Winter Fare
The most delicious winter greens, warming soups plus an Italy announcement!
I love a big salad - a really big salad. I have my own special salad bowl that is actually a service piece but I use it just for myself. It is absurd I’m sure to see me settle in with this elegant trough loaded with delicious bits. It is a lot of food, but it is the greens taking up majority volume. Salad is a must year round but I have a special love for winter greens - hearty, pleasantly bitter leaves that can stand alone in flavour and texture.
Winter greens don’t absorb dressings or vinaigrettes - they are a vessel in which these things dance upon. Winter greens are robust attention seekers. My favourites are some of the classical Italian bitters; radicchio, Treviso Rosso and Treviso Cicoria with their beautiful scarlet plum colouring and crisp sharp flavour. I also love escarole, wild leaves of chartreuse and white - the more delicate cousin to the attention seeking leaves of the radicchio family.
I did not grow up with these greens. We were an iceberg and romaine family. In fairness the selection of greens at a standard grocery market was limited in the 1980’s. My exposure to the abundant world of colourful, dense and flavourful greens happened in Italy, naturally. I was living in Emilia Romagna and I walked to the Tuesday market in late November. The stalls were full of seasonal greens and citrus and for a curious and embracing eater I was drawn to the varied selection, not just for the colours but the textures. Cabbages, chards, endives, radicchios, chicories, puntarelle (a favourite) all on display. The vendors offered tastes as well as recipe ideas. Oriana, the vender at one stall I frequented taught me two lessons:
