Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Vindication is awesome

So the other night, feeling a bit peckish, as I often do, I embarked on an adventure to cook the kale that had been delivered the week before. Prior roommates and long time friends will remember that I often tried to cook kale while in college, which occassionally resulted in unpleasant odors and uncomplimentary looks from members of U of C's famed X-country team.
Anyway, age gives us the wisdom and the patience to do what escaped us in our youth, or I just got lucky. The kale came out quite good. I did it in two batches, first sauteing 4 cloves of garlic in some olive oil, then added the first batch, another dollop of oil, kept it on low to medium low heat (I remembered that burnt kale is not good eats, as the wise Alton Brown would say) added salt and pepper near the end, took it out, second batch more or less the same. It was pretty good. Bryan even hesitantly ventured the opinion, as if testing his toe in it first, that it might replace brocolli as his favorite vegetable. This, not more than 2 months after his brocolli was declared the "world's best"; by a vegetarian no less. So I am rather proud, even if compliments from Bryan are a little too easy, I know he's just trying to get me to start contributing.

I must apologize for the self-promotion and woop-de-doo-ness of the post, but I am quite proud of the kale. And it has given me the little confidence boost necessary to try and write in such a public and well-regarded forum.

The other aspect of it that makes me happy is that its such a simple thing and means of preparation couldn't be more basic. I find that my tastes in regards to food are often most satisfied by the competently prepared simple dish, rather than anything extravagant. Incisive critics might deride this statement as obvious, pointing to the whole concept of "comfort foods" but for me, it really represents the avenue that I generally pursue with cooking. Trying to make pizza dough right, or the more difficult for me, if less frequently attempted, good black beans is more of what I'm interested than anything else. To be fair, part of this may be attributed to what can only charitably described as my below-average pallet. (can someone help me on the spelling for pallet? No matter what I put into the online dictionary I keep getting painter's pallet, is it the same? trophywife, help.) But as Luther said, "Here I stand; I can do no other. God help me. Amen."

Anyway, that's my post, now maybe bryan will open up the flood gates and allow some outside posting.

5 comments:

pbgipper said...

lo a lo a lo lo lo. have to make kale on thursday.

jsa said...

palate is what you're looking for.

trophywife said...

damnit J that was _my_ post you just stole. To reassert my prowess: the origin is the Latin "palatum" meaning "roof of mouth" or "sense of taste".

I feel better.

Unknown said...

"well regarded forum."

You must be kidding.

Ian said...

Kale is a rather tasty veggie; plus, it keeps your poop all nice and soft and easy to squeeze out.

I have found that a pinch of salt and a little splash of lemon juice and vinegar, when added to kale cooked just as you specified, makes it appeal to my taste a little bit more...