Kale-afornia Dreamin'

When I was a volunteer in the commissary at the National Zoo, I spent many a Sunday morning chopping up kale. The majority of the zoo animals' diets include kale. I knew that it is one of those wonder foods--rich in nutients and loaded with antioxidents--but I'd never eaten kale until recently. You probably know where I'm going here. Yep, kale is good for healing bones.

I generally can choke down greens only if they're disguised in soups, sauces, or Indian food. Luckily, one of the Six-Button Cowgirls has a more healthful way to prepare the vile weed. She makes kale chips. (She also has a very interesting food blog with wonderful photos.) I have to admit I was skeptical, but I gave it try. I tore the kale into bite-sized pieces, tossed in just a tiny splash of olive oil, and sprinkled with garlic salt. Note that she is fancier than I and uses a 60/40 blend of sea salt and granulated garlic. I baked the kale at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, until all pieces were crispy.

All said, not a bad way to eat my kale. If eating straight-up baked kale doesn't grow me some bones, I don't know what will.

Bee-lieve It or Not

I'm headed to B-School. But we're not talking business school; we're talking bee school. Despite my suspicion that beekeepers are a little weird, I'm embarking on an adventure in apiculture.

I can't believe that I didn't think of this sooner. Beekeeping has many upsides:

1. It's good for gardening. Nothing grows without a little pollination.
2. It's sort of a rescue operation. Surely you've heard of colony collapse disorder. Not to be an alarmist, but supposedly all the bees are dying out worldwide, and soon we'll have no food supply due to lack of pollination. Or something like that. Minor details.
3. Beeswax candles.
4. And, of course, delicious honey.

I personally am a good fit for beekeeping. Curiously, I have no fear of bees or stings. I had only two reservations about making a beeline for beekeeping (sorry). The first was the outfit. For some reason I had it my head that beekeepers wear long black dresses and heavy black veils and creep through their gardens on foggy mornings looking lost and creaky. Thankfully, after a little research, I discovered that I had confused beekeepers with what likely are widows in scary movies. Beekeepers actually wear some kind of white get-up that looks like an astronaut suit. It's fairly benign.

My second reservation concerned the sheer number of bees that will be arriving (via U.S. Mail, nonetheless). A typical hive has 60,000 bees. While I'm unafraid of bees, I generally am grossed out by things in mass quantities. You know how one ladybug is cute? Well, 60 ladybugs are not cute (much less 60,000 ladybugs). But I must push past this quirk. I just have to think about all that honey.

Crab Fest Rx

Out here on the left coast, people are fond of their dungeness crab. I gave it a fair shake when I moved here, but I've concluded that anyone who loves dungeness crab only does so because he or she hasn't had blue crab. Along with first-rate Ethiopian food, blue crab is what the Wrangler and I miss most about living in DC.

Admittedly, the words" blue" and "crab" pretty much describe me lately. It's been almost six weeks since I've been able to ride Moto. Sensing my mood, the San Diego-based Six-Button Cowgirl took matters into her own hands and had a half-bushel (translation: a lot) of large, live blue crabs flown in from Maryland for our own little crab fest. Never one to skimp, she also served up jumbo lobster tails, shrimp, corn on the cob, potato salad, corn bread, and her special dipping sauce concoction of Old Bay, butter, and vinegar. The Wrangler bravely transferred the squirming crabs one-by-one into the 19-quart lobster pot and covered with beer, water, and plenty of Old Bay. After boiling for about 25 minutes, the crabs were ready.

It was a little tricky picking crabs with one hand. The Wrangler wrapped me and my cast with a plastic bag, HazMat-style, covered me with paper towels, and handed me a mallet. I wasn't exactly channeling Jackie-O or Audrey Hepburn. But it didn't matter.

I could say something corny about good friends and good food being the best medicine, but I'm way too full.

Catch and Release...Into My Tummy

The Wrangler and I headed to the midwest last weekend to pay homage to our roots and families in northern Minnesota. In three years, I'll have lived outside Minnesota longer than I lived there. Each time I go back, it all feels a little more unfamiliar. Yet, I'm always doing things that only someone from my neck of the woods can understand. No one here in California knows what I mean when I say that the ocean looks just like Mille Lacs, or why nothing says "festive holiday" more than canned fruit cocktail mixed with jello, mini-marshmallows, and cool-whip, or that walleye tastes one thousand times better than any other fish (but northerns are more fun to catch).

Ah, the northern--a good-sized freshwater pike fish that puts up a fun fight but few Minnesota anglers keep. Most of us are fairly disappointed to find a northern on the end of our line. Northern filets have too many bones. But leave it to my dad to ensure that nothing goes to waste, even the oft-maligned northern. Dad's been pickling northern for years. The pickling process eliminates the bones and turns a tough filet into little tasty treats. It started as a tradition at--of all places--his office. The entire staff helped make jar after jar of pickled northern for the annual Christmas party. When I lived in DC and Dad came to visit, I actually overheard him boasting about his pickled northern to the random couple sharing our table at a Japanese steakhouse. The visibly perplexed couple clearly had no idea what a "northern" is, why people would be pickling it at the office, and why it was the delicacy du jour at holiday parties.

This past weekend, we saw Dad in action. My aunt is hosting a weekend party for 60 houseguests and instructed my dad to bring 10 jars of pickled northern, which apparently is just as popular outside the holiday party circuit. Dad caught the fish on his lake, cut the filets into bite-sized pieces, and soaked the fish in a water and salt solution for three days (changing the solution periodically). We observed him as he filled canning jars with sugar, onions, pickling spices, and fish. He poured half a cup of white wine in each jar, and topped off the jars with vinegar. When I saw the jars of pickled fish stacked in the refrigerator, I knew I was home.