Recently, I took the children to the Pine Mountain Settlement School with some friends from school. We had a marvelous time hiking through Blanton Forest, Kentucky’s largest known old-growth forest, while being hosted by the fine folks of Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.
While there, a friend told the story about cooking dinner for his 2 year old daughter while his wife was away. He was making tortellini and conveniently found a pot of warm water on the stove. He simply heated it to boiling, dropped the tortellini in the water and a few minutes later, dinner was served. His daughter was shoveling the tortellini in her mouth as fast as he could give it to her. Wow, he thought, she must be really hungry. “What do you call this???” she exclaimed. By the time she requested her third bowl, he was getting suspicious. After tasting a bite, the mystery was solved. He had cooked the tortellini in a pot of hummingbird food. That’s right, a pot of water, 3 pounds of sugar and a box of tortellini – yum.
I had the same revelation Monday evening. I was exhausted from the long weekend and not really in the mood to cook. I found a bag of something green in the fridge, tossed it with a bit of olive oil, salt and champagne vinegar. Whoa – flavor explosion. It looked like baby spinach, but it didn’t taste like it. It didn’t have that gritty after taste that comes from eating a big spinach salad. “What do you call this???” I thought to myself as I shoveled huge bites into my mouth. I went back for a second bowl and felt so smug eating such a healthy dinner that was unbelievably delicious and sinfully easy. After a fact-finding mission this morning, I discovered that it was, indeed, spinach. Who knew spinach could be so utterly amazing? I already liked spinach, but this was something different – so fresh and clean tasting. This, I imagine, is Coby Ming’s secret to my favorite side dish at Harvest - the kaffir lime spinach slaw. I could eat a giant bowl of that stuff. It really makes you realize that when you start with the freshest ingredients, it isn’t that hard to make your side dishes shine.
Tonight, Stella finished off the rest of the spinach and I ate an entire half pound bag of salad mix from the garden. In my last post, I remarked that ramps are sometimes called a spring tonic. Well, I’m here to tell you there is no spring tonic like Derek Kelley’s greens. To get in on the action, sign up for our CSA or find us Saturday mornings at the St Matthews Farmers Market.
http://www.ashbournefarms.com/csa.html
