Fruits from the Garden

Yesterday we harvested the first beets from our Victory Garden, four smallish beet roots with luscious green and maroon tops. (We're letting the plants get a little larger before harvesting many more.) I sliced the beets and steamed them; we ate them freshly steamed, with no seasoning. Lovely! Tom cut up the greens and sauteed them with ginger, garlic, salt, and soy sauce. The taste of these greens was unbelievable. Nothing one buys in the supermarket--even the Dekalb Farmer's Market (which always smells like seafood, a smell that permeates everything, especially the cheese one buys there) comes close to the flavor of these home-grown vegetables. Growing a suburban garden is a lot of work, but the flavor of the food is unbeatable. In another week, we will start getting fresh vegetables weekly from Riverview Farms, a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Eating fresh food, simply prepared, is a real joy in life. I grew up eating fresh vegetables, grazing in our gardens in southeast Texas, but the intervening years of eating processed foods now provide me with a fine contrast with which to judge flavor. Every day I gaze at our little garden and harvest a leaf here and there, munching as I observe the growth of each plant. No lettuce tastes sweeter than the leaf I've just plucked.