Kakahead

I consider myself a very fortunate person.  Besides the fact that my life is truly blessed by family, friends; and so on; I also believe that being on the planet as long as I have is simply one big bonus.   I remember marveling at all the stuff Grandma Loftus saw during her lifetime.  She was born in 1900 and lived until 1973; doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she saw a few changes in the world.

Well we baby boomers have seen a few changes too; but we’ve also reaped the benefit of being around when the old stuff was still cool.   Just one of a million examples is Walt Kelly’s “Pogo.”  If you’ve never heard of such a thing, for a nice introduction please check it out here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_%28comics%29

It was a very funny yet often profound comic strip of yesteryear.   Pogo and his pals would often worry about someone getting a bad case of the “cold robbie’s.”  Pretty nice play on words for all of us who knew what kohlrabi was.

Some of you may say, “cole WHA??”  No, kohlrabi (pronounced cole-RAH-bee).  It’s a vegetable.  You eat it.  Cook it or eat it raw, either way is simply wonderful; especially after it’s been in the garden after a frost.  Sweetens up nicely.

So, yes, I’m an old fart and yes, I’ve actually eaten kohlrabi.  We just had some last Sunday for dinner as a matter of fact.  And yes, I grew it in the garden.

Here’s what it looks like:

Good to ward off the Cold Robbie's...

You eat the bulbous part of the stem, and the leaves and their stems are also very edible.  The flavor is very similar to a turnip, but sweeter.  It was a very nice addition to the carrots, parsnips, onions and “spudlets” (little tiny potatoes I found among the full sized ones in the garden) that were all added to a buffalo roast.  While we were eating we all broke out in song:

“Oh give me some toast

With a buffalo roast

Where the deer and the cantaloupe play…”

OK maybe not.  We really did have a buffalo roast, we just didn’t sing.  We try to support our Michigan growers; and the Oleson’s food stores have had buffalo meat for many years.  Check them out here:  http://www.olesonsfoods.com/home.html I just left them a compliment on their website and asked if they grow their own buffalo.  Seems like I saw a herd of theirs behind one of there store. Think I’ll ask them.

I hadn’t grown kohlrabi for many years; but decided to give it a go this past spring. We got some very nice plants! It will probably be a regular now; so long as I don’t get any vegetable-nappers like in this cartoon from 1939…