After looking at the food diary I’ve been keeping for the last two weeks, it’s hard to figure out when the last time was that I ate a vegetable. Fruits? Check! I have devoured pears, mangoes, and even little pineapple bits in my yogurt. Vegetables? Hmmm, well the Subway sandwich had some lettuce, tomato and red onion on it, so technically that counts. And the Palek Paneer I got at Whole Foods was full of spinach, but I was eating it more for the cheese.

I used to snack on baby carrots and hummus, but I can’t seem to find the baby carrots at the grocery store I visit most often, so either they’re hidden or the baby carrots grew up fast like kids do these days. I also used to snack on celery, mostly because of that delightful crunchy texture, which is almost worth getting celery veins stuck in my teeth. I just haven’t bought any lately. Otherwise, I’m not much of a veggie fan, mostly because of the work involved to make them taste good. I enjoy eating most fruits without any preparation, but to make vegetables palatable I have to sautee them, roast them, or sprinkle them with spices or seasonings. Honestly, that’s not that much extra work, but it’s enough to make me choose an apple instead.

So, mental note, more veggies! They have important vitamins and nutrients. They are typically not calorie dense and fill you up. One question though, does popcorn count as a vegetable?

Disclosure: I received ICBINB coupons, a Flip cam, and a gift card to create this video and pay for groceries.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter contacted me recently to ask if I’d like to visit a local farmers market to gather items for a lunch party with friends afterwards—created with recipes using ICBINB, or course. I turn down a lot of PR offers, but this sounded like fun, and I had a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in my fridge already, so I do actually use their product. I also tend to be a recluse, so I thought this would be a good way to force myself outside and see what Chapel Hill has to offer.

There are several farmers markets near me. The Carrboro Farmers Market seemed to be the most popular one, but I heard parking was a mess. So I decided to go to the South Estes Market instead since it’s held in a mall parking lot with plenty of spaces. It was also on the way between my place and my brother and sister-in-law’s house, who I invited to come with me.

You can follow my adventures in the video above, which I probably spent far more time editing than was really required. (At least that Digital Video 101 class I took in college finally paid off.) I did have lots of fun at the market, even though I was a little anxious about having to film people and ask them questions. (See above, recluse.) Strangely enough, I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot of things I would never have discovered otherwise. I guess it’s good to move out of your comfort zone once in a while (says the girl who just moved away from half her friends and family).

As for the ICBINB, it tasted good on bread and corn on the cob. (And damn, that was some good bread by The Farm Fairy.) Their pitch is that it has less saturated fat than butter, no hydrogenated oils (those dreaded TRANS FATS!), and no cholesterol. I’d never used it in the spray pump bottles before, but it made it a lot easier to butter my corn than it was with a knife. I tried it on some popcorn later, and it added flavor without making the popcorn too soggy. So, I feel fine recommending their product, and hopefully you found the video to be entertaining enough. You can learn more at the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter web site, including a contest to win a grill basket and a recipe library. There’s also an ICBINB YouTube Channel.

In case you’re interested, here is a list of vendors I spoke to. BTW, if someone was kind enough to talk to me and/or let me record them, I bought something at their stall or threw money in their banjo case. I had to pitch my book at book fairs, so I know what it’s like sitting behind that table.

• Bread and honey from The Farm Fairy
• Corn from Roberson Creek Farm
• Veggies from Timberwood Organics (certified organics!)
• Peaches from Kalawi Farm (the peach people!)
• Music by…some banjo-playing dude.
• Stock music called “Rampaging Bulldozer” was downloaded from FreeSoundtrackMusic.com.

Warning: Tech-girl ramblings ahead
The software that comes with the FlipCam wasn’t advanced enough for the editing I wanted to do, so to edit this video I used a trial version of Videopad Video Editor. I’d give it a C+ (and no, that’s not a computer science joke). It was able to open the MP4 files that the FlipCam exported, and I was able to split the audio tracks away from the video. However, if I tried replacing a video clip or inserting one into the middle of the timeline, all my placed audio effects would because misaligned. Also, when I exported, several of the title frames went missing, so I had to encode it and then edit that and encode it again, which is why the video is a little lower quality than what I’d prefer. Anyone got recommendations for a better, free video editing application for Windows? I considered Microsoft Movie Maker first, but it wouldn’t open the MP4 files.

