Huh. Cauliflower. Who knew it could be so delicious?

The first time I went to the Berkeley Bowl, I remember marveling at the array of orange cauliflower (which contains 25 times the Vitamin A of white varieties; the color is from the massive quantities of beta-carotene in the veggie) and purple cauliflower (whose shocking violet color is caused by the antioxidant anthocyanin, also found in blueberries, red cabbage, and red wine) on display.

Apparently, yes, you can have your vegetables in carnival colors. I still went home with the plain Jane white variety that evening -- I dunno, maybe the kaleidoscope cauliflower was just too jarring for me. It's been awhile since I last bought a head of cauliflower. My renewed interest in it came about after a lovely Italian meal.

Did you ever notice how Italians just have a way with making simple vegetables taste so darn good? It's the Grade A olive oil they use. That, and invoking la bella vita into their kitchens, no doubt. This particular contorno of cavolfiori was robust and full of flavor. Florets of cauliflower were roasted with sweet garlic, briny anchovies, and gilded with fruity olive oil. As each little cauliflower tree disappeared into my mouth, I plotted my strategy on how to recreate this dish at home.

I started off by cutting the cauliflower in half, then separating the branches into florets. Then, I melted down the anchovies in a skillet, stirring them until a paste formed. My husband is obsessed with all things anchovy (and all things salty for that matter), so I've been buying in bulk these little tins of Italian anchovies packed in olive oil.

Next, I add the smashed garlic to the pan, lemon juice, and the cauliflower, tossing it all together so that the anchovy "sauce" coats all the florets. A sprinkle of panko crumbs, a drizzle of olive oil, and into the oven it all goes.

The dish is done when the cauliflower is fork-tender and the panko has turned a crunchy golden brown. Top with grated parmigiano, salt and pepper, and you've got yourself one mighty fine side dish. No peacock colors necessary. The bang is all in the taste.

Lafitte's Russell Jackson inhales the scent of Niitaka pears

Credit for all photos: Tamara Palmer

As important as growing and selecting produce is to a healthy diet and life, it's pretty stunning how few of us really know how to pick the best fruits and vegetables when shopping. Sure, we might have heard about certain items we're supposed to thump or squeeze, and we know to look out for obvious cosmetic flaws, but too much more beyond that is a big mystery for many.

We got up too early on a recent Saturday morning to find a number of San Francisco's notable chefs shopping for winter produce at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. It was fascinating not only to see what everyone was buying and placing on their big-wheeled carts, but to watch their gears turning while dreaming up new ways to use these high quality ingredients. After several conversations, we came away confident that our local farmers do a lot to pre-select the best produce before they bring it to a market, which is why so many of the chefs are confident to purchase large boxes of ingredients on the spot. But we also got some good tips on how to select for maximum flavor and longevity.

Kristie Knoll of Knoll Farms and Annie Somerville of Greens

We think of Annie Somerville, proprietor of the legendary vegetarian restaurant Greens, as a true goddess of produce here in the Bay Area, so we met her first. She suggested we convene at the Knoll Farms stand, a biodynamic farm from Brentwood where we'd see all kinds of chefs lurking throughout the morning.

Somerville was thrilled to see the beginnings of green garlic there ("I am so happy!" she exclaimed), something she says proprietor Rick Knoll actually pioneered and is typically found after the winter. When asked what to look for, she said,

"Look for it to look just like that! Just really fresh and nice, the point is that it is the young stalks, the shoots. As they get more mature, they get longer and at the end there they start to bulb up and [wilt] and at some point you probably want to let it go. We use the shoots for sautéing. All the applications of fresh garlic, use your green garlic instead. Put it in any dish. All the tops can go into soup stock."

Green garlic

She finds it a wonderfully versatile ingredient, but seemed most excited about her plans to add it to mashed potatoes. One of Kristie Knoll's favorite preparations, meanwhile, is to cut the stalks into "knuckles" and brown them.

Horseradish root

While at the Knoll stand, we stumbled into Michael Tusk, chef/owner of Quince and Cotogna restaurants, selecting some horseradish. He says to look for pieces that aren't dried out. And, in this case of this root, size matters.

"I personally like the bigger pieces; they're easier to grate," he said. "We use it in a salad with smoked eel and with beef, but I usually I just find stuff and then I decide what to do. It's good to have inspiration around, especially at this time of year, so I try to find as many fun things as possible."

When we caught up with David Bazirgan, the new executive chef of Fifth Floor, he was hoisting up a giant bag of stinging nettles from Marin Roots Farm and explaining that he ingeniously uses them in place of spinach for a side dish of creamed nettles to accompany his new menu item, a dry aged New York steak also served with salt baked potatoes, roasted mushrooms, and red wine sauce. (He Thermo-mixes them so they don't sting.) Since this isn't an item eaten raw, picking them is a lot easier than other ingredients, but Bazirgan still suggests carefully looking through them for a vibrant, consistent color and no holes.

David Bazirgan of Fifth Floor selects chicories.

Bazirgan also uses color cues when picking various chicories at Marin Roots, selecting the most vibrant leaves; look for the whites as well as the colors to be bright. He is currently using various heirloom varieties of chicories in a salad, dressed raw with compressed persimmon, Pt. Reyes blue cheese, hazelnuts, pomegranate, vadouvan, and Chardonnay vinaigrette.

For Mark Richardson, the executive chef of Seasons Restaurant at Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco, Brussels sprouts are a winter produce staple.

"Look for the sprouts with tight-fitting leaves, with no browning or yellowing," he advised. "If you can find the sprouts still on the stalk, they will be the freshest."

