Gosh I’m writing a lot for my client. It’s enjoyable and stimulating but It kinda stalls my enthusiasm for blogging a little bit. But I became a little bit enthused as I was just reading this book my daughter bought me for Fathers’s Day entitled ‘New Yorkers, A City and Its People In Our Time’. It is brilliant. It’s about a Canadian guy who spent time in an English village, then in London before moving to NYC and recording hundreds of conversations with the locals about their views on their ‘town’. Subsequently writing them up and drawing some conclusions. It takes him years and it’s a real opus. I am very tempted to give up everything and produce a book like his. So inspired by his work I thought I’d write a blog post about vegetables. When inspiration hits….
It’s not the most imaginative subject, I get that, but I write about what’s on my mind, right now. And tonight it’s green vegetables because I’ve been cooking a lot recently and I’ve got some mixed views on them. Like our children, we all have our favourites…. I’m joking!! Not really, I just happen to have my favourite eldest daughter, my fave middle one and my favourite youngest one. But vegetables come with some judgement. Since my surgery I’ve had regular sessions with my GPs reviewing my levels etc. A recent review showed that I needed to get some weight off and to reduce my blood sugars so we agreed I’d try and cut out carbs from my diet and Caz agreed to join me. So a lot fewer potatoes, pasta, bread, crisps, peanuts, nibbles, white rice etc. To supplement them we’ve been adding even more green vegetables to our diet (and they were integral already). The cooking variety rather than the salad stuff. So how do I cook and rank them?
Well I’m absolutely a fan of the green/runner/French bean, cauliflower, leeks, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, fennel, and peas. Most of which I fry up together in a single pan. Tonight I tried some sugar snack peas and some thinly sliced courgette (yellow) both bought by Carol. Not my favorites to be honest. I’m especially not a fan of the courgette family of veg. I cannot find a way to successfully cook the courgette/zuccini (yellow or green), the aubergine (( know it’s purple), nor the gherkin without it all turning to mush (as in ratatouille) or scorching. Also I’m not a huge fan of all those cookable leaves; spinach and pak choi are all right but they wilt down to a pretty tasteless nothingness, and things like collard greens, kale etc just taste yuck. Artichokes, are a cooking mystery unless you get them pre-cooked/out of a jar. And to think we had them growing freely in our garden in Italy.
But the ugly horrors, of course, are the sprouts. We all know this. I can eat them in small amounts but more than 2/3 is a real struggle. Even if I cut them up, fry them with lardons, chestnuts and sliced salad onions, and they come with Xmas dinner. They are always scraped off the plate or out of the serving dish, untaken. And you pay for them big time the next day, always.
So it’s not quite profound insightful views on life in NYC but it’s the real deep me.
So what’s your views on the greens folks?
pp
Pasta Paulie 