celeriac

If you find fall root vegetables unfamiliar and baffling, you’re not alone. Turnips and rutabagas are often big and unwieldy; they’re hard and seem to need forever to cook. Celery root can be shaggy, dirty, and mottled green. And sunchokes look like — well, like nothing else in the market. They’re knobby and woody on the outside, like bloated ginger root. Once you get past their looks, however, there is plenty of delicious local flavor to be unlocked in these fall vegetables.

Rutabagas and turnips are like siblings who are constantly being mistaken for one another. In fact, what Americans call a rutabaga or a Swede (to the great amusement of the rest of Scandinavia) is called a turnip in some other English-speaking countries.

I love vegetables. My family and friends make fun of me, but when I look at their kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, they delight my senses in ways I can’t explain. So imagine my joy when I opened my CSA box yesterday and pulled out this Romanesco cauliflower!

Now I’m a registered dietitian and have been touting the benefits of eating your veggies for years, but I had never seen anything like this fluorescent green head of swirling spirals. I actually squealed with surprise when I pulled it out of the box. My husband and daughter came running to see what all the excitement was about. They both burst out laughing when they saw the thrilled look on my face, although you’d think they would be used to my exclamations by now.

Is it possible to miss a bag of mixed salad greens? We've been getting them from our Harmony Valley Farmshare like clockwork, but this week, we're bag-o-mixed-salad free (fortunately, we've still got a bag of spinach). I'm totally okay with that, mostly because I've been eating tomatoes like a crazy person, thickly layered on my hummus sandwich nearly every day for lunch. I've also taking to grilling just about everything that comes, including cauliflower, which is fantastic with olive oil, black pepper, and sea salt. I haven't tried my celeriac yet, but I'm hoping to this week, especially now that I know I can grate it and fry it up like a potato pancake.

The list of things in my life that happen according to schedule is a pretty short one. Haircuts? Maybe you get them every 6-8 weeks, but I haven't been to a barber - much less a hairdresser - in more than 10 years. I just shave my head when the spirit moves me (see my picture for evidence). Housework? I wish - in my house, we're more likely to clean like crazy people just before guests come over (or when there's something sticky on the floor) than we are to pick a weekly time.