My New Favorite Vegetable

I confess, I get bored in the kitchen. I get complacent and fall back on routine. This is especially true when it comes to vegetables. I make it a point to have a large serving of vegetable every night and try to make enough to carry over for a healthy portion for lunch the next day. Sometimes I incorporate them into another dish but usually they stand alone, from Asparagus to Zucchini. I try to have something green with every dinner. So if there is a root vegetable involved  it is almost always supplemented by another offering.

Fresh Leeks

You would think a repertoire that regularly makes use of a couple of dozen or more produce choices prepared in a variety of ways wouldn't get old and yet sadly it does. I watch a lot of cooking shows and last year's popular ingredient was Ramps which are a kind of leek. If you know anything about me at all you should know that the last thing I am is a slave to fashion and pop culture. So needless to say Leeks in general were persona non grata in my kitchen.

Call me a knee jerk reactionary and a snob but if it's for the masses it's not for me. Fortunately the leek craze died down on the cooking shows and I began to notice them neatly bundled in groups of 2 or 3. Rubber banded together and looking alien, especially the dark green tops which appeared inedible. They looked like over sized Green Onions, which is really not far off the mark.

Leeks are members of the Allium family which is the group that includes onions and garlic. In fact Elephant Garlic is not garlic at all but a leek! Then a few weeks ago on what should have been my standard Sunday ritual of a trip to Wegman's I was transformed.

True transformation is rarely planned or anticipated it usually happens unexpectedly by chance. This particular Sunday shopping trip was unusual, Lorraine, my beautiful partner in life, came with me. This is a rare occurrence, while she is brilliant and gifted in many ways when it comes to food she is a wonderful eater but an unwilling preparer and consumer. Food shopping for her is only slightly less uncomfortable than cooking which is torture.

So having her with my was a treat until we arrived in the parking lot and saw that this particular Sunday brought out huge crowds as though Saturday shopping was cancelled and they were all forced to swarm my Sunday shopping trip. Long story short this made the all the more uncomfortable for Lorraine and so in turn me. My discomfort was compounded by the horde of locust that descended on the produce and picked the place clean. The poor stockers were unable to keep up with the demand and the result was slim pickings beyond the basics, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach.

Stuck between the celery and green onions on one side and the fresh herbs on the other were the leeks. Staring defiantly at me, daring me to pick them up. I'm not a person to be pushed around by produce I stared right back for a good long time, I even faked reaching for a bunch and backed off trying to get them to blink so I could walk away victorious. They never blinked. Defeated I picked up a bunch, plopped them in my basket and moved on to fruit not making eye contact with any of the zucchini for fear they would see my shame.

This is not a sad story about betrayal or disappointment, this is a story about discovery and the excitement of a breathless new infatuation that is already blossoming into a deep and abiding love.

Sauteed Leeks
Chicken & Rice Soup