Tonight, we ate chard.
At our local Whole Foods Market this weekend, I looked for locally grown food. Not a single fruit “of the season” was locally grown (well, ok there were some hydroponic tomatoes from Holliston, but are they really fruit?). In desperation, I sought out Whole Foods’ pale green indicator of locally grown items and found one to try: chard.
Chard has a special meaning for me, just as do beets, and to a lesser degree rhubarb: when I was a kid, we had a real vegetable garden in our summer house in Maine. There were various veggies like carrots (oh my god, they were good) and lettuces (very good once the slugs were removed), beans, and squashes: zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers (these, actually from the other garden my uncle’s house next door). But I always remembered the chard. Partly because it wasn’t one of those vegetables Birds-Eye had — it was the 60′s, everything green came in a square box, frozen. But partly because, secretly, in my not-yet-10 way, I actually didn’t mind it that much. I like beets too, still and can tolerate a rhubarb pie.
So as I despaired at the lack of locally grown produce, much less anything else, I impulsively picked up the chard. And it was a good thing. (more…)