Greens and Me

My love affair with greens began out in the dirt with a big yellow colendar in one hand and a pair of orange-handled scissors in the other. My mom would send me out to the vegetable garden in our Midwestern backyard all set to cut enough lettuce for a supper salad. I would skip out to the garden and settle in to cut the tops off the silky bibb and romaine lettuces, shaking off some of the dirt as I went. Although this job only required a few minutes of concentrated effort, the garden was a place for dreaming and I would get lost in imagining myself as Laura Ingalls Wilder, living off the land in the fertile plains of Iowa, or I would become a wise, healer woman who was harvesting her herbs for magic potions. Eventually, my mom would call impatiently from the back porch, and I would quick snip a few more greens, grab a handful of parsley and chives, and head in for dinner. I never associated greens with the gooey, tasteless mashes that come out of a can or the freezer.

Although, we grew greens in our garden every year, my midwestern family was not too experimental in our greens growing and so my childhood green intake was limited to a variety of lettuces and some spinach here and there. However, I feel extremely lucky because I never associated greens with the gooey, tasteless mashes that come out of a can or freezer box. Instead, greens were alight with the fresh green magic of the garden.

When I went away to college with a blossoming interest in nutrition and holistic health, the scope of my love for greens expanded. I started frequenting the local organic market and was intrigued by this dark, tough leafy green which I soon identified as kale. I started eating daily salads of this stuff with lots of carrots and sprouted nuts. Due to the enormous amount of the nutrient, carotene, in both the carrots and the kale, my skin started to take on a noticeably orange hue. When I came home for Christmas, my horrified mother made me promise to cut down on my kale and carrot intake. I was hooked on greens though and the world of healing through nature.
In order to pursue my passion, I decided to leave my middle of the road college in the Midwest and journey west to Seattle to study natural medicine. My mom and I drove across the country together and when we finally reached my new school, nestled on the bank of Lake Washington, surrounded by the tall, lush majesty of the Northwest forests, we got out of the car and walked into the school’s courtyard. The gardens were planted with masses of decorative kale, and I knew that I had found the right place.
Because of Seattle’s damp, temperate climate, greens thrive throughout much of the year. Every time I went to one of Seattle’s many excellent farmers’ markets, I got to meet new greens. Chards, kales, spinaches, collards, and mustard greens became good friends. My second year in Seattle, my childhood fantasies of living off the land were reawakened in full force when I began learning about wild greens but that story if for another time.
This blog is dedicated to glorifying the green leafies. Greens are jam-packed with nutrition, flavorful, diverse. They add great texture and are just beautiful. I realized a few days ago at Christmas when I brought a roasted kale and sweet potato salad to dinner and my cousin, Kelly, with eyes wide with surprise, said “Wow, this is really good. What is it?” that we just don’t know enough about greens. So, it is my hope to journey with you and learn all that we can about the greens of the world. We’ll learn about the diversity, the nutritional benefits, how to grow them, and most importantly, how to prepare them in a delicious, delectable ways. Please post questions, comments, wonderings, ponderings. Let’s celebrate greens!