Walthers - Kale, Glorious Kale

Even after 140 days straight of eating kale, I hadnt had enough. Give or take one or two days, I ate kalewith my familyat one or more meals every day for five months. And a few times, kale was part of every meal of the daybreakfast, lunch and dinner.

If anything, my appreciation for this green grew. When it came time for my deadline, I wanted to keep going. I still had ideas to test. What about the kale and corn chowder I had once made but not retested? And the polenta topped with mushrooms and kale that I had liked but not recorded? The very day I was writing this introduction, a friend who was using my commercial kitchen out back came over with dish of polenta topped with caramelized onions, sausage, white beans and sauted baby kale. Coincidental?

And I was still getting calls. Experimenting on their own with kale, friends and others were letting me know when they had made something good. One had just served lamb meatballs over thinly sliced sauted kale, using kale as a replacement for pasta. A great idea. Another suggested adding crispy kale to the top of commercial pizza. Still another friend paired kale with shrimp, chipotle peppers, avocado and lime in a tortilla soup. Her family raved. Luckily I had time to re-create this, and it became the eleventh recipe in the kale soup chapter.

Kale, it turns out, is amazingly versatile and easy to enjoy, as I hope each and every one of you will find out, if you havent already. We enjoyed a cocktails and kale evening; a Greek kale night and kale pizza night. At one point, my husband said, We should call this book One Thousand Ways to Hide Kale. Only I wasnt trying to hide it. Kale has a natural affinity to many, many ingredients.

Some novelists say they follow the lead of the characters theyve created to let them reveal the story. I felt like that with kale. Although I knew quite a bit about kale when I started the project, I was open to where it would take me.

After all, I had taught dozens of classes on the subject and organized an entire festival dedicated to kale. Id written a cookbook on greenswith a chapter on kalesome years before the invention of kale chips or kale smoothies. Why didnt I foresee those blockbusters? What would come next?

There were happy surprises. Baby kale, for one. It looks like more mature kale, only in miniature, tender and tasty. Now farmers are bagging it like baby lettuce or arugula. Baby kale salads were being rolled out of my kitchen like candy on a conveyer belt.

I started growing baby kale in the gardenin Octoberand I wholeheartedly recommend this. It grew, I cut it with scissors for a salad; it grew back. Again and again. Even after a December snowstorm in Massachusetts, I kicked off some snow and there it was, bright green kale happily hanging out in the garden, ready for use.

When all else is gone for the growing season, theres still kale. Its surprising that it didnt become a superstar even earlier.

The uses for massaged kale were another surprise. Massaging kale is the very effective method of rubbing olive oil and salt to tenderize raw kale for a salad. Massaged kale can also go on pizzas, in burgers, in meat loaf.

Massaged kale is also perfect in combination with grains and beans. It can hold its own and doesnt wiltkale and quinoa salad; Greek kale and farro; stir-fried rice with kale; kale veggie burgers. Even with the emergence of baby kale for salads, there was still plenty of room for massaged kale.

I had been enjoying crispy kale for a few years, but could there be more? Crispy kale and granola has become my absolute favorite breakfast snack. And kale, bacon and pumpkin crunch is addictive (kale crack, my friend called it).

Kale can also be roasted as a side dish. Its great with roasted cauliflower, or roasted carrots and parsnips. Grilling is another surprisingly easy way to prepare kaleas simple as throwing on a few oiled leaves on the grill for a minute or two. Try this in a kale panzanella salad with grilled bread and juicy summer tomatoes.

And so it went. Ninety recipes later, kale proved its superstar status. The nutritional research pointing to kale as the top most nutritious vegetable only confirms this. The Center for Science in the Public Interest ranked kale number one in a nutrition comparison with 83 other vegetables. And in the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI for short) used at Whole Foods Market, where plant-based foods are ranked on a scale of 0 to 1,000, kale came in at 1,000.

No wonder I felt great, as a side effect of writing this book. I had so much energy. And eating so much kale every day left little room for snacks or junk. Any extra weight I had slipped away. I became convinced, more than ever, that eating healthy every day is key, not dieting.

All Hail to Kale!

THE KALE CHRONICLES

I kept a journal of each day of writing the book, and called the file The Kale Chronicles. I noted the recipes created and tested each day, and general comments and thoughts. Certain themes emerge throughoutand the kale testing weaves between family, community, art and eating. A few of those stories are included here, throughout the book.

I hope your experiences with kale, and knowledge thereof, are elevated through this work. But my fondest hope would be for enjoyable cooking experiences as well as memorable meals with your family and friends.

For James and David Kelliher, my nightly dinner companions

If you think youre confused now about what variety of kale to buy, get ready to have your head spin.

Seed Savers lists fifty varieties, from Bare Necessities kale, sweet and crunchy, to Wild Red, a variation of a Siberian kale. And such farmers as Rusty Gordon are growing more and more different kale types.

Rusty grew 13 kinds last year at his Ghost Island Farm on Marthas Vineyard.

Why?

I dont know, Rusty shrugs. Fortunately, he says, his fascination with kale has coincided with a public surge in interest.

Just three years ago it seemed like no one was interested in kale. I couldnt sell it in the spring or summer, he explains. Fall was his big season, especially on the Vineyard, where its traditionally used for Portuguese kale soup with sausage, potato and beans. Im just lucky its this big thing now.

His favorite variety: Beira, a specialty kale from Portugal that has wider, flatter leaves, more like a collard green. Beira is the traditional leaf kale for Portuguese kale soup.

Beira is available from Johnnys Selected Seeds, an employee-owned seed company based in Maine that has approximately eight kale varieties for saleif it can be kept in stock, due to a surge in popularity with kale.

Johnnys most popular kale variety in 2012, Winterbor, was unavailable for purchase more recently. Unfortunately, that was our number one selling variety, reports Paul Gallione, a spokesperson for Johnnys. The companys second-most-popular variety, Toscano, the Italian heirloom nicknamed dinosaur kale for its crinkly leaves, was also not available this year. The organic variety had a crop failure, limiting seed supply.