Open Up

Last Wednesday on my way out of work I passed a man with a few bags of CSA loot and a giant vegetable tucked under his arm. It was a majestic sight. I blurted out as I passed, "is that a daikon?"

"I guess, yeah," he said, drawing it out and handing it to me. "I don't know what to do with it--you take it." And with that I was the proud new owner of a marvelous daikon radish. He headed to his car and I, chuckling, headed up Jay street to the F train. He pulled up beside me in his car and called out the window, "what will you make?"

"Slaw? Refrigerator pickles?" I shrugged, smiling.

"Well, let me know...somehow..." and then he was off. And I was off, on my daikon adventures that led me to Back Forty where C and I were the recipients of magical treatment including comped pork jowl nuggets and glasses of wine. People on the street stopped to gawk and then ask questions. My cab driver was mesmerized by it.

I tweeted: "Am thinking I should bring a giant daikon radish with me everywhere. It really starts conversations."

Once home I turned it into Asian refrigerator pickles (per a recipe from Sherri Vinton's new book "Put em Up!"), and today brought one of the jars to the CSA pickup with a note for the guy that read "Did you give your daikon to a young woman last week?"

I got a high from the street conversation that led to my funny radish adventure. It made me think about how closed i can be, especially on the streets of NYC, but other places as well. I realized that there are ways in which I have lived my life closed like a fist, protecting something in its palm.

Going great together

The combination of strawberry and rhubarb is so perfect, only nature could have invented it. Which is to say, by being ripe together at the exact same time, may be nature's way of saying "yo, you could eat these together."

For this reason, I decided making a dish with both radishes (pink lady variety) and peas was a very good idea, even if I couldn't picture how it might turn out. For good measure, decided to throw in spring garlic. Totally excellent combo--one greenmarket trip, one dish.

For the record, am still exploring what/who I go great together with.

Quinoa with spring garlic, radishes, and peas
(2 small servings)

3/4 cup quinoa
3 pieces spring garlic--white bulb up to light green--minced
1 small onion
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt n pepa
1 cup white wine
1 cup water
2 cups shelled peas
1/2 bunch radishes, trimmed, sliced in half

1. Saute onion and spring garlic in 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat
2. pinch of salt with that as you soften until translucent
3. Add the quinoa (which you have already rinsed several times)
4. Add the wine, bring to a boil then simmer for a few minutes until wine evaporates
5. Add the water, bring to boil, then cover, lower heat to simmer
6. Let cook for 20 minutes or so
7. While that's happening, heat up the remaining olive oil in a pan
8. Also, bring some salted water up to a boil (this water is not in teh recipe above)
9. cook peas for 3 minutes
10. Brown radishes in heated oil, a minute or two on each side
11. When quinoa is cooked, and when peas and radishes are cooked, mix 'em all together