By popular demand, last night I carefully documented the process of chopping and cooking the rainbow chard I received this week. “But PastaQueen,” you might say. “Those don’t look like your hands.” And I would say, “You think I don’t know the back of my hands like the back of my hand?” But I would also agree that, yes, those are not my hands. After feeling somewhat intimidated by staring at the chard on the bottom shelf of my fridge for several days, I decided to hand this project off to an expert, namely my mother.

As my mother commented last night, she has greatly neglected my culinary education. She grew up in a small town in southern Indiana where they had a vegetable garden in the back yard. Eventually her parents bought their own farm and the vegetable patch grew to be larger than the house. Because of this, she came to be very experienced in the art of washing and properly chopping vegetables, not to mention canning, peeling, and other lost art forms. So [...]

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All right, y’all, the Farm Fresh Delivery peeps sent me some rainbow chard and dill fenouil this week. I only know that they sent me rainbow chard and dill fenouil because that’s what the labels say on these odd, green, leafy plants. If someone had asked me to name 100 vegetables last week, I would not have listed either rainbow chard or dill fenouil because I had never heard of them before. Any suggestions on how to prepare these veggies are welcome. I would especially appreciate any warnings, like if the fuzzy ends of the dill fenouil are poisonous or if the rainbow chard only turns rainbow colored when it’s gone rancid. Thanks!

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