at the market: radishes

 Radish-es! (I'm singing here, a little off key)
I can not stop singing your praises. You are, in essence, love with a root and a leaf. Round or cylindrical, sensual in your crunch and shocking bite, I will love you forever.

 These, in no particular order, are some of my favorite things about radishes.

1. Radishes get spicier as the season moves in. It is the heat and sun that gives heat to your radishes. So in April? Mild. In June? Wowsa.

2. Yes, you can eat the greens! Saute with garlic!

3. Radish butter.

4. I love that there is a radish called the French Breakfast Radish.  I believe that this name has inspired many people, including myself, to eat radishes for breakfast.



5. This is a very exciting way to use salt.

6. Radishes are wonderful to grow. Sow your seeds, don't even thin them out, and the radishes will be up before you can blink. When they start to show themselves poking out of the ground, take your pick.

7. Roasted radishes. Yes, Nigel Slater does say that we should "ignore any suggestion of cooking them," and he claims that "the writer is surely deluded." But still, roasted radishes.

8. Radish dip. On a bagel.

9. And then of course, there is the fanciness of the radish. Blame it in the French for elevating this anything but ordinary mustard. 

Radish-es!

wordsworth and radish butter

"Wisdom and Spirit of the universe!
Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought!



And giv'st to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion! not in vain,
By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me
The passions that build up our human soul;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man;



But with high objects, with enduring things,
With life and nature, purifying thus
The elements of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying by such a discipline
Both pain and fear,--until we recognise
A grandeur in the beatings of the heart."

-William Wordsworth, from "Influence of Natural Objects: In Calling Forth and Strengthening the Imagination In Boyhood and Early Youth"

 

Radish Butter

Combine 1 softened stick of butter with 6 finely chopped radishes, 3 snipped chives, a hefty squeeze of lemon, and the best salt in your cupboard.  Mix, and enjoy.
 

radish dip

Dip.
Yuck. I don't do it. I don't throw the contents of my fridge in to my food processor with a random dairy product and serve it with carrots. I avoid those anonymous bowls of creamed elements at parties because double dipping grosses me out. There's always random crumbs of things in there, and I peek in the bowl and slowly back away. I'm not a dip girl.

Except there's something else. Do you have foods in your life that you think that you don't like but that you actually do?

Of course I feel that way about dip. Especially when there is radishes involved.

You know how deeply I am committed to my love for the radish. And after the last six weeks of eating them every day, of gently yanking them out of the garden and of stacking them in luxurious mountains at the farmer's market, I am so not sick of radishes.

But other people seem to be getting there. And so at the market this weekend, instead of relying on the fact that people would eat their radishes naked and immediately (the radishes are naked! Really! Put those dirty thoughts away), we put a nice little bowl of radish dip on the table in the midst of the mountain of radishes, and we gave people bread with which to dip. There was a fat stack of printed radish dip recipes, and I had to swipe one myself before every last copy was taken with excitement and anticipation. Because the truth is... people love a good dip. The thrill of publicly sanctioned finger food, the ubiquitous desire for all substances swirled into cream cheese, sour cream, or (the always healthful and optimistic) yogurt--these perhaps American, perhaps just plain human attributes draw people to that bowl like a fancy mighty strength magnet to an All-Clad stock pot (yes, I'm still fixated on that stock pot) and they are pulled in, little piece of bread or tortilla chip clenched in hand, to dip in.
Go for it. You know you want to.

Radish Dip
adapted from The Farmer's Market Cookbook, the Indian Line Farm's radish table
(and yes, as my picture suggests, this is absolutely the best thing you could put on your bagel)

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons prepared horseradish, drained
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
2-3 bunches red radishes, tops removed, quartered, or about 3 cups
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

Mix all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Blend until creamy with some pieces of radish still present in the mix. Taste, and adjust for seasonings. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

radish salad

I have a couple of things I need to tell you!
Nothing huge or substantial, but details I think you will appreciate.