His preparation for them is minimal: After blanching, he caramelizes the sprouts in a pan with some olive oil and then seasons with salt, fresh cracked pepper, and chili flakes. If you can't make it to Ferry Plaza, Richardson also suggests buying them at Mollie Stone's or Whole Foods locations.

Hoss Zaré of Zaré at Fly Trap examines white carrots.

Hoss Zaré of Zaré at Fly Trap truly shocked us when we met him to scout out white carrots. We gravitated towards the biggest ones, but Zaré said that was actually not the best strategy.

"The bigger ones are woodier and less juicy," he cautions. "Too small, and they're not going to have much flavor. You have to get the medium-sized ones so you get a lot of juice and flavor. Big ones are good for braising -- chop them up and caramelize them, but the smaller ones are juicier."

His favorite current use for white carrots is to lightly peel, blanch, pan roast until lightly caramelized, and then stack with slices of braised lamb tongue.

As we were about to leave Ferry Plaza full of new ideas and new produce specimens to experiment on, we grabbed Russell Jackson, chef/owner of Lafitte, just steps up the Embarcadero from Ferry Plaza. He was checking out the produce at Hamada Farms, the Kingburg grower whose citrus and pears seem to be the secret weapon of the chefs who shop at Ferry Plaza.

"Which kind of pear do I want today?" he asked.

"Niitaka!" came the answer from two people behind the counter, in unison. Jackson leapt over to the box and started smelling.

"Surface indication really isn't anything," he said, pointing out some visible flaws on a Niitaka. "It's really about the texture, firmness, and I'm really looking for that aromatic quality to it. You don't want something heavily bruised, but [some flaws] are just from tree hang, or where it faces the sun, or whether it's been scratched by a branch."

Right now, he's roasting pears to make a demi-glace for roasted sweetbreads and also using them raw in a salad with persimmons, chicories or radicchio, walnuts and Banyuls vinaigrette.

Where many households across the nation turn to canned goods in the winter, we have these staples and so much more ripe for the picking.

Like much in life, raising kids is all about give and take, except the takers will whine and (literally) cry if they don't get what they want, and they'll also tell you you're mean. The tug of wars extend to the food arena. Although I have diligently raised my children with daily helpings of fresh vegetables, I still find myself making deals with them when it comes to eating some of them. Broccoli and kale are no problem. Swiss chard is a favorite. Olives and sea weed actually top the list of most beloved foods. But Brussels sprouts, asparagus and summer squash are trouble.

I know plenty of parents who simply don't serve the vegetables their kids dislike, while others hide the vegetables in the food. I have to say that I think these ideas are a mistake. Kids have many reasons for striking a vegetable off the list. From hearing on the playground that something is gross, to remembering (or misremembering) when something looked icky, those sweet and adorable little opinionated people have many reasons for rejecting entire plant families outright. But we need to remember that these are the same kids who decided they hate pink after years of wanting to wear only that color. So instead of caving in to what is often a misinformed judgment (spinach is NOT slimy all the time; it’s only like that when Aunt YouKnowWho makes it), I say we parents stand firm (which includes not serving mushy vegetables). Let's teach our kids that vegetables are crisp, crunchy, sweet and tasty. Plus it's our jobs as parents to educate them about the nuances of life. Sure, overcooked cauliflower has a pungent smell, but sauté it in olive oil on high heat with sea salt and those florets taste sweet and even a bit nutty.

But getting kids to try (or sometimes retry after years of happy consumption) a vegetable may take some bargaining. For instance, earlier this week when I was dropping Brussels sprouts in a bag while shopping, my daughter Maddie held up her hand (imagine the international sign for STOP) and exclaimed, "I don't like Brussels sprouts anymore." My first thought was "Huh? You've always loved Brussels sprouts"; but my second thought was "Too bad; you're eating them anyway." And so I bargained.

"Well what other vegetable do you like? We can have that one tomorrow."

"Kale, but we had that the other night."

"Okay. Well I want to make a root vegetable stew tomorrow anyway, so how about this: I'll buy something else you like if you promise to eat all your Brussels sprouts tonight."

Now my daughters can see an opportunity to get something they want but that I usually wouldn't buy a mile away. So realizing such an occasion had occurred, Maddie stopped and turned to her twin sister, Sophie, for consultation. I continued to drop sprouts in my bag, giving them space to figure out their demands.

After a minute or two of whispering, both girls looked up at me and said, in unison, "We want Cup of Noodles."

My stomach twisted in a knot. I detest Cup of Noodles (which on the package is actually called "Cup Noodles" When did they lose the "of"? There's also Maruchan Instant Lunch, but really they're all the same thing).

I know. I know. What's so bad about ramen in a cup, right? Many people lived off those dehydrated noodles and corn kernels during college, but when I spy a package all I see is 1480 mg of sodium and a Styrofoam cup that will still be here in 2110. Now I'm no enigma. My thoughts are usually plastered all over my face, so seeing my obvious annoyance at their terms, Maddie said "we'll eat ALL our Brussels sprouts."

Knowing that my daughters are little tree huggers at heart, I tossed out what I thought was a sure fire deal killer: "That Styrofoam cup isn't recyclable. It will sit in a landfill forever."

Maddie looked up at me with those big brown eyes, "I'll keep it on my desk and put erasers in it." And I know she will.

So what's a mom to do? Stand firm and make Cup of Noodles a forbidden fruit or grab an opportunity to get my kids to eat all their vegetables and convince them that Brussels sprouts really are delicious. I did the latter.

