Upside-Down Pear

I am one of those dreadful people who loves cabbage and will cook it up at the slightest provocation. Often, this provocation takes the form of a lovely head spotted at the store, nestled below the celery and carrots. A dark red cabbage is more likely to snag me as I walk by, but sometimes it is a soft green one. Once I’m caught, I weigh the beautiful thing in my hand. Good cabbages are heavy for their size, with crisp leaves; they are mostly water, and as they lose water they lose both heft and crispness.

Once I get my cabbage home, I rinse it off and take my knife to it. I slice it in half and put one half away in the fridge - cabbage is a tough veg and will keep in the crisper for quite some time. I core the other half and chop it up - small dice or shreds for cole slaw, large chunks for braising, thick strips for soup. I love it with dill, with caraway, with ginger, with raisins, with apple cider as the braising liquid, with carrots, with fennel seed, with paprika, with cayenne. I love how you can cook it just long enough that it’s soft and crunchy all at once, that it is both robust enough to stand up to flavors and gentle enough to meld with them.

Nocturn Cabbage
by Carl Sandburg

Cabbages catch at the moon.
It is late summer, no rain, the pack of the soil cracks open, it is hard summer.
In the night the cabbages catch at the moon, the leaves drip silver, the rows of cabbages are series of little silver waterfalls in the moon.