Vegetable Post

I just had a dinner so delicious that I decided to go into all y’all’s inboxes with a list of vegetables in season that are really tasty.

1. Corn

God I love corn. I’m ashamed to realize that I’ve only had a single digit number of cobs this year. Pathetic! I need to up my corn game because fresh corn from the farmers’ market might be one of the best joy-for-dollar experiences. One trick is that you can steam corn by just microwaving it for 3 minutes per side, with the husk still on as a nice steaming wrapper. Today, I air-fried it for a decadent roasted experience in just 12 minutes.

2. Basil

Have you ever stuck your nose in a bed of companion-planted tomato and basil plants? Oh that shit is scrumptious. Soap companies have been trying to bottle it in a cheap imitation. I just pulled out a fresh bunch of basil from my backpack and hoo boy did it smell good. Then I made some pesto and put it on pasta. Pesto-making is a must for me when buying bunches of basil; there’s just no other way to use it up fast enough, especially as one person. Putting a few leaves in a stir-fry or a pizza barely makes a dent. I go recipe-less on pesto every time because it’s so easy to adjust, but here’s a similar recipe.

3. Tomatoes

Now everybody knows this already, but fresh summer tomatoes make sad grocery store tomatoes taste like a different species, nay, genus, nay, family of fruit. Yeah, I said fruit. Not only is it botanically correct, but a ripe summer tomato is so sweet that it’s obviously a fruit. My favorite way to eat summer tomatoes is big ones diced in a bowl, sprinkled with sugar. After the tomato is eaten, you drink the sugary tomato juice left in the bowl. It may sound odd but I grew up eating it due to being Chinese. As the story goes, when tomatoes were introduced from the other side of the world, Chinese people were like… what do I do with this kind of acidic fruit? Maybe some sugar will help. It reminds me of the avocado-with-sugar folk recipe. It’s an acquired taste that nobody bothers to acquire as an adult, but if you know, you know. It’s so good.

4. Apples

Apple season has just begun, and I hope you’re excited. I’ve been enjoying Ginger Gold apples, an early-season apple that holds special memories for me. The first time I went apple-picking was in Michigan, pretty fresh after moving back to the U.S. as a sentient being (age 10). Being generally stoked about the abundance of trees and lesser (visible) pollution and litter, the apple orchard was heavenly to me. We kept our haul of apples so long that the last few started cracking open. An apple would never survive that long in my apartment now.

5. Swiss Chard

I just remembered this list is supposed to be about vegetables and it’s been 50% fruits so far. So I’m back with an underdog of a leafy green, Swiss chard. Swiss chard would be nothing if it weren’t for Rainbow chard, a move of marketing genius achieved by combining stalks of different colored chards in the same bundle. I didn’t learn this until I went to a farm as an adult. Yeah, it doesn’t grow like that.

The other day I had a bunch of Swiss chard sticking out of my pannier and somebody walked by and said “Look at that lettuce!” At least it’s not collard greens, a green so unfortunately unknown in this fiber-deficient country, that I’ve had to explain what it is to MULTIPLE ADULTS.

Swiss chard is kind of like the dragonfruit of vegetables. It looks so colorful and fun but it doesn’t have a strong flavor. My go-to recipe for chard is to simply stir fry with a few garlic cloves. It’s surprisingly tasty, and I ate like half a bunch in one dinner last week.

Conclusion: Please Shop Your Farmers’ Market As Much As Possible

It’s good for the world and it’s delicious. One of the easiest wins out there. My belief is that as long as I eat it, I’ll never regret a dollar spent on quality produce.

Veggie Notes

1. The new(ish) book Fiber Fueled by Will Bulsiewicz dives into the importance of fiber, not just getting enough of it but getting a variety of fibers. It introduced me to the 30-plants-a-week challenge, which is a fun, research-based game to play.
2. Many pictures from this post are from Hannan Healthy Foods, a wonderful small organic farm near Boston (in Lincoln, MA) where I’ve formed some amazing memories volunteering. The farm stand is open weekends on the main farm, right off Route 2 in Lincoln, and they also run a CSA with pickup points in Cambridge.
3. AppleRankings.com is a hilarious website that emphatically and rudely reviews apple varieties, giving them nicknames such as “The Breathtaking Circus Freak” (Lucy Glo), “Coffee Grounds in a Leather Glove” (Red Delicious), and “A Pandering Litigious Gigolo” (Juici). Even though he really did Newton Pippins dirty: they’re a really good tart apple I used to buy weekly at the Samascott stands in NYC. Every fall I pull up this website and start showing people against their will.