Meatless Monday: Learning to Deal with Kale

Something happened over the weekend:  the Meatless Monday site now lists me as a blogger-on-board, top right if you care to look. In appreciation, I’ve resolved to give my blog a bit of a schedule and to post on Mondays on a food-related topic on a more regular basis. So please bookmark this link (or mine), and check in every Monday for a new recipe or idea. While you’re at Meatless Monday, be sure to look on the site’s home page for the week’s featured recipes and the latest news on food issues, and to check out what some of the other bloggers have on their minds.

Today’s topic? My history with kale.

Kale is one of those good-for-you foods that I wish came with an instruction manual. It is only recently a part of my cooking repertoire, and then only after a lot of trial and error. I grew up in a Sicilian/Yankee household in a suburban Boston town. Kale was not something my dad grew in his garden. Nor was it something anyone I knew ate.

I have no memory of kale in the supermarket until the last decade or so. And I know (because I checked) that it was nearly absent from my first cookbooks. My 1973 Joy of Cooking (the same edition that describes how to cook woodchuck) gave kale a brief mention in a one-paragraph entry “About Greens,” which included a generic recipe that involved simmering a 2 lb. side of meat for 2 hours and then adding 2 lbs. of any of the aforementioned greens and simmering for 40 minutes more. Kale is not even listed in the index to the first Recipes for a Small Planet.

It was in the ’90s (I recall) that kale became a ubiquitous garnish on the restaurant plate where the lettuce used to be—for its beauty and durability I imagine. Not one to waste food, I usually ate mine, but unlike my experience with golden beets, I did not find myself craving more.

Sometime in the last 5 years, suddenly (or so it seemed to me), everyone from Dr. Oz to my friend Maggie, physical therapist to the aging, began extolling the benefits of eating kale. Kale has joined the short list of Super Foods! Among its many super traits is its high content of readily-absorbed calcium. I’m one to try any means possible to ward off osteoporosis, so my interest was piqued. And then I discovered that, unlike some other super foods, kale is kind to the pocketbook. A hardy crop, it is available everywhere from farmers markets to the supermarket for most of the year. And it won’t break the bank to buy it in the organic variety.

I decided to give it a try.

Experiment 1: I bought a small amount of kale at the supermarket, washed it well, chopped up the leaves, and added it to a salad. Too tough. Too much chewing. The kale got stuck in my teeth.

Experiment 2: I bought a larger bunch of supermarket kale. I washed it well and steamed it whole like swiss chard. No one told me the stems would stay that tough. I needed a knife to eat this dish.

Experiment 3: I bought some kale at the farmers market from a young woman who suggested I chop it up and sauté it in olive oil with some onion. This was better, but the stem was still too tough.

Experiment 4: I bought some kale at the farmers market. I washed it well. I removed all the tough stems. I chopped it and sautéed it with onion in some good olive oil. I added some fresh tomatoes (roughly chopped). This was pretty darn good served with some artisan bread.

This dish tastes even better than it appears.

Experiment 5:—Success, finally! Kale Stew with Tomatoes and Aromatic Spices. I bought a large bunch of organic kale—a dark, curly variety—at Whole Foods. I washed it well. I coarsely chopped a large yellow onion and minced two cloves of garlic, which I then sautéed in a large stainless steel skillet until they became soft.  I removed the stems from the kale, chopped the leaves, and added the kale to the pan, stirring until all the leaves were coated with the oil. I turned the heat down, covered the pan, and cooked gently until the kale was tender. I then added a 28 oz. of crushed tomatoes (I like Whole Foods Organic 365), and 2 teaspoons of Penzey’s Chili 9000 powder, which contains a long list of spices including ancho chili pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, and cinnamon. (A good curry powder would probably serve as a fine substitute, but I am really fond of the way the 9000 tasted.) I then simmered the mixture, partially covered, for 1/2 hour of so until it became thick like a stew. I checked it for taste and added just a pinch of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper. I served it over my favorite organic Texmati rice with a good dollop of Greek yogurt on top for a perfectly balanced meal. This is a delicious and hearty dish that an omnivore, or even a carnivore, will love.  

