Winter

Kale is in season right now with the common curly kind leading the pack. But there's also a darker, more unique variety that hails from Italy. Tuscan kale is darker in color, more delicate in flavor, and tender to eat. It's especially great in salads and it holds up to many bold flavors. If you're craving a salad this winter, Tuscan kale should be your green of choice.

Most people only think of kale as a cooked vegetable, but kale is great raw. Not only do you benefit from all its vitamins when it's raw, you also get a great texture and fresh taste. It's great as a slaw, or as an appetizer or main course salad. For this hearty recipe, I combine kale with sautéed mushrooms, croutons, and a richly flavored brown butter vinaigrette. I top it off with Parmesan and a poached egg. Serve it for lunch or a light dinner with a glass of wine.

Eat your beets! We've all heard that from our moms quite often as kids. Unfortunately it was more often canned beets that we were persuaded to eat. As a curious eater, I've come to appreciate beets in many different preparations. I especially love them roasted in salads. But have you ever thought of eating them raw? Sliced very thinly, beets and other root vegetables, make great salads. Yes, it's possible to slice them thin with a knife, but a mandoline does the job better than anything else to get paper-thin shavings.

In this beautiful salad I combine three different colors of beets, plus a watermelon radish, and add pomegranate seeds for additional ruby color. The radish adds a different type of crunch and hotness. The pomegranate seeds along with a squeeze of orange juice add sweetness and tang to the salad. A sprinkling of dill adds green color as well as herbal flavor. After trying this salad, you will be surprised to find how naturally sweet beets taste when eaten raw. They are nature's candy in both taste and color.

Without being super conscious about it, I have been making more and more vegetarian meals. Millet, lentils, quinoa, black beans, and lots of green vegetables are consumed weekly while less meat and chicken grace our dinner table. Don’t get me wrong, I like my animal protein. As long as it is pastured and raised in an environment that you and I would want to be raised in.

Last winter, when we switched over to a gluten free diet, I cleaned out the pantry. I was amazed at how much food I had on hand and I realized that I could feed my family for a month based on the existing inventory.

In that inventory, there was an unopened bag of millet. I have always liked millet but pretty much forgot about it. Instead, I was making a lot of farro, quinoa, and barley. Quinoa is one of the few grains that we continued to eat and I decided to open that bag of millet and start experimenting.

Just when I thought fava beans had a lot of names, along comes the kiwifruit (kiwi) originally known as the Chinese Gooseberry. It's also known as the Macaque peach, the vine pear, the sunny peach, the hairy bush fruit, and my personal favorite, "strange fruit."

Call it what you will. Just make sure you eat these edible berries. The kiwifruit is the edible berry of the cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa and hybrids between this and other species in the genus Actinidia, which is native to Shaanxi, China. But who doesn't already know that?

Kiwis are grown in mild climates all over the world. Surprisingly, New Zealand is not the leading world producer of their famed fruit. The land of pasta, balsamic vinegar, and buffalo mozzarella is – Italy. Though I wouldn't recommend eating kiwi with any of the aforementioned foods.

Kiwis are both delicious and nutritious. With a flavor that tastes like a mix of citrus, grapes, strawberries, and bananas, a kiwi is both sweet and tart. Though the hairy outer skin is edible, I'd advise against eating it. That is, unless you really need the fiber – a kiwi's fiber is tripled with the skin on. If you do eat it, then have a new container of dental floss at the ready. You'll need it.