"Maybe we should get a rabbit," I said.
"How about a dog?" she asked.
"Dogs don't eat cabbage," I replied.
About a week ago, J and I went to our neighborhood vegetable stand (basically, they set up shop in a garage along the shopping street) and bought some odds and ends to make dinner over the next few days. The veggie stand always has good deals, sometimes selling avocados for a third of the supermarket price, or a dozen bananas for the equivalent of a dollar. That day I felt like getting something sweet for breakfast the next morning, so I picked out what looked like an oversized grapefruit from a pile of citrus fruit with a cardboard sign that said, "Mellow Gold: 230yen", (no relation to the album by Beck) which were apparently imported
from America,
"...so you have to buy it," one guy at the shop told me, "It's from your home country."
The thing was so massive you'd think it was imported from Texas rather than California, and it screamed either genetic meddling or citrus elephantiasis. It was like a big yellow softball for giants. But after some intense scrutinization, I chucked it into my basket along with our selection of tomatoes, onions and eggplant.
J was over in another section looking at the leafy vegetables, apparently embarr
assed by my episode with the gargantuan grapefruits. She pointed out the napa cabbage to a store clerk and asked for one, and he picked out the biggest head of cabbage I'd ever seen. It was about twice the size of the mellow gold even. But, what the heck; the thing cost less than a dollar, so we told 'em to bag it up, paid for our veggies and fruit and lugged it all home.
The next day, J talked with her parents on the phone and asked them if they ha
d some good ideas for napa (chinese) cabbage recipes. Her dad apparently knew a good recipe for sour cabbage and kikurage, a kind of mushroom that grows on tree trunks, also known as a "cloud ear". The next night we made cabbage and tofu with rice. And after that we had pork and cabbage stir fry. The week went on and so did the massive cabbage. It seemed like there was no end to its leafy sustenance in sight. I considered making a proposal to UNESCO to airlift these cabbages of infinite capacity to hungry, less-fortunate children in the world. The
week ended but the cabbage went on like a Celine Dion maxi-single, much longer than you could have imagined. The following Sunday, J called her parents again and endured some laughter and chiding over the fact that we were still eating that cabbage.
"Well, the good news is that the heart of the cabbage is very sweet," and then her mom told her a good spicy dressing recipe for a simple cabbage salad.
And so it was, over a week since we bought the thing, that we cut up the last of the cabbage. The salad was excellent, with the tang and spice of the dressing complimenting the sweet, white inner leaves chopped into thin shards, although I wasn't sure if the sweetness that complimented the dressing so well was the actual cabbage or just the sweet taste of victory.
"Hmm," I suddenly had an idea, "actually, rabbit does sound pretty good at this stage."
And with that, we left the dishes to soak in the sink and hopped off to the supermarket to get something we could sink our teeth into.
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