By Radha Lath
For the first time, we have signed up for a CSA farm share. Once a week, my husband goes to pick it up, and then we have to put in some time to scrub all the dirt off everything, especially the greens. It’s mind altering how good everything tastes when it’s fresh and local. We do shop at the local farmer’s market every year, but something about finding ways to use up stuff you might not have picked out yourself is very character building. We had exactly zero thoughts on how to use garlic scapes, but my idea was to make a paste out of them, and use it for cooking, just like garlic paste (except a vibrant green) from the Indian store. Going to see how that works out, now that we have a jar of the paste in the fridge.
We get a little overwhelmed at times. It’s mostly sort of rabbity food in early summer, what we call Stuff White People Eat, which makes us snicker. How many red radishes can one brown family get through?? Even with salad dressing clinging to it, it doesn’t taste like…anything. Being from Singapore, I am thinking of using them to make carrot cake, which is not a dessert at all, but a savory breakfast dish called chye tow kway, and which usually has white radish, sambal, garlic, and fish sauce. I am seriously going to try a vegetarian, red radish version of this. If you’re interested in an update, I’ll let you know how it turns out.