For more kale recipes, check out this site. Have no fear of failure. I’ve told you the most important hint. The kale stems belong in the compost pile, not on your plate!

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Destination GCT

If you face 42nd Street and look up, slightly, while you wait for the NY Airport Service bus in Pershing Square, this is your view — the impressive 48 foot high sculpture  “Transportation” by French artist Jules-Alexis Coutan, with a clock at its center containing the world's largest example of Tiffany glass. This sculptural group, unveiled in 1914, depicts Mercury (god of speed) flanked by Minerva (goddess of wisdom) and the mighty Hercules — a fitting ornament for the facade of a magnificent structure which would serve as the hub for Cornelius Vanderbilt’s network of rail lines and provide a link to New York City’s new subway system. 

Grand Central Terminal is one of my favorite man-made destinations. On a recent evening as I admired its facade, I found myself reflecting on the marvelous beauty of this intricate building and also upon just how fortunate we are that Grand Central Terminal is still here to admire. After all, a large piece of “being Green” is appreciating and preserving what we already have.

Grand Central Terminal’s glory days were once nearly numbered. In 1964, Pennsylvania Station was demolished, despite a public outcry, and replaced with an office building and the new Madison Square Garden.  The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, formed In response to this demolition, designated Grand Central Terminal as a landmark in 1967, making the terminal subject to the protection of law. Grand Central Terminal was seemingly safe, but a new threat arose the very next year.

As a result of bankruptcies and mergers of the railroads operating in New York, Penn Central had become the new owner of Grand Central Terminal. Penn Central then leased the property to a developer who proposed constructing a 55-story tower above Grand Central Terminal. The building’s facade would have been preserved, but rendered insignificant; the entire Main Waiting Room and part of the Main Concourse would have been demolished. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, joined by other prominent preservationists, rallied New Yorkers in opposition to Penn Central’s plans, asking, "Is it not cruel to let our city die by degrees, stripped of all her proud monuments, until there will be nothing left of all her history and beauty to inspire our children? If they are not inspired by the past of our city, where will they find the strength to fight for her future? Americans care about their past, but for short term gain they ignore it and tear down everything that matters. Maybe… this is the time to take a stand, to reverse the tide, so that we won't all end up in a uniform world of steel and glass boxes."

New York City filed a suit to stop the construction. The resulting case, Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City (1978), eventually reached the Supreme Court. The Court, in its first-ever decision on a matter of historic preservation, ruled that New York City's Landmarks Preservation Act did not constitute a "taking" of Penn Central's property under the Fifth Amendment and was a reasonable use of government land-use regulatory power.

Grand Central Terminal was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. It suffered years of decline, but its “extreme makeover” began when Metro-North took over operation of Grand Central Terminal in 1983. Since then Grand Central Terminal has been renovated inside and out. The interior shines. On a sunny day shafts of light illuminate the voluminous space with a sublime golden glow. People still meet at the information booth with the four-faced clock. And tourists marvel at the elaborate astronomical ceiling, which is the backdrop for a music and light show during the winter holidays.

The NYC Architecture site has many images of Grand Central Terminal through the ages, including the Cold War period when a Redstone missile was prominently displayed in the Main Concourse. The Grand Central site contains links to a self-guided walking tour, to information on the free guided tours offered on Wednesdays and Fridays at 12:30, and to a guide listing the terminal’s many shopping and dining opportunities.

Grand Central Terminal is an inexpensive destination for a day trip, with a low carbon footprint. There are several off-peak Metro-North trains from New Haven that arrive well before the tour. After the tour there should be ample time to shop and dine at a leisurely pace before your off-peak train back. Lovers of Penzey’s, be sure to look for their stall in the Grand Central Market. It will save you a drive to Norwalk. The cost for your Metro-North ticket Round Trip/Off Peak is $28.00 — $18.50, if you are a senior.  That’s a bargain for a very Green day.