August 14th 2009
“a beet is what’s left after the cherry is finished with the carrot.” -- Tom Robbins
Recently, while visiting my aunt and uncle, Kathy and Al, in Polson I had a blast pulling things out of their garden. The last time I had seen his plot was on a chilly evening in mid-May; now it was bursting with robust vegetables. The row of cabbage was imposing and took over the garden. I was reminded of the silly cabbage patch kid dolls of my youth, seeing the hidden heads of cabbage as if swaddled in the large leaves. After seeing my excitement, he asked if I wanted one. I immediately accepted.
He pointed to the beets as well and I thought of borscht. I had recently started reading Tom Robbin’s novel Jitterbug Perfume which begins: “Beets are the most intense of vegetables.” I was inspired—beets were my future.
“Of course I’ll take some, if you can’t use them all, I say.
We went in for dinner: stuffed bell peppers from the garden, corn from the store, (they were sure to say that theirs wasn’t quite ready yet), and some mediocre salads I had brought from the Harvest Foods in Ronan. I hadn’t had time to make any from scratch. I brought carrots from my garden to add color and to ease my feelings of inadequacy and disappointment in my submitting to convenience. They were descent salads but, eh.
We then picked strawberries and raspberries after dinner. It was nice that they had remembered that I had wanted to pick their raspberries after hearing about how many they had. There were just enough from what was left after their earlier harvest to put on the chocolate cake. It was zucchini chocolate heaven on a plate, and in my mouth.
In the morning, I picked the veggies with an old, rusty knife that Al found in his garage. The cabbage, unsurprisingly, proved difficult to harvest. I remembered a knife I once used on a friend’s farm— the sharp blade was at the end of the shaft so you could cut at the thick stem straight on. It was quite effective as you could stab the cabbage stem and slice it in one motion. I sawed at this cabbage stem, rocking the large head back and forth, eventually it worked. I immediately had visions of making not only coleslaw but also sauerkraut.
Al related a story about when he was a kid and his family grew so much cabbage that they had a special wagon with a blade attached to the bottom for easy harvesting. He said they made kraut in a huge barrel and he would creep in and sneak whole pieces of the marinating leaves when his mother wasn’t looking. What a great story, vats of cabbage!
That Sunday I made borsht for some dear friends. It consisted of all garden veggies, except for the canned tomatoes I needed for the stock. My hands and the cutting board were stained a brilliant magenta color, and when I added the cabbage, the pot took on a bright red hue. Tom Robbins recounts just how “bloody” beets are, and he’s not exaggerating much. The deep purple juices stained every surface of my kitchen. The kitchen smelled of earth as I cut and boiled the beets. Their rough skin, although scrubbed clean, still retained the flavor and aroma of Al’s rich soil in Polson. I was eating the ground, and everything with it went into the stew pot.
My friends laugh at me for getting so excited about produce, but they just don’t get it. Gary Paul Nabhan writes in his book, Coming Home to Eat, “we were blessed by the food and not the other way around.” This line struck me as perfect. I feel blessed by food, especially vegetables and fruit from a garden. I cannot bless the food that comes from the earth, for I had so little to do with its success. I am blessed by the nutrients, beauty and especially the flavor of food.
Al and Kathy laugh at my enthusiasm for the berries they grow, black, raspberry and strawberry—but why not? Berries like that are precious. I rarely can pick enough to bring back in the house for pie because I can’t help but stuff them in my mouth immediately. I’m constantly amazed that food can grow from seeds. From puny (in Al’s words) cabbage plants, can grow enormous, edible cabbage possibilities.
Being in his garden reminded me of my childhood feelings of immeasurable possibility. The simplicity of caring for something the best you can and trusting that God will take care of the rest was refreshing and sustaining.
I see vegetables as tangible miracles that I not only get to hold and breath in, but also eat. And that’s my kind of miracle.
Al said grace for us that night in Polson and I reveled Robbins over the borscht on my porch with friends. We blessed the food, and were in return blessed through it. Amen to that.
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