Month: October 2015

What are these? These are the delightful leaves of baby napa cabbage. The Japanese name for napa cabbage is 白菜 – hakusai, which translates as “white vegetable”. Baby napa cabbage is anything but white. Like swans, their beautiful white leaves don’t develop until they grow up. What is peculiar is that the word “napa” comes from the Japanese word 菜っ葉 which means vegetable leaves.

I have these baby napa cabbage leaves on the kitchen counter as it is time to thin the rows of napa cabbage that are growing in the garden. Thinning is fun because you get to eat all sorts of baby greens. I doubt anyone else in the state had baby napa cabbage leaves for lunch today, which made today a very special day.

Making this week special is a pullet which started laying lovely light blue eggs. I haven’t seen which hen is laying these special eggs. Why settle for plain white eggs when chickens can lay eggs in so many colors?

King Richard is strutting in front of a chicken barn, acting like a royal. He’s trying to impress a hen which is inside checking out the barn. She’s not impressed. He should have brought her a dish of baby napa leaves.

Just because a potato is odd doesn’t mean it won’t taste good. It may be that the oddest potatoes have the best flavor. If you want funky, funny potatoes, you’ll probably need to grow them. Funky, funny potatoes don’t make it onto store shelves. Their destiny is compost bins and factory foods. To make it onto store shelves, potatoes can’t look like they have a mind of their own.

This odd potato ended up turning into hashbrowns for breakfast. Now they don’t look so funky.

There are plenty of other odd vegetables in the garden. It’s time to glean leftover vegetables to prepare the beds for overwintering vegetables like shallots and garlic. These odd little onions and carrots, gleaned from a vegetable bed, will make a number of happy dishes.