From the NY Times
Of all the things you can do with a radish — slice it into salads,
chop it into salsa, shred it into slaw or, better, top it with a thick
layer of sweet butter and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt — the last
thing I’d thought to do was cook it.
But last spring I started noticing roasted radishes sprouting up on menus all over New York City. Even the fancy takeout shop near my house was offering them every now and again. Clearly, there was a reason to cook a radish, and I wanted in.
So I gave it a try, roasting a bunch of halved radishes in a hot oven with plenty of butter and lemon juice.
One mouthful, and I immediately got the appeal. Instead of spicy, crisp and crunchy, these radishes were sweet, succulent and mellow, vaguely like turnips but with a softer bite.
I continued to cook radishes all season long, pan roasting them instead of oven roasting when the weather became too hot. I usually ate them for lunch sprinkled with feta cheese and herbs, or sometimes left them naked but for extra sea salt and cracked black pepper.
Each year I keep a running log to track restaurants slated to open
each month. When this January rolled around and I started my new list, I
fully expected the pace of openings to slow to a trickle.
A few lines in a recent “Quick Takes” column at Inside Higher Ed were enough to make me put down the faux-croissant I’d just purchased at my school’s café and seek out the full story in The Boston Globe: the most popular class at Harvard right now is “Science of the Physical Universe 27.”
Let’s be real, here. People who grow up like I did are not often country music fans. Aside from my mother’s odd taste for the sounds of the Grand Old Opry (acquired during her years at Wellesley, no doubt) I knew no country music unless it was from one of those “Willie Nelson’s Greatest Hits” ads that ran constantly on our local CBS station. Well, sometimes I caught a little bit of “Hee Haw” if no one changed the channel in time. Suffice it to say that “another somebody done somebody wrong song” was never my music of choice.
California has always seemed idyllic, cutting edge, a source of endless natural resources and opportunities. But our Golden State has been so mismanaged that it’s, now, threatening to crash under its own weight. As the deadline to plug the 24 billion (yes, that’s right 24 billion) dollar deficit in California passes and our renegade Governor Schwarzenegger proposes deeper and deeper cuts, education including school closures and shorter semesters, health cuts to MediCal and the Childrens’ Health Insurance Program, an increased gas tax (that should encourage tourism), four day work weeks (too bad if you needed the money), increased taxes, and a proposal to SHUT one of our greatest treasures, 224 of California’s most beautiful and historic State Parks, including that one where the giant redwoods grow.