Oh family. Such a love and hate relationship, but mostly love. My mother has three brothers and her one brother has three kids around my age and growing up we spent every Thanksgiving together and would try to do a week long beach vacation each summer. Now that we’re older, the visits are less frequent but when we do get together it’s just like the old days. My uncle still bellows at everyone about everything (he thinks he’s the king of the family), my mom still makes over-the-top facial expressions if someone does something she doesn’t approve of. My cousin does silly things like forget the grocery list when she is in charge of the shopping and then my cousin, Anaïs and I make sure we’re out to the beach by 11am for fear of missing out on valuable beach time.
We leave rejuvenated but also a bit tired of each other, vowing that we’ll wait two years until we do another vacation but then six months later we forget everything and plan the next get together.
Living so far away from my family, I enjoy the time we spend together as it is so few and far between. I also enjoy being able to see Anaïs, as she is the person in my life closest to a sister. In fact, she was my maid of honor. She grew up on Lady Moon Farms in Selinsgrove and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania with the country as her world.
I was the city mouse and she was the country mouse. She had tough feet that could walk on gravel and I had tender feet that always needed shoes. She rode horses, raised litters of kittens and spent her teenage year summers working for her dad’s farm. Now she’s a successful analyst in the wine industry and lives in San Francisco.
Her mother loved reading Anaïs Nin and decided to name her third child after the writer. Ana, as we casually call her, is very adamant about the two dots above the “i” in her name. You can imagine her excitement when she visited Paris last spring and found this flower shop on Rue Montorgueil. And just like her cousin, she loves kale. So there was no question that I would get her talking about her love of kale.
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Describe what kale tastes like in one sentence.
Kale tastes like an instant dose of health.
When was the first time you tried kale?
Kale was always around growing up on an organic veggie farm, so I can’t remember the first time but imagine it was at a very young age. It was definitely a staple on our dinner table growing up.
What is your favorite way to eat kale?
I enjoy a raw kale salad massaged with a vinaigrette and topped with whatever nuts/berries I have laying around. I never get sick of it because there are so many different combinations!
If you had to prepare kale for a kale-virgin, what would you do?
I would make it how my mom did – sautéed with onions in garlic and olive oil, topped with a few splashes of umeboshi vinegar.
As someone who has worked in sales for Lady Moon Farms, tell us more about the kale & greens trend from a farming perspective.
In the past 5 years the greens movement has taken off on the farming side. Kale has always been a substantial plant, making it easier to grow and maintain throughout different climates which makes it a profitable plant for farmers. However before the boom, a lot of kale was used solely as a garnish. I think it’s great that it’s readily available now in restaurants throughout the states and people are learning about the health benefits from this amazing vegetable.