Later that evening as we ate our dinner, I asked my daughters how they liked the slivered Brussels sprouts sautéed in pancetta and garlic and served with toasted walnuts and mascarpone cheese (recipe forthcoming next week). Both girls seemed to have forgotten that they hated Brussels sprouts. "It's good. Why?" asked Sophie while Maddie just powered through the meal without a word. Next time, I'm going shopping by myself.

How do you handle food battles with your kids?

Note: I've since learned that my trash company will recycle the Styrofoam cup, but I still hate Cup of Noodles.

People cop to having spirit animals. No one carves totem poles anymore but I do know a guy who was once so obsessed with lions that he sewed a frilly yellow felt mane along the hood of his favorite sweat-jacket. During that phase, at parties, he'd roar frequently, with the hood up and curled around his head. As for me, I'm not sure. A girlfriend once told me I reminded her of a "big, goofy bird." A year later, another described me as cat-like. Cats give me violent sneezing fits, and I'm indifferent to any fowl that hasn't been plucked and braised. In truth, I've never been particularly keen on spirit animals. Some folks realize theirs in meditative visions, and others take a Facebook quiz, but either way, the selection process is deeply flawed. I doubt any shamanistic traveler has journeyed through mystic pathways in search of animal power and encountered a yapping Pomeranian at the end of the line. The problem is obvious: we find human traits in animals both wild and domesticated so easily that seeing ourselves in their skins is no great stretch, and the tendency to telegraph our self-associations is in the end too powerful.

What about vegetables? Might we possess vegetable spirits as well as those of animals? Biologically we certainly have much less in common with them. The edible buds, bulbs, seeds, stems, roots, and leaves of plants, vegetables are inanimate and mute. They don't procreate or eat like us, show emotion, or play. Identifying with them in such a personal sense requires a significant suspension of disbelief. When I interviewed Eggplant Kohlrabi and Kale Daikon of the scintillating blog Weird Vegetables back in June, our conversation touched on the issue. We were discussing the polarizing black radish, a vegetable the two had described on their blog as being very "radish-y," meaning of course, that it epitomized, in their eyes, the pungent and peppery traits commonly associated with the radish diaspora. Spurred, I think, by the blog's frequent clever forays into anthropomorphism, I felt suddenly compelled to ask them if people could be "radish-y" too. The resulting dialogue chewed up the rest of the interview.

In an exchange I edited out of the final transcript, I shared with them the story of a friend from college. In college, I knew this guy -- a great guy, incidentally -- who did a self-help radio show on the student-run station. Ingeniously, the show wasn't about helping those calling in; it was about helping himself. Slighted friends and spurned lovers would get on the air and give him shit, and he, flustered and mortified, would beseech listeners for advice. Anyway, as I told Daikon and Kohlrabi, this fellow once told a pal of mine in a moment of ill-advised candor that she reminded him of an olive -- probably because she's dark-haired, dark-eyed, and a little bitter-seeming until you get to know her. At the time, my friend hated the taste of olives, and recoiled at the fairly terrifying prospect of resembling and evoking something she despised.

Some vegetables, like potatoes, for example, with their nubs and pits, can sometimes look like people, especially faces. Superficially, people may also take on vaguely vegetal characteristics. With a little imagination and some squinting, the morning commute reveals a lush farm stand of walking, talking veggies: dour wrinkled turnips lugging briefcases, posh little shallots dabbing away with eyeliner, and lanky carrots bopping along to iPods, their plumes of hair flopping delicately back and forth. The possibilities multiply as you dig deeper, drawing arbitrary parallels between human personality traits and properties of vegetables. There is no universal methodology for this kind of cross-kingdom organization, which is naturally part of the fun. When you look at yourself, and then into yourself, and then out again, across the mist-mottled expanse of reds, greens, purples, and browns in a grocery store produce section, or perhaps the big rough bins of a friendly farmer's market purveyor, what suits you best?

Two weeks ago, curious to this end, I sent an email out to some area food folks, hope to ensnare a full sack of reactions. The email posed the question ("If you were a vegetable, which one would you be?") and left the criteria open-ended. I gathered responses and took stock of the respondents' rationales where they were given.

Eric Smillie, proprietor of the excellently briny Oakland-based blog Awesome Pickle, would be a green cabbage, because "they're versatile, they're good for you, and they don't mess around."

Nancy Gammons of Four Sisters Farms near Monterey would be purslane. "It grows anywhere," she said: "[It's] tenacious...very nutritious, and remains humble."

Farmer Joe Shirmer, owner of Dirty Girl Produce in Santa Cruz, would be red Russian kale. His clod-solid reasoning: "I would fly under the radar as many would think of me as common or mundane or even boring...but in fact I would be the biggest boldest most bountiful four season bad ass around. Nothing would bring me down. Heat, frost, wind, and drought would all pass me buy and I'd thrive. Tomatoes and beans, pomegranates and mandarin oranges, kiwis and peppers would come and go; I'd just kick back and grow -- the healthiest dude around."

Wild foods advocate Iso Rabins of forageSF got appropriately fungal with his pick-- a matsutake mushroom.

Having filled many bowls at his bean-in happy hours, Mark Andrew Gravel, the food activist/artist in charge of Agrarian Art Lab, fittingly leaned legume. "They are thrifty," he mused. "And very satisfying when made well. They seem like a fairly wise vegetable too. Plus they have two sisters that I'm into," he added, presumably making a keen historical reference to corn and squash, the crops North American Indian tribes frequently planted in patches as companions to beans.

