sauteed kale

• fresh kale, roughly chopped into bite sized pieces
• fresh garlic, chopped fine
• nutmeg
• coarse salt
• red pepper flakes (I use Simply Organic)
• 3/4 cup of vegetable stock
• sherry vinegar (or any red wine vinegar)

In a swirl of olive oil over a medium-high flame, saute the garlic and red pepper for 3-5 minutes. Add the veggie stock and stir for about a minute. Begin adding the kale in batches, letting each one wilt a bit before adding the next. Once all is added, season to taste with salt, vinegar and just a touch of nutmeg (thanks Rachael Ray). Reduce flame to low and continue to cook an additional 5+ minutes, or until kale is tender. Add more stock if needed.

The dish: I know a few posts back I promised you were reading what was the beginning of a long and exciting bbq phase of the red room. Turns out that Mother Nature has made a liar of me and my grill has sat under its cover for pretty much all of June, just as it did in the chilly winter months. If you're reading this from the lovely Empire State, then you're probably wet and not quite sure what the sun looks like anymore. As it happens in life, while I was in the middle of bitching about the impact the rain has had on my biking (or lack of), I bumped into someone far worse off because of this crazy weather. I was at the farmer's market and got to talking to a few of the vendors whose crops were rotting under water with no end to the rain in site. Couple that with low attendance at the markets because people are afraid of getting wet, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Farmer's don't have it easy anywhere, and in our region where land is in pretty high demand for the never ending suburban sprawl, disastrous weather can be the proverbial straw on the camel's back. The easy solution of course, is for all of us to do our best that when possible we eat something that was grown close to home. Check around for a farmer's market in your neck of the woods, if you're around Goshen on Fridays theirs is great (Bialas Farms is my fav, but all the farms are good). Not only will your food taste better and be better for you, but you'll be supporting an important way of life that's quickly vanishing. So with this crazy weather we've been having, go ahead and put on that sweater that you packed away long before June, stop payment on the check to the global warming folks and take that cash to your local farmers market and pick up some kale or any of the other delicious veggies they have.