Celery: Learning to Love an Old Nemisis

These days at the market, I eagerly scan familiar farm vendors for the best celery. But I wasn't always this enthusiastic about celery.


In fact, I resented celery when I was young. This boring, party-stopping vegetable was nothing more than a crunchy distraction in my potato salad and an unwelcome offering on appetizer plates. Even in my Thanksgiving stuffing, celery seemed like an intruder. As a teenager I once forced myself to eat the pale green vegetable because a friend said celery had negative calories. It had negative flavor too.


But when I discovered celery's gnarly cousin, celeriac, at the market, at Willie Green's Organic Farm, I fell in love--vegetable love. After carefully peeling the hairy root, I steamed and mashed it with potatoes. The first bite left me hooked on this homely root. It imparted hints of celery and parley flavors and mingled with warm oozy potatoes,it was the comfort dish I'd always dreamed about. (For this celeriac and potato recipe check out my recent article about roots and greens "Beyond Spinach and Potatoes" for Marlene's Sound Outlook .) Celeriac easily earned a spot in my market bag, but I still wasn't sold on the stalks. Not until I discovered the most amazing thing about celery a few years ago.


It was a stressful year. My dad suddenly passed away, my favorite old basset hound died and I lost I job I'd had for 16 years. And as if that wasn't enough, my blood pressure went up. Besides exercise and cutting out salt, I looked for some natural remedies to lower my numbers.


Then one day, celery waltzed into my life. I'd picked up a copy of Michael Murray's The Encyclopedia of Healing with Whole Foods (2005 Atria Books) and read that celery was beneficial in reducing blood pressure. Murray said, "Just four celery ribs consumed daily could reduce blood pressure up to to 14 percent." The action on blood pressure is a result of a coumarin compound called 3-n-butyl phthalide (3nB). This compound apparently also lowers cholesterol. Celeriac or celery root (below) also contains this blood pressure lowering compound.


Lucky me, I read about about the benefits of celery in the fall, just when Northwest celery was in season. I bought some from Jeff Miller at Willie Green's at the market and started munching. The flavor was more assertive than the tame stringy tasteless grocery store celery. And on a long drive to California to deal with my dad's house I munched through an entire head of celery. My dad had always told me to eat crisp apples when driving to stay alert, but celery works just as well.


When I checked my blood pressure after I'd eaten copious quantities for week , the numbers were in the low normal range. They stayed there and my only question was how much would I have to continue consuming year round to keep my blood pressure low?


Gnarly celeriac roots pictured below.

Turns out, a lot less than you'd think. I sometimes go a month or so without consuming any, but mostly I eat small amounts on a fairly consistent basis. I like it best like my apples --with a drizzle of almond butter from my favorite organic California farm.

Dedicated local Northwest foodies should try it with hazelnut butter.

Now celeriac and celery are weekly market purchases. (Celeriac offers the same component for reducing blood pressure.) I add stalk celery to Waldorf and shredded carrot salads; I simmer celery in soups and stir it into braised vegetables. The stalks of market celery can sometimes be tough but the assertive celery flavor from market farmers is always amazing in cooked recipes and it's well worth the price.

The variety sold in grocery stores is called Pascal celery. It's cheaper than local varieties and is grown mostly in California, Florida and Texas. Pascal celery has a long-standing reputation for harvesting ease, transportability and shelf life and its mild flavor has also been a draw for grocery store shoppers. But I opt for more flavor and I always support locally grown when it is in season. Sadly, celery goes out of season in the Northwest during winter, spring and summer.

In these "off-seasons," I buy organic celery because The Environmental Working Group lists celery as one of the top pesticide laden foods, describing it as thin-skinned and difficult to wash off the numerous toxic farm chemicals. And who needs toxic farm chemicals added to an otherwise healthy diet plan?

Finn Discovers My Autumn Market Food Finds

Once again I went overboard at the market, so I thought I'd take a picture of some of my bounty. But as you can see, Finn is also curious about my food finds of the week.

It didn't take food hound long to get a closer look. He's got a nose for the sweet carrots I got from Stoney Plains Organic Farm in Tenino (near Olympia). But he's also fond of the radishes that I got there, too.

The celery and Tuscan kale come from Willie Green's Organic Farm. I found the celeriac and fennel at Whistling Train Farm.

I bought the cranberries at Foraged and Found Foods and was curious if these were wild cranberries since Christina Choi and Jeremy Faber are foragers. They gather them in an old overgrown bog in Grayland on the coast.

