Monthly Archive for June, 2008
This week we are harvesting the first root vegetable of the season: the radish. The radish, botanical name Raphanus is a brasica and a member of the crucifer family. The radish, a spicy, often slightly sweet root that tastes great eaten directly out of the ground, as well as in a fresh summer salad is a fast grower with quite a past. The radish has been cultivated in China since 700 BC. In ancient Greece small replicas of the radish were made out of gold and given to the god Apollo. It was heralded as an appetite stimulant, served in France at the beginning of lavish fifteen course
meals at the palace of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV.
We planted radish seeds a month ago. Things are starting to happen fast in this land of 18 hours of sunlight a day.…
Heres a recipe:
Japanese Radish Salad
4 Servings
Ingredients
8 oz red radishes (large bunch)
1 1/2 ts rice vinegar
1 ts sugar
1/2 ts low-sodium soy sauce
1 ts toasted sesame seeds; more
–or less
1 radish leaves; garnish
Instructions
Wash the radishes well to remove all grit. Trim, reserving a few leaves
for garnish, and thinly slice.
Combine vinegar, sugar and soy and mix to dissolve sugar. Add the
radishes. Refrigerate for 1 hour. When ready to serve, sprinkle with
sesame seeds and garnish with radish leaves.
an early harvest for alaska, as the days are just starting to really warm up. my skin is sunburned, but i still wear my striped long johns and pioneer peak is still covered in snow. today’s was deer tongue lettuce and red russian kale. a small csa delivery but the most delicious. spring kale. a treat. we cooked a shopping bags worth up in some braggs, tons of garlic and olive oil, a feast. im thinking about kale cake now and all the uses for rhubarb! there is rhubarb growing up though all the cracks, its christmas-y strands soon covered in a custard, and resting in a pie dish. its rhubarb curry now, rhubarb crisp, rhubarb sauce on everything. with 20 hours of sunlight a day, everything bolts so quickly, seeds predicting future seasons of chewy stalks. almost everything has been planted out, the 50mph winds make it hard for the delicate squash stems. the second type of mosquitos of the spring are much smaller and harder to catch than the first. buzzing now, lady bugs too.