Veggie Love

Okay, I think I might have gone round the bend: I've become obsessed with vegetables. I used to laugh at my friend "Church Miss L" when she said the same thing, but I can now see how it happens. I'm getting ready for spring produce appearing in the grocery stores and even more importantly to CSA season. And I'm literally dreaming of vegetables. Sure, I'm a vegetarian and one would think that implied veggie-love, but, no, you can definitely exist as a vegetarian on pastas and grains and beans and dairy. I did that the first year. But now, entering my third year as a vegetarian, and having been introduced to good produce through the farm and to ethical eating through Pollan and Kingsolver et al, I can't get enough vegetables (and fruits, I should say). Which will probably strike my mom as funny, being that I look back on what I wouldn't eat as a child and the list is legion, most of it the colors of the rainbow (I did like broccoli, as long as it had some cheese, and some greens and green beans but only very cooked, and of course corn and peas--and I liked limas!!--but never lettuce or tomatoes or carrots or peppers or mushrooms or zucchini or eggplant, much less all the vegetables like leeks and kohlrabi, which I've only recently discovered). And now I can't get enough. I'm even planning my vegetable-season strategy, which includes planning my new, bigger garden in back (after we pull out a huge invasive burning bush) as well as sorting interesting recipes by main vegetable ingredient in advance--so soon, you'll see an asparagus post, dandelion greens, garlic scapes, whatever (soon is relative). And because it's me, it goes without saying that I'm obsessively hording vegetable recipes.

Which is why I thought of this tonight. Because I was at a craft club meeting at church--more on that tomorrow because it is really late (and then only if both kids go to school which seems iffy right now)--and the people working on the service auction were there. And there was this gift box of books called The Vegetable Box, which was organized by different vegetables and contained different little recipes books for each vegetable. Heaven help me (and thank goodness I'm a UU), I coveted my neighbor's recipes. So I offered the auction organizers a check there and then and I got it for much less than it sells online right now. It's a cute little set and the recipes seem eclectic, as the writer has Scottish, French, Spanish, and Italian influences. And maybe the quirky box will get the kids more interested in cooking with vegetables too.

Come on, vegetables!