When I worked in my first restaurant, a family-style chicken restaurant in scenic Rhode Island, we used kale as a garnish. Generally it was tucked alongside a white hot casserole dish filled with scrod, something you may have never heard of if you aren't from New England. This kale was uniform in color, chewy, and it looked and tasted identical to rubber. I remember in my early days someone told me it was edible and I barely believed them. Then I tried eating a piece and spit it out after chewing on it for six or seven minutes.
A few years back I discovered that kale was, in fact, edible. This was something that had never occurred to me. I just assumed the plant was genetically engineered at some point in the 1950's to be used in grainy 4-color printed cookbooks. Apparently kale is able to have actual flavor!
I used the kale, in conjunction with the radish greens, to make a salad with some cooked cous cous; French breakfast radishes; grape tomatoes from Quality Sales Produce in Hartford, CT; some lemon juice; olive oil; salt; and pepper.
For wine we enjoyed a nice freezer-chilled rose in an attempt to pretend that it was a hot summer evening when, in fact, it was in the high 50's as it has been all spring (soon to be summer).
I got my hands on some nice rainbow trout and accompanied it with some of the Swiss chard which I cooked with garlic scape and shallot.
For dessert: some angel food cake topped with whipped cream and sliced farm strawberries.
For our next dessert: Mantracker. I'm starting to love Wednesday nights so I can watch the charisma-free, bearded figure of Mantracker as he swears his way through Canada's perilous countryside.
Watching Canadians run thigh-deep through a stream while being chased by two men on horseback is the perfect digestive.
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