Jamie Law, Manager of Media Relations and Special Events for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, would be corn because it's "versatile (corn meal, raw, cooked a billion different ways), tough, and great in sweet and savory dishes."

Nearly half a dozen Cafe Gratitude employees weighed in, including one who just had to drop a little "you are healthy" at the end of his answer. To share one response, the company's district manager Chandra Gilbert identified with humble Brussels sprouts: "Not everyone loves them although those who do love the heck out of them...and you really need to know how to treat them."

Finally, Gayle Pirie and John Clark of Foreign Cinema came through with chef-ly perspectives. Pirie would be "the artichoke, for the mild nutty flavor, many green leaves, and a deeply sweet edible heart at the center." Clark would be "celery for its intense rib cage, strength, magnificent versatility, and tender heart with edible leaves, delicious cooked or raw."

I have included only a sampling, but even from this, enough is clear: nearly all of the respondents associate themselves with vegetables they prize for eating and cooking. Some, like Smillie and Gilbert, also allude to looking for themselves in the vegetables they adore, perhaps coveting those vegetables' traits as their own, viewing them as vessels for whatever meanings they might infer. Brussels sprouts, for example, are divisive. They are, as Gilbert suggested, a little hard to love; they're so often taken in the wrong context, misinterpreted, and abused. We all have stories about them. They are like difficult people who do good work -- say, a crotchety old civil rights attorney prone to shouting down his secretary and making bad jokes at the wrong times. You can accept them, respect them, and like them immensely, but you can't take them wholly as they are. They have to be prepared well -- shredded for a salad maybe, or roasted whole. They need to be matched with suitable companions to smooth out their harsher aspects -- like bacon, or thyme and mustard. They should be served in the right setting, under the proper circumstances. A lot of vegetables -- along with people -- take some warming up. Until I was 22 or so, I was weird about parsnips. They always struck me as peculiar ghostly characters, like carrots ravaged by Bunnicula. With their tough skin and fibrous core, parsnips take a little finessing, but they are delightful once melting into a stew or sweetening a tuber puree.

"I think about things I want to eat and they aren't usually [things] I'd want to be," Kohlrabi had said towards the end of our interview, petting a cat as it sidled past along the carpet. At the time, stifling a wicked sneeze, I'd suggested being something no one would eat, but now, the more I think about it, my mind has changed. Me, I would like to be eaten, to give sustenance to others. Since we're speaking metaphorically, consumption would not cut my life short, simply enrich it. In the course of my life, I'd like to help nourish the people I encounter -- whether through art, education, or friendship -- providing of course they're willing to try me. After all, life's too short to be a rhubarb leaf.

Everyday cooking means taking lots of shortcuts. For the most flavor with the shortest amount of time in the kitchen, especially when you've splurged or gone out of your way to buy good ingredients, it's a delicate balance between paying attention to the details and just trying to get dinner on the table.

We've all done it -- cooked tomatoes with their peels and seeds, served pureed soup unstrained, fried the potatoes just once, not twice. It's healthier, right?

As a cook, I embrace shortcuts. But as a cooking teacher, I always try to explain to my classes why, over the centuries and millennia, certain techniques have developed. Sometimes it's cultural. Usually, though, there's a very real change in texture or flavor, nutrition or shelf-life.

Two simple techniques increasingly omitted from recipes now are salting eggplant and browning butter. Neither are absolutely necessary. Both, however, are worth doing every once in a while to remind yourself just what amazing flavors you can create in the kitchen.

BROWNED BUTTER

Simmering whole butter until all its water bubbles off and its protein solids separate accomplishes several key improvements. It allows the butter to sit at (tropical) room temperature much longer without turning rancid. It significantly increases the butter's smoke point to allow high-heat cooking. And it transforms the milks sweet flavor, adding deep, nutty, caramel tones. Indians call it ghee, while the French call it beurre noisette, or hazelnut butter for its rich color and flavor.

You need just five or ten minutes to make browned butter. Melt good-quality, unsalted butter in a small, heavy pan over medium heat. (A lighter colored pan will allow you to judge more easily the color of the butter as it cooks.) Continue cooking it through the foamy bubbling stage, while all the water evaporates off. Reduce the heat if you want to give yourself some extra buffer time, especially if this is your first time browning butter. As the bubbles subside, swirl the pan occasionally and keep an extra close eye on the butter. The protein solids will sink to the bottom. When they turn light brown, transfer the hot butter immediately to a heat-proof bowl. Be sure not to scorch the butter, as blackened protein will taste sharply acrid, not pleasantly nutty. It will darken a little more as it cools.

For frying or long storage, be sure to separate the milk solids: skim off any remaining foam and spoon or pour off the oil while still liquid, leaving behind the darkened protein at the bottom of the bowl.

Browned butter can be used while still melted to saute or to garnish. It's excellent for vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, and green beans. If you're trying to use less butter, deepening its flavor will accentuate the effect from smaller amounts. For a super simple yet elegant entree, sear chicken breast, pork chops, or fish fillets in browned butter and then serve with fresh lemon wedges.

Let browned butter solidify and substitute it in baked recipes for extra delicate cookies and cakes. (Remember that less water means less gluten development in flour, so be sure to allow for some trial and error as you figure out the fulcrum point between flavor and structure.) Use it in rice pilaf to serve with full-flavored stews and roasts. Or simply offer it at the table in your regular butter dish and spread it on crusty bread or flaky biscuits for a flavor epiphany.