It is a gray and windy morning (my favorite, secretly), and it is mother's day (happy mother's day!) and this is my 300th post (wahoo!). Rosie has been walking around for the last couple of days with a little sparkly tissue paper wrapped present, voicing a countdown to Mothers day (hooray! 2 days, 1 day, etc) and at 6:30 she woke me out of a dream that I was in Japan, and informed me that it was time to open the sparkly package. It was in fact, the most beautiful bookmark I have ever seen, covered with the word that she knows best how to write, that is "LOVE". Joey shyly pushed a package in my direction, a new and sturdy food mill inspired by a conversation by our local resident French store owner who claims that the food mill is the only way to create silky hummus. This morning, we will pick Sadie up from a sleepover and we will head over to a mother's day wildflower hike over at the cobble. And so the day begins.

Tomorrow is the election, and I'll tell you how all of that goes. Either way, I'll have more time to cook again. Yay Hooray! I actually haven't had granola in the house for weeks now. Without granola, I am hungry all the time.

Yesterday, there was a rainbow that ended in our backyard. The bottom of the rainbow fluttered over our gone to seed dandelions. If that isn't magic, I don't know what is.

And the best thing? The farmer's market started yesterday. It poured for most of it, and there was even a few dashes of lightning, but I was so happy to be there. Even in the rain, people came out to celebrate the vegetables, and we pretty much sold out of everything. The table was covered with these radiant and lovely radishes, and people drifted over, semi-possessed, and pointed at the radishes. Over and over, customers gave me their two dollars, took their radishes without a bag, and I could see them eating them whole before they were even out of the parking lot. Radishes in spring do that to people. Somehow they are the answer to all that old food we eat all winter.
We had a couple of other treats on the table: baby asian greens, sorrel and pea shoots. There were a few bunches of elegant chives with tightly budded flowers, and bags of tender baby arugula. All morning, I was telling people about this salad that I had made earlier in the week- handing them a bunch of radishes, a bag of arugula, and a bunch of chives. They nodded and purchased the whole array of ingredients, but by mid market I started urging the purchase of two bunches of radishes instead of one. I knew that the siren call of the radishes would be to strong; the radishes would never make it home and the salad would never be made. So although there is one bunch of radishes in this recipe, go for two. Then you can eat your radishes in the car with wild abandon, a pleasure I would never want to deny you.

Radish Salad
adapted from Deborah Madison, Local Flavors

1 large bunch of radishes, sliced thin, greens removed (if greens are in good shape, sautee in butter, fabulous!)
2 tablespoons snipped chives
2 handfuls baby arugula or spinach, chopped if it is larger than 2 inches in length
a glug or two of good olive oil
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
about ten peels of parmesan cheese, peeled with a vegetable peeler

In a large bowl, combine the sliced radishes, chives, arugula, salt and pepper. Pour a glug of olive oil in the bowl- just enough to coat the mixture when you stir it. Lay the salad out on a platter, and top with peeled parmesan. Top with a touch more salt and pepper if needed.

bread with butter, radishes, and salt

I'm lamenting the fact that I have no radishes. I'm hoping that maybe you have some radishes.
If you do, will you help me out here?

Will you cut a few slices of bread and slather them with a little too much butter? Will you slice up those radishes and spread them on top, and then give them just a little sprinkle of coarse salt?
As long as someone's eating this, I'll feel better, even if it's not me.

I need some fancy food, and this would do just the trick.
I am not having a fancy day. I am too in my head, achy in my body, and not quite up for it. This morning I arose ten minutes later than I should have, and the world just about fell apart. No one had what they needed, hairbrushes were flying through the air, and I spilled tuna juice all over myself. That's right, tuna juice.
But they got into the car, survived the snowy drive to school, and I went about trying to prove to myself that I was, actually, up for it.
I cleaned the house. I matched up the girls socks so that they would actually have pairs to choose from. I called the humidifier company to find out what that whirring sound is. I did three loads of laundry, including one of wool things. I thought about the possibilities that life holds, about some other slower existence where I sip coffee and I eat radishes and bread and butter, and I actually chew.
So why bread with butter and radishes and salt? Well, as I said, fancy. And French. And crunchy and salty and wonderful. And beautiful even. Does that answer your question?
The other day I put a plateful in front of my sister. "I don't know what they're feeding you over there," I said to her. "But eat this." She was having a day that she wasn't quite up for either, and I like to think that the radishes helped.
It's the little things, I think.
I hope so, because now I don't have any, and that brings us back to our current predicament.
Report back. Tell me about how they were. Tell me everything, as it might be days before I get to the store again.