Cranberries are graded by their color--the darker the berry, the more desirable and these look like grade A cranberries. I added some to Mom's banana bread recipe (comfort food from the past), and I plan on making a raspberry-cranberry cobbler with a few more cups of cranberries. The rest of the tart berries will go into grain salads and maybe I'll freeze some for color, tang and sparkle later.

Finn scored more than one radish and I gave him a carrot because I always get two bunches--one for us and one for the hounds who love the sweet orange treats. However, Finn declined my offer of a cranberry. I've finally discovered a food he doesn't like.

Pear Clafouti from Jeanette Herman of Cliffside Orchards

Last Saturday was the last week of the season at the market for Cliffside Orchards. I've purchased Jeanette and Jeff Herman's apples and pears for years. I included Cliffside Orchards in my revised cookbook, now called THE NORTHWEST VEGETARIAN COOKBOOK: 200 INSPIRED RECIPES THAT CELEBRATE LOCAL FLAVORS. This Northwest cookbook will be published by Timber Press in Spring 2010.

Some of the farmers profiled in my book contributed recipes, and Jeanette's Pear Clafouti is so good, I made it for our Thanksgiving brunch. It starts with one simple Northwest ingredient--pears.

Pear Clafouti

I've made this recipe so many times, I love to experiment with it. Jeanette used Bartlett pears, but I'm a Bosc pear fan, so that's what I used. I couldn't find my 10-inch cake pan so I made it in a 10-inch cast iron skillet. And since I didn't have any milk on hand, I substituted organic soymilk. Also, I tried a vanilla bean this time, cutting it lengthwise and scraping out the vanilla into the soymilk. Then I heated the soymilk and vanilla slightly before using so the vanilla infused the milk.
4 ripe Bartlett pears, peeled, cored and cut in half

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

3/4 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon brandy (optional

Pinch of salt

Powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil or butter a 9 or 10-inch round pan.

2. Lay pears cut side down in pan.

3. Combine the eggs and sugar in a medium mixing bowl and beat until foamy and thick. Add the flour and continue to mix until s smooth batter forms. Add the milk, vanilla and brandy, if desired. Sprinkle in a pinch of salt and mix well.

4. Pour the mixture over the pears and bake 30 minutes or until browned. Serve with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and add a dollop of ice cream, whipped cream or sorbet.
Eaten warm, the pears melted in my mouth. I didn't need lemon sorbet but it added a visual contrast and the sweet hot clafouti and cold tangy sorbet was a sweet-tart delight.



If any Clafouti is left over, it's also good the next day. As you can see (below), refrigeration changes the texture but there's something exotic about the vanilla-infused cool, firm sweet dish that makes me want one bite after another. If you used a vanilla bean like I did, don't mind the dark speckles, it's just vanilla.

Winter Gardening Isn't for Wimps

Last summer when lettuce came up abundantly, I vowed to start a fall garden. I'd been considering it long before Michelle Obama's White House garden. But it didn't help much that the First Lady made it look so easy there wasn't even a trace of garden dirt on her pink pants and matching cardigan.


I knew fall would be a little cooler, but with less insects, it was the perfect time to start a garden, or so I thought. We tested our soil and I tilled in lime and compost. Then I planted seedlings and waited for my fall abundance. Pacific Northwest rain and gray fall days were the farthest thing from my mind and when the rain started my tiny spinach simply quit growing. It dawned on me that low levels of light and cold weather could be a problem.

“Take the starts out of containers and put them in the garden,” my gardening coach told me. But it seemed like too much trouble, so I didn’t follow her advice. Soon everything I'd planted in containers was stunted and waterlogged. Container plants, I learned were actually in a zone colder than regular garden soil, but still I left them. There's probably a time for pure optimism without action, but this wasn't one of them.


The frisée (above) also looked spindly, but it's weed-like appearance didn't prepare me for the super-bitter, rubbery leaves that seemed resistant to breaking down when chewed. I couldn't imagine inflicting this unfortunate salad green on dinner guests. And my Osaka mustard greens I'd been so excited about had attracted a tiny breed of cold weather slugs that chewed big holes in the baby leaves.

“Beer traps,” Wade Bennett of Rockridge Orchards told me when I showed him a chewed up leaf. “That’s the best thing for the slugs.”


Okay, if growing our own food supply was as easy as donning a coordinated pink pants outfit, we'd all probably be doing it.