SALTING EGGPLANT

With ever smaller, younger and fresher vegetables making their way to our markets in the past decades, old rules have lost much of their imperative. Peeling, trimming, salting -- these were techniques required when vegetables were allowed to mature completely on the plant, transported long distances without the benefit of refrigeration, and served within days not weeks of harvest. Tender carrots no longer require peeling. Young celery stalks can be cooked with leaves. And most eggplants now, especially the narrow Asian varieties, are fine going straight from the cutting board the pan.

Occasionally, though, salting eggplant is critical and will remind you just why this vegetable has been embraced in classic dishes around the world. It's a hassle, but the extra step draws out bitter juices in older vegetables, whether those missed in the back corner of your garden or forgotten in the bottom of your refrigerator. More importantly, salting alters the cell structure of the vegetable's flesh, creating that famous silken texture while preventing excess absorption of oil.

To salt eggplant, halve, dice or slice it as needed. Sprinkle generous with kosher salt and set aside in a bowl or colander. To encourage the purging of juices, weight the eggplant. (The most effective way is to fill a zip bag with water and plop it on top of the pieces. The age-old method is a flat plate topped with a rock.) Leave the eggplant for 30 to 60 minutes. When you return and peek into the bowl, you'll see a surprising amount of dark brown liquid at the bottom. Rinse the eggplant quickly in cool water, drain well and then dry it by wringing in a clean cloth or patting with paper towels.

Salting eggplant will noticeably improve recipes that call for stuffing eggplant halves or rolling thin slices around a filling. It's also a good technique for dishes where keeping its shape is important, such as stews, curries, ratatouille, or parmigiana. If you're deep-frying eggplant, salting is essential for preventing greasiness.

And what if you're making baba ganoush or using tiny, little adolescent eggplants? Nope, no one will care or notice if you skip the salting.

Cooking is an investment of time and money, energy and love. Like all decisions, judging the costs requires knowing the benefits. And then choosing wisely.

No, I don't have a back 40. Maybe I have a back four like you, a 4x4x4 chunk of concrete back patio in Bernal Heights, ancient cactus in one corner, Wizard-of-Oz cyclone cellar door in the other, a few beat-up chairs, windchimes, and ashtrays filling in the rest. Perfect for a garden! Last summer, my gardening lust didn't get tripped until July, when I came home with high hopes and a couple of leggy tomato plants, only to find myself running a soup kitchen for a hungry neighborhood of whiteflies and aphids. Embarassing for someone with a certificate in ecological horticulture, to say the least.

This year, I put that hard-won CASFS knowledge to use. To wit: pests prey on weak plants, plants growing out of season, deprived of the nutrients they need. A healthy eco-system is one that supports beneficial bugs and pollinators, with a mixed palette of plants and bugs that can overwhelm destructive pests. Food not lawns, sure, but flowers can be just as hard-working as veggies, pumping out the nectar that feeds the bees and wasps, and in the process both enabling plant sex and elbowing out less desirable insects. Bachelor's buttons, borage, sweet alyssum, morning glory, cosmos, sunflowers: they all bloomed and did their part, along with the stunning salpiglossis that was just there to look gorgeous.

So, what was growing in the back four by four? Tomatoes, of course, which no summer gardener can be without, even in too-chilly, too-foggy San Francisco. Not having the willpower of the Zen gardeners at Green Gulch, who bow to the powers of their surrounding cool marine winds and don't even try, I compromised with a couple of cherry tomato plants, a Chadwick Cherry (named after Alan Chadwick, mad genius and founding UCSC gardener) and a Golden Nugget, both birthed from thumb-sized starts from the Free Farmstand. The rest of the veggies came from seeds, thanks to my conviction that unless it's grown from seed, you didn't really earn it and it's not really yours.

Now, I'm not a spiritual person. Planting seeds is the closest thing I get to an expression of faith: you hold these tiny specks, all shapes and colors, and trust that they contain everything to rise into life. You slip them into the dirt, water them every morning, and the day after you've skeptically succumbed to doubt, they pop up, all fresh and new, eager to spin the whole wheel again. Samsara, sure, only it all tastes really, really good.

What I grew, all in containers using just potting soil, encouraging words, and (no, I'm not proud, but I'm honest) the occasional dose of Miracle-Gro, along with size-10 sneakers unashamed to stomp on lettuce-munching caterpillars: French Baby Nantes carrots, which stayed pinkie-sized but were amazingly sweet and crunchy; sugar snap peas, prolific and delicious, despite a leaf-devouring case of fog-borne powdery mildew; the aforementioned Golden Nugget and Chadwick Cherry tomatoes; African blue basil, skimpy-leaved but prolific in pretty mauve flower spikes; tiny whorls of green and red container lettuce, mostly eaten by those effing caterpillars; and of course, early summer's fingerling potatoes.

My old pals Sally and Christina, who came over to photograph, then eat, that first potato crop, came by again to dine on the fruits of the Summer Salad Project, augmented by a variety of local items. There was some crusty sourdough flatbread I'd made from locally grown and milled grains: whole-wheat flour from Eatwell Farm and cornmeal from Erin at Ridgecut Gristmills, glossed with olive oil from McEvoy Ranch near Petaluma and flavored with summer savory from a Marquita Farm mystery box.

With it went garden antipasti: the five ripe cherry tomatoes we could pick, a handful of sugar-snap peas and baby carrots, sheep's milk ricotta from West Marin's Bellwether Farms and a bowl of homemade mayonnaise. And Julia Child's advice aside, you don't even need to warm the bowl; as long as you go slow whisking in the oil in the beginning, making mayonnaise is a snap. All it takes is olive oil, lemon juice, salt, egg yolks, a little mustard, a whisk and three or four minutes' worth of patience.

