Great Big Vegetable Challenge: The Book

A package arrived from Great Britain yesterday and look what was inside: the cooking adventures of our friends Charlotte and Freddie at The Great Big Vegetable Challenge blog, in three-dimensional book form.

It's been great fun watching the blog unfold with A to Z recipes aimed at getting children to partake of the vegetable kingdom. Charlotte must be ecstatic to see this brilliant concept materialize in book form, complete with recipes and photographs.

As Charlotte explains in the introduction, dinner with Freddie frequently had been the nightly battle that so many parents experience. But instead of allowing the food fight to degenerate into a complete meltdown, Charlotte decided to turn mealtime into an adventure, with Freddie helping to devise clever dishes and then grading the results. As many adults discover, bringing kids into the process often succeeds where all the arguing and haranguing fail.

I would also like to point out that the recipe for slow-cooked green beans was borrowed from yours truly, and that Freddie rated it 8 points out of 10. The book's other recipes are all worthy of consideration. We are not talking Jello molds with smiley faces or other dumbed-down kiddy stuff. Charlotte and Freddie did their homework to come up with real food made with serious ingredients. But you might want to start with "Veggie Lipsmackers," which translates as vegetable and fruit juice popsickles.

Meanwhile, as if to underscore the point, here's a picture of daughter last night preparing to run away from home after rejecting a dinner offering quickly assembled from the contents of the refrigerator: hamburger, broccoli and sweet potato salad. Daughter normally likes broccoli, but last night it was, "I never liked broccoli!" Her plan was to seek asylum at a friend's house, but she turned back when she realized she would have to cross the street--something she does not yet do on her own.

Apparently "The Great Big Veg Challenge" is still looking for a U.S. publisher. Meanwhile, you can find it at Amazon UK, along with a more complete description. And you can visit the original blog.

Congratulations, Charlotte and Freddie! What's next?

Brussels Sprouts Are So Exciting

Some of you are dying to know how I prepared the sweet-and-sour Brussels sprouts mentioned in my earlier posts. I will use that as a roundabout way of introducing my latest most favorite book whose title I don't need to repeat because it is so vividly displayed in the photograph at left.

I heard the author, Jack Staub, on the Diane Rehm show and he sounded so Victorian, like such a throwback, and so passionate about his vegetables in a 19th Century sort of way, that I had to look up his book. I didn't need any convincing. I ordered a copy and boy, was I not disappointed. Even if you don't bother to actually plant any vegetables, if you just like eating them and knowing about them, this is a book worth owning and keeping close to you at all times. Who knows? You might run across some of these at a farmer's market and you will be so proud of yourself for knowing something about them when others are just ogling them.

"I concede immediately that, while I have attempted to make this volume unique in content and tone, I have, in truth, had a singularly superb model for it," Staub writes in his introduction. "In fact, I have been sorely tempted to entitle this work Eminent Vegetables, so highly do I esteem Lytton Strachy's brilliant Eminent Victorians, that early twentieth-century paragon of biographical brevity and wit."

Who says that vegetables cannot be literary?

With its etched lettering, the hardcover binding has the look of a first-edition copy of Gulliver's Travels or The Wizard of Oz. The book is small, novel size. The illustrations, one for each vegetable, are simple, painted drawings, almost like a botanist's handbook. And the descriptions of each vegetable follow in that Victorian manner with brevity and dry wit.

I was most pleased to note that I have owned and planted many of these vegetables already: the Australian Yellow Leaf Lettuce, the Chiogga Beet, Lollo Rossa Lettuce, Mizuna, Red Burgundy Okra. But now I am anxious to acquire Cardoon Gigante, Chinese Rat Tail Radish, Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi.

It is so hard not to be excited about vegetables after reading about them in such devoted portraiture.

Which brings me to the Brussels sprouts. Staub rhapsodizes about Brussels Sprout 'Rubine.' I have grown a more pedestrian variety. Now, or couple of weeks ago, would have been the time to plant seedlings in the garden for an early summer harvest. Otherwise, they are a cool weather vegetable.

My method of cooking them sweet-and-sour style is as follows: For a pound or so of sprouts, cut off the tough root part and slice the sprout in half lengthwise. Discard any loose or damaged leaves. Drop the halved sprouts into a large pot of boiling, salted water and cook until just tender. Test for doneness by piercing a sprout with a metal trussing skewer. It should slide through the sprout without a terrible amount of effort.

Plunge the cooked sprouts immediately into a large bowl of cold water in the kitchen sink to stop the cooking process. Now spread the sprouts out on some paper towels and pat them dry. Meanwhile, coat the bottom of an iron skillet liberally with extra-virgin olive oil and heat over a moderately high flame until the oil just begins to smoke.

Fill the bottom of the skillet with sprout halves, cut side down, and sear until the sprouts are well browned, adding olive oil if the cooking sound is too tacky or dry. Toss and cook another minute. Now douse the sprouts liberally with red wine vinegar. There will be a great noise, with much hissing and steam. When this subsides, season with salt and pepper. Then dust the sprouts with granulate sugar. Toss them again, swishing everything around. Empty the sprouts onto a platter and continue the process until all of the sprouts are done. Serve warm.