Monday, August 9, 2010

Market Madness: carrots.

When I was a kid, our California back yard boasted a lot of neat stuff. There was the "playhouse", a hut that our mom wove out of sticks. It had a door, a window, and a loft area for storing toys. The thing was so well made, it took an axe to finally tear it down.

We had a chicken yard, too. A neighbor gave my sister and I two roosters, so we sectioned off a third of the yard for a chicken coop and scratching ground. We gradually amassed a whole flock of castoff hens with distinct personalities and some of the best eggs in Orange County.

Another well-remembered feature was the garden. Spinach, asparagus, sunflowers; there was a little bit of everything. I liked the green onions, but the carrots were my favorite. I probably killed quite a few in my impatience to "see if they were ready yet". Dig 'em up, sigh, put 'em back. As I got older, I learned to count off the days on the calendar before expecting a harvest.

I'm still impatient, but I keep more carrots alive.

Carrots are great. They come in cool colors, from white to orangey red to purple. They're loaded with nutrients, like the ever-popular Vitamin A. They're also a grat snack choice, and not just because of the flavor. Anybody can inhale a box of cookies with mindless ease. Chomping on a carrot takes work. When you eat a carrot, you know you've had a serious snack.

The only thing I've never really gotten into is cooked carrots. They strike me as mushy and bland. I'm told that cutting a carrot crossways slices through the cells of the carrot structure, allowing the "good stuff" to leak out into the cooking water. Maybe if I bake them whole or something...

How do you like your carrots? Have you ever grown them? What's your favorite kind?

4 comments:

  1. Sorry, not a fan of cooked carrots. I like them shredded in salads or plain dipped in salt.

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  2. I tried growing carrots once- they were about as long as a finger, and we didn't have the heart to eat them.

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  3. Carrots are best eaten raw. They're great in a soup or a pot roast or stew. But other than that, forget about the fancy schmancy. Just eat them raw.

    Stephen Tremp

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  4. Ooooooo! Roast carrots! Food o' the gods! You take some carrots, right, and clean them and boil them whole for about 15 minutes. Then you toss them with good-quality olive oil and season salt or herbs, and you roast them at 350F for about 45 minutes. Oh, the FLAVOR--THE FLAVOR!!

    Ahem. I mean, carrots prepared in this way are rather enjoyable.

    Marian Allen

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