Rapini
With the holidays behind us, I am repeating a time-honored tradition at the start of this year. Having consumed the better portion of my own weight in cookies, chocolate, and heavy meals, I am ready to get back to a normal, heavy-on-the-vegetables, lean protein, whole grain diet. Part of what I love about this time of year is the fact that I start to really crave greens and, in spite of the guilt I feel about leaving a big carbon footprint, I just can’t help myself at the grocery store produce section.
Because my need for green vegetables is so strong, I am extra-willing to try new things over and over until I find a way in which I like them. I did this with collard greens long ago, and recently had the same kind of revival with brussels sprouts. This time around, I am kickin’ it with some rapini, which is also called broccoli rabe. Part of me has always been a bit wary of this vegetable, maybe because I have always been of the mind that there is no way you could improve on regular broccoli. However, once you taste this green (which looks much like the love child of broccoli and mustard greens), you’ll see what a different flavor it has from anything else you’ve eaten.
A lovely friend of a friend, Michelle Maisto*, has written a marvelous book called The Gastronomy of Marriage, which is as much a love letter to food as it is to her husband. Her literary (and culinary) treatment of rapini really resonates with me, describing how she “[craves] bitter greens like a thirst,” and sharing an anecdote about trying to get her husband to enjoy rapini, which he politely eats and dislikes (much like the Bun). Maisto backs herself up with a tenet of Jeffrey Steingarten, food critic for Vogue, who claims that food aversions can be overcome with repeated consumption. Though I find Steingarten’s TV personality abhorrent, I do find some of his food philosophy insightful.
Shallots Web 