Cheers for Kale, or The Amazing Venice

When I met the amazing Venice at the farmers' market on Saturday, her proud papa was asking the Green Gulch folks about kale and chard she might like. I volunteered my old friend Dino kale, explaining to Bill that the leaves were like relief maps and to Venice that this particular item was not to be missed as it was both beautiful and scrumptious. I offered a recipe or two, Bill handed me his card and of course*, he works on Macs and PCs (and would later, when I called him, assure me that my other geek friends were right and the Facebook worm was in fact gone from my computer and no, it was not lurking in some random folder waiting for a second chance). We said our goodbyes, Venice came back to say she was now five, and we sang happy birthday.

Turns out Venice likes kale. Smart girl. When I asked that day what her favorite vegetables were, I learned that the green bean was a popular dinner companion at their house. So I offered a great kale and green bean recipe I'd found online, but as it happens Venice prefers to commune with one vegetable at a time.

Papa Bill eats lots of things, but lamb is not one of them. Meanwhile, Chris at the bank liked the idea of the black bean salad, except for the black beans. No reason you couldn't substitute strips of beef, I told him. Later I realized we could turn that around for le pere de Venice (that's Bill), and substitute beans for the lamb in the tagine we were just talking about (see "Identical Cousins," Part Two). I might have to try that myself, seeing as I have a half-can left of those mystery beans.

*Why "of course"? Because you can find everything at the farmers' market. But you already knew that.

©2010-2014 Laynie Tzena.