Rainbow chard
Jon is in the kitchen making his first-ever batch of baba ghanoush and I’m enjoying the smell of roasting eggplant as I type. I’m proud to say I’ve achieved my long-time goal of having the best-smelling apartment in the building. Being the first floor street-facing apartment means we get to hear the shuffle of everyone walking into and out of the building loud and clear, but it’s always nice to overhear how awesome our food smells through the door.
I’ve had a pretty intense week. My grandmother just came out of major surgery and work has also been nightmarishly stressful. Since cooking has become almost therapeutic for me, I’m happy to spend today doing nothing but relaxing at home with my husband and making good food.
I found preparing rainbow chard particularly calming. This was one of our first finds at Brooklyn Grange a few weeks ago, and I decided it was a must because I’d never had it before. Fun fact! Rainbow chard is just a fancy name for Swiss chard with multicolored stems. It’s not really a distinct chard variety, but who cares? Look how pretty!
What I enjoyed most about preparing chard was separating the stems from the leaves. There was something weirdly Zen about slowly slicing the tip of the knife along the center rib in a perfectly straight line and sorting the leaves and stems into their own colorful little piles. This is neat freak cooking heaven.
That same day, we checked out the first Greenmarket of the season at Socrates Sculpture Park and I picked up a stack of recipe suggestions. Like kismet, one of them was for sautéed Swiss chard with Parmesan cheese.
The dish was flavorful, warming, and downright pretty. I’ll be happy to throw chard into my greens rotation, especially when I need a little cooking therapy!