Several years ago I was watching a TV show on healthy eating in which the host was playing a game with school children. He’d hold up a vegetable and ask the kids to name it. The results were rather sad. The kids couldn’t name some basic veggies. I was feeling rather superior, calling out “Asparagus!” and “Radishes!” with glee until the host picked up an odd, green leafy thing and I was stumped.

“It’s a leek!” he told the kids. I still didn’t understand what he meant. A leek? What the hell was a leek? I Googled it and discovered there was indeed a vegetable called a leek and according to this site it was related to the onion in some way. And now, Farm Fresh Delivery has dumped one on my doorstep. So I ask you, dear readers, what shall I do with my leeks?

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!

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 eaten a lot more salads since they’ve showered me in baby spinach and radicchio.

Every week, I get a chance to customize my order, but I have avoided scrolling too far down the page because that is where the extra products lay. There are pastries and butters and all sorts of tasty items, but I took my hand off the mouse before exploring too far because I knew no good would come of it. However, I recently learned that Dillman Farm sells pumpkin butter through the site, and I have allowed myself to purchase a jar. I had never heard of pumpkin butter before this winter, but then I received a jar in a gift basket from a family member. I spread it on some bread and fell in love, as if it were the first time I’d eaten ice cream. Mmmmm, it’s like pumpkin pie in a jar. Perhaps this is how those Europeans feel about Nutella. I am eagerly awaiting my next delivery and whatever vegetable surprises lay ahead!

PS – I know I have not written about Beck week three, yet. Teach, can I have an extension on my paper? Thanks!

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 go to their web site, browse around, think about ordering, and then drop the idea because I wasn’t sure if I could afford it or if I’d use all the produce before it rotted.

This year I finally gave them my credit card information after I did some budget analysis. You have to place a minimum $35 order, and you have the option of receiving deliveries every other week. That means I’d be spending about $70 a month on produce. I’ve been tracking my expenses carefully lately, and when I looked at my grocery budget, I figured that I probably spend at least $70 a month on produce anyway, so why not get it delivered directly to my door? Organic foods are supposed to taste better anyway, and I’d be supporting local farmers, so I can feel good about it.

The real tipping point though was the home delivery. I’ve gotten sick of going to the grocery every 4 or 5 days just to buy fresh produce, so the idea of having the food arrive on my doorstep is really appealing. I’m also the kind of person who likes the idea of organic foods and supporting local farmers and eating “real” foods and not processed “fake” foods, but I don’t want to have to go out of my way to do it. I don’t want to visit a farmer’s market every weekend. So, this is a nice compromise. There is also the option to add other food items to your cart, such as coffee, honey, milk, baked goods and more, which I might take advantage of later.

Opening my crate was so much fun! It was like someone had sent me presents: green, leafy, organic, edible presents. I enjoyed peeking into the brown bags to discover what was in the crate this week, and then trying to match the items to the list on the invoice. It took me awhile to identify the beets, which I initially mistook for turnips. The food items change weekly depending on what is in season, so hopefully I’ll get better at playing Name That Vegetable.

I also hope receiving this crate of veggies will encourage me to make new dishes, and to eat more vegetables. I’m good about eating fruits, since they are sugary and delicious, but veggies have never had much appeal to me. Hopefully I will keep up with the deliveries and eat everything before it goes bad. I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

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 and switch labels on items. I do wonder how long the items had been sitting on the shelf. How much pocky can they really sell in a week? And how frequently do chayote shipments come in?

