Play With Your Food
When cauliflowers are as big as your head I think it's important to understand how easily it could get the better of you. There's no need to shoot it from a helicopter, because vegetables do not, as a general rule, move very fast.
There really isn't much I can say. It is so much better to see it for yourself.
Don't all families photograph themselves with giant cabbages?
This photo does not lie. If you look very carefully, you will see that this cruciferous mutant is sitting on a dinner plate. A regular sized dinner plate. You could feed a family of thirteen with this cabbage.
The cauliflower is dwarfed next to the cabbage, but never the less, aren't you impressed with Max's sangfroid? If that cauliflower was a cannon it could do some serious damage.
Those Max pictures are from two years ago. It is obvious that I never get tired of the silliness of giant food.
Max won't pose for me anymore because he's mature now. He also doesn't wear underwear with kid's motifs anymore because they are for people less mature than him. I enjoy the irony of this picture. My kid doesn't eat vegetables.
Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables. Here is what I did with one of these giant ones two days ago: cut it into flowerets, roasted it with olive oil, herb salt, and pepper at 385 degrees until cooked and browned pleasantly in bits. We just kept eating it off the pan. Now I need to make more because roasted cauliflower is great over pasta with or without other roasted vegetables, added to cous cous, eaten on salad, or added to rice.Another way I love eating cauliflower is to make it into a gratin- a cheese and cauliflower casserole.
Adding it to stir fries and soups is also really wonderful.
The only way I do not eat cauliflower is raw. I do not like raw cruciferous vegetables as they do not agree with my stomach.
Cauliflowers that are small are just as good as big ones. In fact, in general I don't favor especially huge vegetables. I buy these because they are grown locally and are inexpensive, and are irresistible to play with. I'm afraid to find out what chemicals the grower uses to promote such mutants. However, I have an obligation to find out, so eventually I will ask. For all I know the grower could be using steroids or witchcraft.
For the moment I'm satisfied to play with my food and then roast it until it's perfect.I am so excited by the weather (turning cold and really wet!), the smoke on the air (people burning branches in orchards and lighting their fires) which seems so primitive and charming now that it's been long enough to enjoy the smell again, and the smell of dropping apples everywhere. I love that people are buttoning up. I love that I have work now that will allow us to slowly climb out of the financial abyss we've been sliding ever deeper into. I love that it's something I can really enjoy*. I feel hopeful in a way I haven't felt in years.
I love that everyone else's thoughts are turning to pumpkins and leaves and colors and nesting and cooking.
I love that soon I'll have the time to work on my magazine and that my brain is not half so consumed with worries about money. It's so easy to say money doesn't matter, when you have enough to pay for the basics. If you can pay for the basics then your mind has room for other thoughts, other cares, and it even has enough room to clear out once in a while. Free to simply enjoy the moment.
I also love these pictures of my kid playing with my food.
*You're annoyed that I haven't said what it is yet, aren't you? OK, I'll tell you. I got a job at Blogher Ads because my friend Laura who already works for them thought I'd be good at it and suggested they hire me. I'm a headline editor now. I wake up at 5am and have to be done by 12pm. I LOVE IT!!!!! (The job, not the waking up at 5am).
Labels: family life, food geek