#askmeaboutkale

Dear Sandra,

Songs about your friends maladies. That's a great idea for a concept album.

By the way, I have another question: Kale. You seem to love that stuff. That confuses me. Over here it's served as a kind of stew. With black pudding. I think that says it all. And even if you leave off the black pudding, it's still terrrible food. So please tell me the kale secret. Do you like it steamed? Baked? Cooked? As a salad? Or even raw?

No more stupid questions. Only puppy pics. Promised.

Hugs, Antje

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Hi Antje,

It is not a stupid question. In fact I'm equally baffled by the lack of this vegetable's presence overseas. I seriously eat Kale almost every day and crave it if I haven't had it. It has calcium and vitamins and is delicious.

Up until I'd say 2005 no one was really eating it much here either. I would see it in gardens as decoration next to flower beds and such. The PR person for Kale is a genius and I wish World/Inferno could hire this person. (As our former drummer Benjy Kotch once said during a conversation about this very topic "Kale is like the Yeah Yeah Yeah's of vegetables." This joke was funnier in the early aughts.) Suddenly it started appearing in grocery stores and farmers markets and then in restaurants. It started in the hippie vegan places and got picked up by some celebrity chef on some food network (I'm speculating here) and now appears on virtually every menu in every non-fast food restaurant in America (well, the good, non-republican parts of America anyway) especially in urban hipster zones like Brooklyn. At the moment I'd say the most common preparation trends are as a Kale Caesar Salad or steamed or sautéed as a bed under some kind of protein. Also Kale Chips are huge. Dehydrated to a crisp, sprinkled with spices and salt. You can buy kale chips almost everywhere. It's also frequently juiced. It's use as a salad green has come more recently. In fact I can recall the very first time I had it un-cooked. It was 2011 at the vegan restaurant I used to manage. The chef presented me a Kale and cucumber salad for our new spring menu and I thought, raw Kale? Can humans digest this? It’s amazing how rapidly our diet can evolve and adapt.

Nowadays I most often eat it raw in a salad, sometimes lightly steamed or sautéed only until it turns bright green with a splash of lemon juice and sprinkle of sea salt or perhaps a bit of garlic and a splash of soy sauce.

I often mix it into dishes as well like curries (kale channa saag!), pastas, or stews. Yesterday I made a salad of purple Kale (raw), purple string beans, mint, parsley, scallion, pumpkin seeds, spiral cut carrots, in a creamy hemp seed dressing.

A recent dish I like to make on the road while touring in the states involves picking up a bunch of Kale at a grocery store and adding ingredients I pick up at rest stops or hotel lobbies. I collect packets of soy sauce, lemon juice, hot pepper flakes. I may purchase some kind of nuts or seeds from said rest stop. Put all these ingredients in a tupperware container, shake it up a little and leave it overnight or for several hours on the floor of the van where no one can sit or step on it. When I'm ready for a meal, there it is, perfectly marinated and tasty greens I might have paid $10 for in a restaurant.

With this information, I expect you will profit highly as a Kale importer or perhaps oversee your own farm. Get in on this exciting opportunity to be Kale's star representative in Deutschsland! You'll be set for life!

Let me know if you need any recipes that do not involve black pudding.

Much love,

Sandra

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