Saraga isn’t close to my apartment, and it’s located in a somewhat sketchy part of town, so I don’t visit there often. I usually want to leave about 10 minutes after I do because of the cold and the quiet and the creepy food, like the Bulgogi above which looks like it crawled out of the primordial ooze and is about to gain self-awareness. Reading the description of bulgogi on Wikipedia makes it sound tasty, but my eyes can’t get over how gross it looks.

I searched for the corn and cheese flavored ice cream I saw there last year, but couldn’t find it. Which means someone actually bought it. I can only hope that like me, they were a blogger searching for material. I bought two weird fruits to review…and then I let them sit in my fridge for over a week. Spiky fruits are scary, ok?! So, you’ll have to wait a bit longer for any new “Lick the Produce” entries.

Out of curiosity, I also purchased two of the bean cakes pictured above, expecting a pastry made with red beans to be one of those items I chewed three times and then spit into the trash as a masticated ball of goo. Imagine my surprise when it was tasty! Really tasty! Proving once again that if you inject something with enough sugar, I will probably eat it.

Visiting Saraga made me wonder what American foods seem odd and gross to foreigners. Whatever they are, they can’t possibly sound as bizarre as fish paste.

ETA: Recently some people have reported problems when trying to leave comments. If you run into a problem, please email me with the text of your comment, your computer’s operating system, and the browser you are using. Thanks!

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 and purple cauliflower, I was comforted by the fact that their demon cousin Broccoflower® was a color more frequently occurring in nature. This combination creature of broccoli and cauliflower is also a good source of Vitamin C and folate, if the package is to be believed. The word “Broccoflower®” is a trademark of Tanimura & Antle. So it’s like the words Kleenex or Xerox or if you want to keep talking food, it’s like Derby Pie, a chocolate, walnut, bourbon pie trademarked by Kern’s Kitchen of Kentucky and named for the Kentucky Derby. You’ll never find a recipe for Derby Pie in a cookbook because of the copyright issues. Instead people rename their Derby Pie recipes something like Pegasus Pie or May Day Pie even though everyone knows it’s a Derby Pie. Just like everyone at the office knows you’re having a Christmas Party even if you call it a Holiday Celebration.

But, I wasn’t eating Derby Pie (sadly enough), I was eating Broccoflower®. And it tasted like cauliflower. It was a let down, really. Mad food scientists are going to all this trouble to combine fruits and vegetables and the results end up tasting no different than their parents.

Ugli Fruit

That is an ugli fruit. I’ll give you three guesses as to why it’s called that. Green, wrinkly people are automatically disqualified. The ugli fruit is from Jamaica and is also called the Uniq fruit. It’s a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine. Mine was a bit larger than a grapefruit, though the label suggested I split it in half like one. When I got it open, I realized it was much easier to just peel it apart like an orange. It also tasted like an orange, just more bitter and tart. It was like an orange dressed up in a frumpy, green suit. If someone had served the pulp to me on a plate, I would have never guessed it was an ugli fruit. The picture on Wikipedia is yellow though, so perhaps mine wasn’t ripe enough.

All in all, the hybrid fruits didn’t seem worth the extra cost I paid for them. They were novelty items that were more fun to buy and look forward to eating than to actually eat. If you’re going to get a hybrid, you should probably stick to a car.

Acorn Squash

The acorn squash does sort of look like an acorn. When I picked it up at the grocery store, I had an urge to hold it up to my face with both hands and twitch my nose like a giant squirrel. However, I did not dig up the linoleum and bury it in the produce section. Instead, I just split it open with my giant knife and scooped out the insides before baking it in a pan of water.

I scraped out the insides and served it with some margarine, salt and pepper and, wow, it was pretty damn good. I wasn’t expecting too much from a squash, but it was fairly tasty. The acorn squash is a bit high on the glycemic index though, so I won’t be eating this too frequently.

Pomegranate

Last time I was moaning about how I couldn’t do a Kate Bush themed LTP entry because there were no guavas or sultanas or pomegranates around here. So what do I find at my local grocer’s the very next week? A bin full of pomegranates.

