We’ve been eating a lot more veggies around here lately, so one day, as I was trimming several heads of broccoli for our evening meal, I thought, “If Brendon and I were on the Newlywed Game and they asked him what was my favorite raw vegetable, I don’t think he’d know that it’s broccoli stem.”

Yes, broccoli stem.

The summer before I moved to the PNW I worked in the touristy city near my hometown at a small hotel as the server for their tiny eating area.  I shared the work with a brassy chef who told me her opinions of food, and well, life.  No avoiding it in such close quarters.  I really only listened to her food opinions as I watched her make yummy dishes, my first peek into gourmet lunches.  

Her conspiracy theory about broccoli was: since it’s sold by weight, and people only eat the florets, and the stem weighs the most, “the man” was ripping off the broccoli-eating public.  Then, most importantly, she told me that despite this, most people don’t realize that the healthiest part of the broccoli is the stem and if you peel away the tough exterior skin, there is a tasty jewel inside.  Like my great aunt Clara.

To be honest, homeskillet, I have no idea if this is true or not.  I’ll probably fire up Wikipedia after I post this dealio just because I’m a geek, but really, who cares?  I will still prepare the trees for steaming, then remove the outer covering until I get that perfect veggie with no ranch dip required.  Oh, man.  

I do know how to live.

p.s. and yes, i did just see Juno, *finally*.  but that’s another post.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.