There were also deviled eggs made using more of that mayonnaise, because who doesn't love a deviled egg? For dinner, garlicked-and-lemoned greens, made from a mixture of erbette chard, radish and beet greens, all pulled from the mystery box, and the piece de resistance: a succotash of Brentwood corn mixed with roasted serrano chiles, heirloom tomatoes, basil and savory from Mariquita, plus roasted torpedo onions and fresh flageolet beans grown by Annabelle at La Tercera Farm. In our glasses went pink vin gris from Bonny Doon, bought on sale at Good Life Grocery up the street.

Now, I'm name-checking for a reason. This isn't brand-naming just for some kind of locavore dirt cred. The dinner was local on purpose, but it also wasn't particularly hard to put together, thanks to the agricultural abundance surrounding us. What was on our plates was also community through commerce; all these vegetables were the livelihoods of people I've gotten to know, even just a little, through buying their vegetables week after week, visiting their farms, walking through their fields or orchards. It doesn't take much time to put a face on your food, and to make it part of a larger web of interlocking stories and histories, a personal geography marked by olives and zucchini, the taste of a milky green wheat kernel or the sight of two tiny leaves poking up out of the dirt.

And that night, looking around the table, Christina said grace to thank the earth, the farmers, the cook, and friendship, for making it all worth it.

The joint endeavor of Mission District housemates Kale Daikon and Eggplant Kohlrabi (a.k.a. Katrina Dodson and Erin Klenow), Weird Vegetables sprouts a cut above most local food blogs. Do not, for starters, confuse it with a younger, much less weird San Francisco-based rival going by the same name, a site dedicated, seemingly quite seriously, to "celebrating diversity throughout the plant kingdom." In contrast, the one of which I write inhabits a special dimension of biological whimsy, where the crisper spills forth a menagerie of anthropomorphic leaves, roots, and legumes, and a trip to the farmer's market feels like a twisted safari through unfamiliar lands. Stuffed into the blog's strange sieve of language and thought, vegetables are not merely waxed, sticker-tagged produce; they are characters. Identities, needs, wants, and feelings squirm within their husks and peels as well as flavors and nutrients. For Dodson and Klenow, they are ripe springboards for gleeful leaps into philosophy, linguistics, and general poetic absurdity as well as cookery.

Each entry often starts with a vegetable one of them has picked up at the store or market. From there, the specimen is assessed, first as object, then as food, an introduction irrigated with historical context and preparation suggestions, and subsequently sacrificed at the altar of their imagination. Take, for example, the August 2008 post on the lemon cucumber, in which Dodson sums up the chosen veggie as "a piece of produce that boasts the vaguely exotic yet familiar allure of the hybrid, the indeterminate, the mestizo...this fruit masquerading as a vegetable disguised as a fruit (a kind of double drag, F to V to F)." In the April 2009 treatise on farro ("Long Ago, a Farro Way"), a lisp-kissed summary of The Princess Bride acts as preamble to a discussion of the ancient grain's venerability and value, "farro" being, after all, a word perhaps best spoken with "a faraway look" in one's eyes. Clearly, vegetables are weird, often much weirder than we think, and the ways in which people treat these things they plant and eat says something about people too: namely, that they are weird as well. In early June, I visited the bloggers at their house. We skipped through the magic mustard greens garden, scouted scapes, and talked turnips.

Andrew Simmons: I like how your blog shares practical advice about actually cooking vegetables but also presents them as vibrant players in a somewhat goofy bio-cultural drama. What got you into vegetables? Did the blog evolve organically?

Katrina Dodson: I go to farmers' markets all the time and I spend a lot of time around food people, so I've learned something about vegetables from them as well.

AS: Why are vegetables weird?

KD: Certain types of vegetables can be weird because people don't normally eat them or aren't used to them, or they can be more common individual vegetables, like carrots and potatoes, that just look weird. I'm also really interested in the weirdness of language and how strange the naming of vegetables can be. I'm working on a Ph.D. in comparative literature right now so I think about metaphors all the time. That's the latest level of weirdness on the blog, the newest terrain.

Erin Klenow: I like how the name of a vegetable can freak someone out. The fact that something is called a blood orange is enough to get people to avoid eating it. And nipple fruit? It's pretty funny.

KD: Also known as titty fruit.

EK: It's often noted that people have aversions to eating gross parts of animals but when I mention a certain vegetable to some people, they just go ew ew ew.

KD: There's also the misguided idea that vegetarianism is boring, like you run out of things to eat because you just eat vegetables and nothing else. We're not vegetarians, by the way.

EK: When people ask me if I'm a vegetarian, I just say I only eat expensive meat.

KD: I taught a class at Berkeley on food called "Eating and Being Eaten." It was all about how food is always more than just food. Having that dialogue in my head really affected the blog.

AS: What did the class read?

KD: A lot of different things. There was a food politics section. We read some of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and talked about My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki and Kafka's A Hunger Artist. There was a whole meat theme. We talked about cannibalism too, because that’s a topic I’m really interested in.

AS: You have to bring that up at some point when you're talking about the idea of eating meat.

KD: There's a necessary violence that happens in the mere act of survival. You have to acknowledge it. Even vegetarians consume living things.

AS: When you write about vegetables, they sound like animals or aliens, bizarre creatures that might scuttle off the table. It's carnivorous, in a sense. Why don't you write about fruit?

EK: We do sometimes.

