A Dark And Stormy Vegetable Night

6:30 p.m. Night had fallen on San Francisco. The truck was parked on a side street in the Dogpatch, a block away from the Hell's Angels Clubhouse, merchandise stacked up in big bags on the curb, shadowy people checking off names from a list on a clipboard. Cars were parked helter-skelter as people braved the darkness to get their fix . . . of farm-fresh vegetables.

We were buying a mystery bag of vegetables from a small, organic family farm near Watsonville, Mariquita Farm. This is not the first time we have dabbled in Community Supported Agriculture, which is a growing trend--so to speak--where you can subscribe to a certain farm and receive regular deliveries of fresh vegetables. We signed up for one briefly last year, but the trouble was, the boxes were so full of vegetables, and not always perfectly fresh vegetables, that we were barely able to make a dent in the harvest before it spoiled. [Marina: This time we took advantage of the farm's one-off winter "mystery box" offers through their Ladybug Buying Club. Unlike our previous CSA foray, this time everything was super fresh, with heirloom varieties to boot.]

The bag was as big as my torso, and while my workouts may tend to focus more on stationary bike work and sit-ups, that is still saying something. The challenge we faced was what to make with all these vegetables, preferably something more interesting than just making a gigantic salad. It was a rather daunting task, to be sure. [The impressive quantity of veggies combined with limited time for freshness wasn't the only challenge. There were more than a few legumes that we couldn't even identify with confidence. Granted, iceberg lettuce was one of the few veggies on offer during my childhood - but Devin was equally stumped. Thankfully the farm provided an online list of "mystery box" contents, and eventually we identified all of the mysterious greens. The farm also kindly proffered recipes for less common items, and informed blog with veggie wisdom.]






Now, clearly there could be good salads made from the ingredients that included two kinds of radicchio, gem lettuce, onions, scallions, parsnips, beets, chard, sorrel, and cabbage, but what were we to do with the sizable heads of broccoli romanesco and two pounds of potatoes? In my past, I've often bought potatoes and cauliflower and broccoli and started out eating them enthusiastically, only to lose interest and find a bag of said vegetable months later in less than stellar condition.

The trick, clearly, was to trick other people into eating their vegetables. We invited my sister, Marina's cousin Seth, and Seth's girlfriend Amber for dinner. As it turned out, we also tricked Rosie by putting her to work with us in an elaborate preparation that turned out quite well.

We settled on a gratin dish with the romanesco, potatoes, cheese, panko bread crumbs and a sauce made of sauteed onions, chicken broth, and flour. The mere fact that we were cooking something with the word "gratin" in it made me feel very accomplished. [Our ultimate creation was a mash-up of Epicurious recipes, farm recipes, and my vaguely-remembered experience making bechamel sauce in Spain for gratin-like dishes. Bechamel, I was reminded, can be a great way to simulate creaminess with a relatively low amount of fat.]













The pictures above show a step-by-step review of the dish coming together, skipping the actual mixing of the broth, onions and flour, and sparing you the picture of boiling potatoes, which as earthy as it sounds, is not exactly an artistic photo when it isn't set in some homely country cottage hard on a choppy sea.

It was actually quite easy, with enough hands at the battle stations. We put down a layer of broccoli romanesco, then slices of potatoes, with salt and pepper, scattered cheese, panko, and half of the sauce spread liberally over the top. We then repeated that layer, and shoved the whole thing in the oven, and after about half an hour, voila! We produced the crisply golden-brown dish pictured above.

We must have done something right, because at the end, when I offered to split the last little portion of the dish with someone, Seth took me up on it. You don't ask for seconds if you don't like the dish.

Now if we can just figure out what to do with the parsnips.