Of Parsnips, Poverty, and Sheep Herding

My garden is still productive at Franklin Park, lots of carrots, cabbage, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, black kale, and chard. One of the other gardeners asked if anything has been gleaned or stolen. Fortunately my plots have been spared this year.

How many thieves really want to figure out how to cook a parsnip?

The kale is so black that it looks ornamental. The cabbage was so prolific that three heads emerged after I picked the center head! The rutabagas, turnips and carrots are hidden in the ground - no thief would know they are there unless they recognized the foliage.

The chard is excellent in a wonderful Indian soup that I make every week, Rasam Masala. It contains a spice blend of fenugreek, cumin, coriander, tamarind, curry leaves, turmeric, asafoetida, red chilies, and ground black mustard seed. I add onions, garlic, tomatoes, all my root veggies, chorizo sausage, black beans, and a firm pasta shell like malloraddus, which I make at home. Topped off with chopped parsley and a scattering of small Thai chow mein noodles, it makes the perfect meal for a spice lover.

To compliment the soup, I made four loaves of cornbread, so satisfying warm out of the oven, with butter and honey on top.

George was unavailable all weekend, so that left me alone, wondering what to cook for myself. I had lots of vegetables, so prepared a crepe I call 'Tarka Dhal', using garbanzo flour and cornmeal. This crepe is more like a substantial veggie pancake, with six different crunchy vegetables slightly fried before pouring the batter on top. A few poached eggs, hard on the outside and soft in the middle, partner well with this meal.

And, a cherry-huckleberry pie with home-made sweetened yogurt. This time I made yogurt that wasn't hard-set, but poured very slowly like a super thick cream - it was a perfect topping for this pie.

Although I was alone on the weekend, swamped with home-repair projects, I sat down awhile too. My sister sent the book "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D., and a couple of videos - one featuring Moroccan Cooking and the other a poignant recall of Sheep Herding in Montana.

I could identify with both videos: The spices in the Moroccan Harira broth, and the loneliness of the old sheep herder talking to himself, cause nobody else was there, if'n yer not countin' the sheep.