KD: They're technically a subset of vegetables. Vegetables are weirder than fruit though. People are more okay with weird fruit. They're sugary, luscious, and voluptuous. Fruit is meant to seduce. That's its biological function. Vegetables are gross. They have weird outgrowths. They're all like take it or leave it. In the lemon cucumber post, we talked about how "vegetable" is a cultural determination whereas "fruit" is biological. A fruit is any plant with an enclosed seed that comes from a flower. That's scientifically established, but vegetables are really undefined. They're just the edible parts of plants. Technically, anything goes.

AS: Erin, do you work in the food world?

EK: I was a waitress for a long time. Three years ago, I worked as an expeditor at Quince. I had to learn everything on the menu. I read a lot of food writing too. I grew up in Sonoma so I was always close to people who produced food, though I wasn't very conscious of it until later.

KD: I'm from San Francisco. We went to Berkeley together.

AS: I liked how, in the black radish entry, you compiled a list of black foods to see, in part, what they have in common. They're all polarizing. I've eaten black radish before so I think I know what you're talking about when you describe it as being "very radish-y." How would you describe a "radish-y" person?

KD: Kind of abrasive. Kind of funny. Acerbic. Sometimes goes a little too far.

EK: A little refreshing but also overwhelming.

AS: If you were a vegetable, which would you be?

KD: I'm clearly Kale Daikon -- my initials. I said onion once when someone asked me that but it's not, you know, because I have so many layers and you have to peel them off...

AS: But the onion is so common, the cheapest vegetable in the store...

KD: I was feeling like one at the time.

EK: I've always identified with eggplant -- for Erin, I guess. Eggplant are a little inconsistent. They can be delicious and creamy or bitter.

AS: I don't want to read too much into that, but you might be the kind of person that, given proper attention and care, can be a very pleasant cohort in friendship...

EK: I like that it's purple.

KD: I have to say that now I've picked up more of an affinity to the carrot. They're unexpectedly weird.

EK: I could be a turnip too now that I think about it. Roasted, they're so good. I like them but I think about things I want to eat and they aren't usually something I'd want to be.

AS: Maybe be something no one would eat.

KD: Like bracken? But they serve it at Cha-Ya.

I'm not a vegetarian. It's not that I have anything against it really, I'm just far too hedonistic to limit myself. So with a healthy dose of hedonism—and summer's wares peaking—I find myself gorging on more and more vegetables and fruits fresh from the market. Meat has taken a backseat. I'd rather bite into a big juicy tomato than a big juicy steak.

And, as in my last post on market suppers, I'm constantly looking for new and delectable ways to eat them—even though currently it seems to be raw, out of hand, and with little or no embellishment. When I'm feeling a bit more inspired, and have a little extra pastry dough on hand (which is actually quite often as I make way more than I need and store extra disks in my freezer), I love tucking whatever leftover vegetables that need to be eaten into a quiche or tart, like this one. It is deliciously simple and gooey with three different kinds of cheese.

The recipe below is for a zucchini tart, because I can't seem to stop loading up on them each week at the market. But to make this an any-kind-of-vegetable tart, replace the zucchini with about 1/2 cup sautéed leeks; blanched asparagus, green beans or chopped broccoli or cauliflower; freshly cooked chopped spinach or other greens; fresh, chopped tomatoes; fresh corn kernels; or a mixture of any of these. You can also add a sprinkle of fresh herbs, like basil, marjoram, oregano, chives, or swap out the cheeses for your favorite.

The point is, this is an extremely versatile way to make your own seasonal specialty. Or just find something new to do with that bounty of fresh veggies you have in your fridge.

Zucchini (Or Any Veggie) Tart

Makes: One 10-inch tart

Ingredients:
One 10-inch tart pan lined with flaky pie dough (see recipe below or use your favorite recipe)
3 zucchini, trimmed
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup cubed fresh mozzarella
3 eggs
1/4 cup crème fraiche or sour cream
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup shredded fontina cheese
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Line the tart pan with the dough, then line the dough with foil. Fill with ceramic pie weights or beans or rice. Place the tart shell on a baking sheet and bake until it starts to dry out, about 15 minutes. Remove the foil and weights and continue to bake until very light golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

2. While the tart shell is baking, shred the zucchini on the large holes of a box grater-shredder onto paper towels. Spread evenly and sprinkle with salt. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Using paper towels, blot the zucchini dry (try to get it as dry as possible).

3. Sprinkle the zucchini and mozzarella evenly in the lined tart pan. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, crème fraiche, and milk. Season with salt and pepper. Pour evenly over the zucchini. Sprinkle the fontina and Parmesan evenly over the top.

4. Bake until the filling is set and the top is golden brown, about 25 minutes. If you want to get the cheese extra bubbly and brown, place under the broiler for a minute. Let sit for a few minutes before cutting into wedges and serving.

Flaky Pie Dough

Makes: Enough for two 10-inch tarts

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
12 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/3 cup ice water + 1 tablespoon

Preparation:
1. To make the crust, in the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, and salt. Sprinkle the butter over the top and process for a few seconds, or just until the butter is slightly broken up into the flour but still in visible pieces. Sprinkle the water over the flour mixture evenly, then process until the mixture just starts to come together.

2. Dump the mixture out of the bowl onto 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Press the dough together into a mound and then wrap with plastic and press into a flat disk. Refrigerate the dough until chilled, about 30 minutes or up to 1 day, or freeze for up to 1 month.

The pot of chives was waiting for me in Moraga. Little did I know there was an entire afternoon of wonder in store for me when I went to pick it up.