The pomegranate is as difficult to eat as it is to spell. I still have to look it up in Webster’s online every time and before eating it I read some directions. First you cut off the flowery top part.

Then you score it into four sections.

Next you place it in a bowl of water to soak, and then rip open the four sections, revealing all the seeds nestled in a white cocoon of… stuff.

You want to eat the seeds, not the white stuff. So you have to pick out the seeds which fall to the bottom of the water while the white stuff floats. Then you skim the white stuff off the top and eat the seeds.

By the time I was done with this, I felt like I’d disarmed a dirty bomb. The seeds were fairly sweet and tasty, but I wouldn’t consider them worth all the work. Just hand me an apple instead. I prefer fruits I can just bite into and I know how to spell. I also hear pomegranate juice stains pretty badly, so don’t attempt this wearing your Sunday best.

Mango

When I think of mangoes, I think of the Gauguin painting Woman with mango. Typing that title makes it sound like another recipe from the cannibal’s cookbook. I opted to eat the mango raw. However, if I had taken a closer look at Gauguin’s painting I would have realized I should have waited until it turned red to do so. Instead, I got out my big knife and tried hacking into a green mango. I got about an inch into it and felt like I’d gotten my workout for the day. I checked the wikipedia article on mangoes and realized my mistake, but by that time it was too late. If I left my mutilated mango to ripen on the counter it would just have gotten moldy. I finished cutting out a wedge anyway, bit into it and it was about as bad as you’d think unripened fruit would be. I threw it out for the trash flies to feast on and bought another mango a couple weeks later.

This time I waited for it to turn red and soft and bit right into it. That was mistake number two. If I had finished reading that wikipedia article I would have discovered that you’re not supposed to eat the skin. It’s like biting right into an orange or chewing on watermelon rind. In fact, there is a fancy schmancy way you are supposed to cut a mango to get out all the good, fleshy orange stuff. After all those mishaps, I finally ate the damn mango already. It was tart, somewhat lemony or limey, but sweeter. I’d certainly eat one again, now that I now how to do it properly.

I checked Eat Fresh, Stay Healthy, a book about fruits and veggies that some kind reader suggested (thank you kind reader!), which also has the fugliest cover of any book I have ever seen ever in all my life, and it said mangoes are the “number-one consumed fruit in the world.” They just don’t show up in the US that much due to various boring importation reasons I won’t get into. I had no idea they were so popular, especially considering how hard it was for me to eat one. Go figure.

Kiwi

I have had kiwi fruit before, but I had never bought one in my adult life because it was brown and fuzzy. Kiwi skin reminds me of shag carpeting and I’ve never had a desire to chomp on the carpet. Avoiding kiwi fruits was stupid though because, yum, they are delicious! After my experience with the mango I looked up information on the kiwi to be sure it was okay to just bite into it like an apple. Usually kiwi is served sliced up, but that would mean I’d have to clean my knife afterwards and I am always looking for ways to cut down on dirty dishes. Kiwi is now one of my favorite fruits and I’m definitely going to put it into high rotation in my lunch bag, weird fuzzy skin be damned.

Purple Cauliflower

When I saw the purple cauliflower and orange cauliflower heads in the produce section, I thought they had set it in water with purple food coloring. In grade school we did the same thing with white carnations to color their petals with streaks of purple. I didn’t know why anyone would turn cauliflower purple or orange, but the oddness appealed to me and I needed a new vegetable to try, so I grabbed the purple head because I thought purple was a slightly weirder color than orange.

When I researched my purchase, I discovered that the coloring was natural. “The purple color is caused by the presence of the antioxidant group anthocyanin, which can also be found in red cabbage and red wine.” I roasted this in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper like I usually cook cauliflower and it tasted just like normal cauliflower. Maybe true taste connoisseurs would catch slight variances in flavor, but if you’d blindfolded me I doubt I would have been able to tell what color the cauliflower was. While the purple coloring was fun, I think I’ll stick to the white stuff for now. If I stick it in a pool of food coloring I bet I can turn it any color I want to.