It's about time to review a few books, and here are two that I’m gleaning gardening advice from this fall:

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades by Steve Soloman (Sasquatch Books, 6th edition 2007)

This is a regional gardening classic gives essential advice about what grows here, plant growth rates, weeds, fertilizers and containers (a section I hadn't consulted). Soloman talks about maritime micro climates and the problems with winter gardening. Mulching, composting, dry gardening and drip systems are also covered. In chapter 9, "How to Grow It," Soloman takes gardening readers through the variety of vegetables, when to plant the seeds, set out seedlings and how to deal with insects and diseases. The book's approach is organic using compost and building healthy soil with organic matter.

Check Soloman's book out at your favorite bookseller or library, and as I've learned, it's best to read this before you plan your garden, not when you suddenly need help. On Amazon, look below the reviews and you'll find gardening forums, that will help answer common Northwest garden questions. The only drawback is that the book doesn't cover fruit, but the next book does.

Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting and Sprouting, by R.J. Ruppenthal (2008, Chelsea Green)

I recently ordered this book from Real Goods and was surprised that the book contained more than gardening basics and tips. It's also a primer on fruit and vegetable gardening with some urban food survivalist strategies like how to make yogurt, kiefer and fermented foods, food foraging, cultivating mushrooms and raising honeybees and chickens. The last chapter is called "Survival During Resource Shortages." In this post Katrina world, it's worth it to look at all of our food alternatives when it comes to our immediate food supply. Much of the Northwest is in a natural disaster zone and it's prudent to prepare for disruptions in our food or water supply. This book also has a resource list of where to get tools, soil amendments and various supplies.

My plan is to read more about Northwest gardening before planting in the spring.

From my fall garden, these tiny magenta lettuce heads looked stunning in in our salad bowls, but they didn't have any tenderness because they were nothing but old vegetables that never reached their full potential.

Overwatering, cold weather and container gardening produced these stunted lettuce heads from my beginner's garden in the Pacific Northwest. The roots clung feriously to the earth and the leaves were tough enough to resist the cold.

What's on your list today?

The Cascade Harvest Coalition is sponsoring an"Eat Local Challenge," with volunteers soliciting long-time market shoppers to take the “Eat Local” challenge for Thanksgiving. They must realize most market shoppers at this time of year already eat locally every day. So the idea appears to be a measure of how many people support local agriculture.

So far they’re close to 4,000 pledges. I signed a card because law makers listen to large groups. And local food shoppers have morphed into a significant food shopping group in the Pacific Northwest.Whether my food comes from Washington or California, I like to meet farmers and learn about their farming techniques. Seeing the farm is always a bonus. Every farm has a story--a unique history and influence on this planet. Is the farm working on a chemical-laden short term plan that bankrupts the earth or a long-term plan that feeds the soil and nourishes the earth?

Here are some foods from my Thanksgiving dinner list:

Organic apples and pears from Grouse Mountain (Chelan), Cliffside Orchards (Kettle Falls) and the Merritt Farm (Skagit Valley)

Organic celery, kale, romanesco, and delicata squash from Willie Green’s Organic Farm (Monroe)

Organic red onions, shallots, garlic raspberry vinegar and potatoes from Rent’s Due Ranch (Stanwood)

Organic Brussels sprouts from Nash Huber’s Organic Produce (Sequim)

Organic Garbanzos from Alvarez Farm (Mabton)

Organic Rice from Massa Organics (Chico, California)

Organic Eggs from Hi Q in Sedro Wolley

Mild Gouda from Appel Farms in Ferndale

Smoky Blue Cheese from Rogue Creamery (Central Point, Oregon)

Wine and cider from Rockridge Orchards (Enumclaw)

A number of places sell pastured local meat. Check out Jo Robinson's Eat Wild Website for producers.

Have a delicious holiday!

Three cheers for Golden Delicious apples

"We've got to think of another name for these apples," said Jeanette Herman,of Cliffside Orchards, when I bought a dozen large Golden Delicious apples last weekend at the market.

In the midst of all Rubinettes, Pink Ladies and Honey Crisps, it sounds a bit crazy, but I'm a Golden Delicious fan. I became a convert just a few years ago at the farmers' market when I sampled them from Cliffside Orchards and they were so different from the tasteless Golden Delicious apples of my youth. I wanted to know more about these apples.

Listed at one website as one of the most important varieties of apples in the 20th century, the Golden Delicious was introduced in the late 1800s and became the breeding stock for many of our currant popular varieties.