With just his hands, a shovel and a wheelbarrow, 79-year old Ze'ev Vered has shaped seven terraces of gardens and orchards. Trees bearing pistachio, quince and pomegranate push up against the golden hills. A 6-foot cyclone fence that encircles his garden, to deter the insistent deer, has long been covered with the rambling vines of eight different varieties of grapes. The paths between each hand-weeded bed switch back several times, a steep trail that leads from one beautiful, delicious plant to another.

Raised on an Israeli farm and then trained in forestry, Vered landed four decades ago in the Bay Area. He settled into insurance work to help raise his family, but much of his free time was spent building up his garden and cooking -- he handled all the savory food while his wife took care of the sweets. When he retired, Vered finally launched a business that expressed his passion: Herb Gardens by Ze'ev. He specializes in culinary herbs, helping his customers grow unique gardens that reflect their favorite cuisines, from my little chive pot to complex, professionally tended installations.

Vered treated me to a lunch: Salad Caprese with his own sun-warmed tomatoes and a lovely barley soup made from the herb-stuffed carcass of a spit-roasted turkey. After I'd had enough to eat, he walked me slowly through his garden.

Here are some highlights from my amazing tour, sprinkled lightly with Vered's salty jokes and stories:

After many years, Vered has perfected his own secret blend of soil. For example, powdered dolomite lime sweetens the mix to provide the basic pH that culinary herbs prefer.

Whenever his wife and he traveled to Mexico, they'd bring back a few pots. If you find one you like, he'll sell it to you.

Vered sequesters his newly potted plants inside wire cages for a week to protect them from squirrels, who love to dig up the plants. His plants all have well-established root systems, and as soon as you get your herb pot home, you can begin harvesting and cooking.

At one of his lectures, a skeptic kept asking Vered, "Are you sure that your plants are organic?" He answered patiently until the third time, when he couldn't help adding, "Yes, these plants are organic. And not only that, they're orgasmic -- I get a real charge out of growing them!"

Welcoming visitors at the entrance to his herb garden are pots of low-spreading, tiny-leafed Corsican mint.

The herb invites you to caress its velvety surface and then imbues your hand with its fresh, summery perfume. Someday, I'm going to have a garden path with Corsican mint growing in the cracks between stones.

The leaves of this slightly bronzed peppermint has a sharp flavor that lingers long. I could feel its menthol in my sinuses.

Spearmint has a softer, rounder flavor. Growing in this large patch is what Vered calls "Safeway mint."

A much-lauded celebrity chef, who will here remain nameless, needed fresh mint for his cooking show. Vered gets a call from the chef's assistant. "What kind of mint does he need?" Vered asks, referring to the many varieties he grows. A pause on the phone. "You know, the Safeway kind."

Three sages hold court along his retaining wall.

For the first time, I came face to face with a fresh caper. If you don't pick and pickle the small bud, it opens into a beautiful white and pink-tinged blossom.

Recently planted caper bushes that Vered hopes will soon cascade down part of his hillside.

Enough horseradish to feed a small village. Vered likes using its leaves in salads before pulling up their roots and bottling his own sauces.

Mediterranean bay, known as true laurel, has a sweeter, less harsh flavor than California bay. Here, small plants spring up from a potted tree's crown roots.

Tomatoes grow two levels down from his fruit and nut trees. Asked if he shares his fruits and vegetables with his neighbors, Vered says "Back when they used to be nice to me!"

Golden quince with their soft, delicate fuzz.

At the top of one hill, just past the plum and pistachio trees, Vered placed a bench in the shade of grape vines. He can sit and gaze across the valley. I asked him if he sat here with his wife, while she was still alive, and he smiled mischievously. "Oh yes...and sometimes we held hands."

Pistachio nuts just beginning to blush.

Over the next several months, this tiny bud will flower, fruit and ripen into a juicy pomegranate.

Vered grows a rare variety of Asian pear, the only sand pear that resembles its European cousin in shape.

Vered picked some tomatoes and plums for me to take home, and then asked if I wanted to taste some of his green tomato pickles. Uh, yes, I LOVE green tomato pickles!

The tiny, still green cherry tomatoes are tart, a nice pick-me-up after the hot afternoon sun. They're preserved in his own special brine.

To a colleague who asks for the recipe to his kosher dill pickles: "Well, first you cut the tip off each little cucumber...."

Herb Gardens by Ze'ev
Ze'ev Vered, M.S.
(510) 631-0199 (925)631-0199
P.O. Box 6486
Moraga, CA 94570

I like to think that I am pretty adventurous in the kitchen. But the truth is, there are plenty of fruits and especially vegetables I don't have a clue about. So who might introduce me to these exotic treats? Melissa's Great Book of Produce. Melissa's is the largest distributor of speciality produce in the US. Based in Los Angeles they have been selling exotic fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world since 1984. Looking for cherimoyas? Dragon fruit? Rambutan? Sea beans? Jujubes? Thai eggplant? It's all available either in stores or online from Melissa's.

Melissa's Great Book of Produce is part cookbook and part reference book, and also a seasonal availability guide. It includes descriptions with photos, and advice on buying and storing, prep, use, nutritional info and serving suggestions along with a recipe per fruit or vegetable. While it may not actually include every fruit and vegetable out there, it does a great job with the more exotic ones.

I have to admit, I haven't cooked out of this book yet, but I have used it quite a bit. I found it helpful when experimenting with bitter melon for the first time and when trying to figure out how to use lemon grass in a custard sauce. I also used it to identify some Asian greens. Having this book emboldens me to purchase produce I'm not so sure about, because I know when I get home I'll be able to figure out what to do with it. It's also great for finding more uses for some of the exotic ingredients I already have on hand.