A Trip to the Garden

I spent the past weekend in Olean, NY, I will admit that the first couple of visits when I was too cool for school, fat, egotistical chef boy, I didn't much like Olean. As my Love for my wife's family grew stronger, because I got to know them. Of course I loved them by default but know I have reasons for the love. Being that this is a running and eating and drinking blog I will save the sap for another time. This last trip I got to spend 80% of the time with my brother in law. He lives on a dead end road in the hills of Western NY. This is the most time I have spent with him and we are a lot alike, about as much as I thought we were. On this huge country property he has three amazing gardens. He grows corn, beets, carrots, sweet potato, onions, green beans, squash, radish, the list goes on. Among other things I spent a lot of time in that garden. I picked carrots, beets, onions, green beans, I got so inspired I went right into his kitchen to begin cooking. Unfortunately, due to renovations there wasn't much to work with. For that day's amusement, I found an old lodge cast iron in need of seasoning  and so we drank beer while I seasoned it and he did some plumbing work.

The next day I whipped up a warm vegetable salad so that he and his girl friend could taste the fruits of there labor. It was a hit, I used the carrot tops and the beet greens along with all the other vegetables. What we had, was a vibrant, sweet, and earthy combination of vegetables that begged for something else, a poached egg and some crispy bread perhaps. I am going to have to let you know. I brought home a bag of fresh vegetables from B.I.L's garden and tomorrow I am going to come back to you with a recipe or two and some pictures of this amazing garden feast. What an inspiration a garden can be and i cant wait to start a garden of my own. There is only one thing better than shopping the perimeter of a grocery store and thats shopping your own back yard. Who would have thought it would take a trip to Olean to truly understand that.    

See you tomorrow with this awesome recipe