Golden Delicious offspring include:

• Ambrosia


• Elstar


• Estivale


• Gala


• Greensleeves


• Jonagold


• Pink Lady


• Rubinette


• Saturn


• Sunrise


• Honeycrisp (a distant descendant)
  

A tender skin and a short shelf life is possibly the reason that most of the Golden Delicious apples sold conventionally are picked green and lack any flavor development of a ripe Golden Delicious. These apples also grow more easily on the dry east side of the Cascades that our maritime climate on the west side, but Jonagold (a relative), grows well on this side and I can taste the Golden tones in this more local relative.

Jeanette says Goldens make the best pies, and she always recommends them. I've made my share of pies, and Golden Delicious is the best way to go, but my favorite way to enjoy these seasonal treasures is drizzled with hazelnut or almond butter

Finn gives four paws up for this tempting breakfast.

In my search for news about Goldens, I was surprised to discover Golden Delicious apples are the state fruit of West Virginia. Check out their annual Golden Delicious apple festival, it looks like fun.

Creamy Delicata Squash and Curry Soup from Willie Green's Organic Farm

You can never have too many recipes for squash in the fall. And today when Jeff Miller from Willie Green's Organic Farm cooked up a pot of squash soup at the market, after one taste, I wanted his recipe. The lively flavors warmed my mouth with a curry zing. The warming flavors mingled with the squash. And under drizzly skies it was just the thing to tempt market shoppers.

Jeff rattles off easy recipes for everything he grows, but this is the first time that I remember Jeff sampling hot soups that feature his produce. I’m excited about a chef farmer showcasing his own recipes.

In the early 1980s, Jeff was a chef at Stars in San Francisco. One day he packed his bags and rode up to Washington on his motorcycle and became a farmer. (Read Jeff Miller's farmer profile in the revised edition of my book to be published by Timber Press spring 2010.)

Before the University District Market became official during the winter months, I subscribed to Jeff's winter CSAs when the fall market ended. Jeff always has great ideas for cooking up what he grows. And this season he's cooking up samples for market customers.

It's obvious when Jeff talks about food, he's talking about his passion. He can tell me when the collards are sweet because of the freezing weather or give me some ideas for rapini. When Jeff hands out a recipe, you can bet it's something good. I asked if could share this one.

This version lists chicken, and for those who prefer vegetarian, try sliced mushrooms for that meaty texture. Dry fry about a cup and a half of sliced mushrooms (porcini or portabello are best) over medium heat ( I use a cast iron skillet), stirring constantly until they squeak and then lose their moisture. Remove mushrooms from the heat and chop before adding to the soup. Then, use a vegetarian broth instead of a chicken broth.

Creamy Delicata Squash and Curry Soup by Jeff Miller at Willie Green's Organic Farm
(Serves 4 to 6)
Jeff says, “Vermont curry is a name brand that can be found in Asian markets. It’s one that I’ve found to have the best flavor. It is a yellow curry in a compressed type of brick. Break off pieces and add to your dish. It will dissolve in hot liquids.”

1/2 yellow onion—coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 delicata squash, cut in half and seeded
1 large Yukon Gold potato, small dice
1 chicken breast, small dice
4 cups chicken stock
Brown sugar to taste
Yellow curry to taste
Olive Oil
1/2 to 3/4 cup coconut milk
Sea salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place squash cavity side up on a baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper, a small pat of butter and a sprinkling of brown sugar. Bake uncovered until flesh can be pulled away from the skin.
2. Cook potatoes in boiling salted water over medium high heat until 3/4 done. Strain, cool and set aside.
3. In a 4-quart sauce pot, saute diced chicken breast in olive oil over high heat. Season with a little salt and pepper. When chicken is browned and caramelized, remove from pot and set aside.
4. Using the same pot saute onion in olive oil over medium heat until soft, 3 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 2 more minutes. Do not brown.
5. Add scooped delicata squash and chicken or vegetable stock to onion-garlic mixture and stir in (Vermont) curry to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Cool slightly, then place in a blender with ½ of the potatoes. Blend until smooth. Pour back into pot and add the remaining potatoes, chicken and coconut milk. 6. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve.

While I'm stocking up on some green tea at a local Asian market, I think I'll hunt down some of that Vermont curry Jeff mentioned. The only tweak I'm making with Jeff's soup is to add some of Jeff's amazing celery. It's got the best flavor, and if you haven't tasted Willie Green's celery, you must get to the market and look for before the season is over.

Jeff laughed and said he looked better in profile when I said I wanted to snap this photo.

"Next week I'm doing cannillini beans," Jeff called out as I was leaving his booth. I'm excited about his recipes, and next week is the perfect time to start gathering holiday treasures at the markets.