salt. Roast until extremely tender, at least 1 hour and up to 90 minutes.

While vegetables are roasting, prepare herbs; pull leaves off stems and tear or chop coarsely. Let vegetables cool slightly and squeeze garlic from skins. Place all vegetables into blender and pulse. Add herbs. Puree until smooth and combined. Add lime juice and salt. Drizzle in remaining olive oil. Taste for seasonings and adjust accordingly.

Chill and serve with crackers, pita crisps, crudite or make as part of a sandwich. Makes about 1 quart.

Let it be said that Blair does NOT LIKE zucchini. But he does like chips, and is grateful for any excuse to dip into a bag of tortilla chips. “It’s not quite a regular guacamole,” he said, munching down. “But it’s pretty good.”

Merrie, in typical Merrie fashion, liked it on Day 1 (”Mmm. Mommy, that’s delicious!”), but by Day 2 was shugging it off (”I don’t like it, Mommy. Can I have a cookie?”).

Me? I liked it. I also felt virtuous to be able to do something different with my stacks of zucchini.

2. Vegetarian Summer Pasta (or, what to serve to a vegetarian family that just had a baby, are Omnivore’s Dilemma types, and have very politely let you know that they’ve grown weary of salads).

Nothing fancy here — you’ve probably made plenty of similar recipes in your own kitchen — but it was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.

Ingredients:

1 onion

2-3 garlic cloves

1-2 zucchini or yellow squash

2 large ripe tomatoes, skins peeled, and chopped

Handful of fresh basil

A few pinches fresh oregano

Half a can of garbanzo beans, drained

Salt and pepper to taste

Box o’ pasta

A big ol’ thing of shredded hard cheese, like parmesan.

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add fresh oregano. Then add chopped zucchini and sautee another couple of minutes. Add tomatoes (peeling is easy — just dunk briefly in boiling water, and the skins will come right off). Add beans. Sautee for another minute or so. At this point, it seemed sort of watery, so I mixed up a Tablespoon of flour with water, added, and sauteed again (more on thickening sauces here). Remove from heat, add salt and pepper to taste, add heaps of fresh basil and shredded cheese, and serve over cooked pasta.

It was pretty good, with enough for plenty of leftovers.

Now go rev up your getaway car, so you can sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor’s porch tomorrow.

Took home a big ol’ head of cabbage from my CSA recently. My sole experience with cabbage is really just boiling it — a method that I actually enjoy, even though it makes the kitchen smell like feet for days.

It’s the height of summer, though; stinky boiled cabbage just seems wrong.

I’ve tasted Asian slaw before, and I’ve liked it far better than the mayonnaise-dripping stuff you get at the supermarket.

Need some incentive to get excited about a cabbage recipe? How about this: it’s incredibly healthful, as it’s chock full o’ vitamin C, fiber, manganese, folate, vitamin B6, potassium, and omega-3 fatty acids. It’s got thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, potassium, magnesium, vitamin A, protein, and a bunch of phytochemicals. It’s such a wonder veggie that you don’t even need to eat it to reap health benefits; not only does a topical application of cabbage offer pain relief for nursing moms everywhere, this clever British doctor recommends applying it to every kind of inflammation you might experience.

I’m very, very proud of this recipe, because I kind of made it up myself, and it was easy, and tasty, and even better the next day.

Ingredients:

1 head of cabbage, shredded

2 large-ish carrots, grated

2 scallions

2 TBSP tamari sauce

2 TBSP toasted sesame oil

2 TBSP rice wine vinegar

2 tsp honey (could be less, frankly)

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

several sprinkles salt

Several shakes sesame seeds

Directions: Shred cabbage. Grate carrots. Mix together. In a separate bowl, make dressing: Combine tamari, oil, vinegar, honey, powdered ginger, salt. Make sure ginger is dissolved. Pour over cabbage and carrots, and mix. Slice scallions and mix in right, along with sesame seeds before serving.

People, that’s it. The hardest part of it all was grating the carrots, and even that was easier than I expected (and I was doing the old-fashioned way, with a cheese grater. Surely there’s some new-fangled kitchen tool that would make this work even faster).

I dug it. Blair liked it (thought it was a tad “too subtle,” perhaps - if I were making for adults only, I might recommend a touch of hot sauce). Merrie…well, she didn’t love it, but only because she says, “Mommy, I don’t like things that are sweet AND healthy. I like only treats that are sweet.”

And it’s true, there is a touch of Asian sweetness to the whole thing. But I liked it enough that I’d make it again. Some slivered red peppers (and cashews?) would make it even prettier, and the whole thing seems like a good potluck option.

And you know, even if you don’t like it, you could always rub it all over your body to reduce inflammation.