Kale

by Alissa

Kitchenscape with colossal kale. Our household shipment arrived this week, so O’s beach bucket is back in regular service.

The Newcastle farmers’ market is a wealth of food. This is both an inspiration to grow some myself (I might finally have a shot at melons!), and a deterrent–it’s all so good, and easy, and available here. Our first visit to the market yielded locally grown Myer and lemonade lemons, avocados, goat sausage, olives, potatoes, goat milk, onions, and a towering bunch of purple-stemmed Russian kale before I had to shield my eyes from the glory of it all and go home for a nap.

The man who sold us the kale asked where we were from. When Ace told him Canada, the man’s voice took on a tone of wonder, and he said, “I’ve seen pictures of kale growing in the snow there.”

Then, in the way we in the North might have been instructed to put distance-shipped avocados in a paper bag to help them ripen, he said, “If you’re going to juice the kale, put it in the freezer to bring out the sweetness.”