Thursday, January 05, 2006

Just Pretty

I don't have any plans at the minute for these cruciferous lovelies. I just liked the colors. They all cost the same price per pound at the farmers' market stand this morning, so we piled them into one bag, paid up, and trotted them home.
After we spent a few hours out in the real world, with mostly clear skies and even a ray or two of sun. I needed that.
Here's the dumb thing: I didn't ask the vendor what exactly I was buying (though I did get into good conversations with the potato seller and the cheese lady). But I believe what we're looking at is purple cauliflower, Romanesco cauliflower (those chartreuse fractally-looking ones), and some kind of broccoli (maybe rapini, but I don't know).
I do know that this food vendor's booth was set up in front of a hedge filled with songbirds. How joyous! Chirp, tweet, chirp. Cranky thinks the birds were attracted to the vegetables because they looked like a flower garden.

11 comments:

Sara said...

What a beautiful picture. You're lucky to be able to go to farmers markets this time of year, I wish I could.

Kalyn Denny said...

Just lovely. It looks like what my market calls rapini, but who knows around here?

cookiecrumb said...

Sara: Alas, Canada. I am so lucky here in California. Though, let me tell you (especially after our last pres. election), I've considered relocating up your way!!
Kalyn, too. You still got any farmers' markets open? I do think it's rapini, and I've just learned I might have to peel the skin from the stems. Eek!

Rose said...

I had a few of the purpley cauliflower heads a month back, but they're pretty much gone from the NYC farmer's markets now.

I made a lovely chicken curry dish with it. Yellow curry and purple veggies were plenty colorful. Unfortunately...camera was not around :-(

Kalyn Denny said...

In Utah the farmers market closes in October. Sigh. However, we do have the Sundance Film Festival in a few weeks which is quite the scene.

Guy said...

Feh, I do the same thing. Buy the cool stuff, get home and realize I have no idea what the name is or anything else about it. Luckily it still tastes good eh!

Mona said...

Cookie Crumb!! Wow those look pretty! Who thought caulis could look so good! Just wanted to personally thank you for inspiring me to finally figure out how to share my rating system with the mass public who visits my site-ha yah right;) But seriously, you brought it to my attention (my parents have been bugging me about it) and now it's up and out there for all to see. Thanks again!!

cookiecrumb said...

Thank you, mmw, for those two links. Everybody else, go see. Valuable -- and in the case of the Romanesco broc, stunning!
Jennifer: OK, a challenge. What shall I do with them? I've decided against roasting the cauli, because I don't want to singe the colors. So I'm going to steam the three vegges separately, then combine them with oil that I've steeped cloves of garlic in, sprinkle them with something acidic (capers? lemon juice?) and shower with orange zest.
Or maybe just butter them; eh, Biggles?

Anonymous said...

I heard about these at our local farmer's market the other day. Rumor has it that the colred cauliflour has higher nutritional value as well.

cookiecrumb said...

Jonah: You'd be right! And there's also an orange cauliflower (named "cheddar") that's super-high in beta carotene (go learn about it at Fork & Bottle; click on link in my sidebar). I'm keeping an eye out for that one.

Anonymous said...

Yum, I'll keep my eyes peeled for it. I have been making cauliflour soup lately, purple or orange soup would be a nice presentation...