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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Farm Fresh Delivery has been delivering vegetables to my front door for two months now, and it’s going fairly well. I have yet to trip over a parsnip on the way out the door, and I’ve eaten several good-for-me plants I wouldn’t have otherwise. Yes, I threw out half the bok choy when it started to rot, after telling myself every night I’d do stir-fry for dinner and then popping open a can of soup instead. And I think they sent me a rutabaga instead of a beet last week. But I have been eating most of the fruits and vegetables before they turn slimy, and I’m content to continue the service.

My best discovery so far was how tasty snow peas can be. My roommate has a vegetable steamer and showed me how to cook the snow peas with it. They made for a crunchy snack that I know I would never have made otherwise. Broccoli and cauliflower definitely taste better chopped up fresh instead of defrosted from the frozen foods section. And I’ve [...]

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As I sat on the hotel bed in Michigan, it occurred to me that I should have warned my roommate that a crate full of vegetables would be arriving on our doorstep that day. I had recently signed up for Farm Fresh Delivery, and had been meaning to mention it to my roommate, but it kept slipping my mind. When I returned home, I was happy to see my crate in the front hallway, like a late Christmas gift waiting to be unpacked!

Farm Fresh Delivery is a service offered in Indianapolis and Cincinnati that delivers to your door, fresh, organic produce that has been grown locally. There are similar services offered across the country, so I’d recommend that you search Google to see if there is one in your area. This site, Greenling, seems to have a directory.

I have been thinking of signing up for Farm Fresh Delivery on and off for several years now, ever since a blog reader left me a comment mentioning it. Several times in the past few years I would [...]

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In between the multiple emails I get about the stupid-assed Cookie Diet and the weird-assed Pimple Blocker Battle events, I occasionally get emails asking me whatever happened to my Lick the Produce entries where I’d try new fruits and vegetables. Well, the produce section done been licked, y’all. The Kroger is bathed in my saliva. But, since you seem to like my tongue-based adventures I decided to drive across town for new material and visit Saraga, the international grocery.

Saraga is cold and quiet. The cashiers wear mittens and coats in the winter. An unsettling quiet blankets the store because no music is piped over the speaker system. I don’t know if they can’t afford a PA system, or if they don’t want to play music from any one nationality for fear of alienating another culture. I suspect it’s because they’re cheap.

It’s more fun to look at the items at Saraga than to actually eat them, especially after reading these reviews about how dirty and unclean the store is and how they allegedly rip people off [...]

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Once a month I wheel my grocery cart into the produce section and fill it with items that I’ve never stuck in my mouth before. This month’s entry is dedicated solely to the unholy love children of the produce section, those mutant spawn that were never meant to be – hybrids!

Pluot

Back in August I was passing the peaches when I saw a speckled, plum-like fruit. I examined the sticky label and discovered my Kroger had started stocking Dinosaur Eggs. Wow, I thought dinosaurs were extinct! These must be worth millions! Yet, my local supermarket was selling the extinct eggs for less than 6 figures per pound, though they didn’t specify what breed they were. Triceratops? Tyrannasaurus Rex? Upon further research, I learned the Dinosaur Egg is one of at least 13 varieties of the pluot, a cross between a plum and an apricot. Don’t confuse them with the aprium or the plumcot. While I loved the creative marketing, the pluot tasted like a plum to me, just with a cuter name.

Broccoflower

After I’d tried orange cauliflower [...]

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