Alex Weiser at the Hungry Cat. Photo by Foodwoolf.

The first time I ever saw a crosne, the grubby looking Chinese tuber known for its crunchy, earthy-sweet flavor, was at the Weiser Family Farm stand at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market. I bought a bag full, along with sunchokes, from a golden-faced man in a wide-brimmed hat whose smile radiated like sunshine on stainless. I met him again, months later, in the same wide-brimmed hat, crunching through Purple Haze carrots at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, and finally introduced myself. Since 1982, Alex Weiser’s friendly face has been working the area farmers’ markets, his face as familiar as the parsnips, potatoes and sprouting broccoli he talks about enthusiastically with local chefs and foodies.

Alex embodies what I love about the farmers’ market. The great produce and a direct connection with the people who grow the food, someone to thank for all the tasty meals I put on the table. I caught up with him by email recently (trying to pin this busy man down is quite difficult) and to find out a bit more about the farm’s history and its future. This is what he had to say:

How long have you been farming? Where is your farm and what varieties of potatoes, root veggies and other vegetables do you grow?

We purchased our first agricultural property in 1977.  It was a 160-acre apple orchard:  Red and Golden Delicious.

We farm in Tehachapi, Lamont/Edison area, Lucerne Valley. Also, in my parents new backyard in Claremont.

This year we are growing many varieties of potatoes. As of now: Russian Banana, La Ratte, Purple Peruvian, Red Chilean, King Edward, German Butterball, Red Thumb, Ruby Crescent, All Blue, French. Also, many colors of beets and carrots, many varieties of melons, many varieties of onions, broccolis, cauliflowers, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips, sunchokes, crosnes, peppers, blackberries, mulberries, grapes, quince, apples, peaches, jujubes, lilacs, spinach, shallots, wheat, winter squashes, summer squashes…I can’t stop!

How do you choose what to grow?

Basically we grow what we have a comparative advantage in growing where are farms are located. Luckily for us we have three distinct growing regions that give us a lot of options. We also choose to grow niche crops, varieties that have flavor, heirlooms, new introductions, European varietals, seasonal standards…crops that sell themselves.

How long have you been participating with local farmers’ markets? How has it changed your business and your relationship with the community?

Since 1981, when the Direct Marketing Program first started in the state. Then the farm was really struggling to survive and if it wasn’t for the farmers’ markets we probably wouldn’t be still farming.  It saved us.

Today, I find it amazing over the years, how many friends we made, people we’ve touched and the bonds we created through simply growing good food that tastes good. We appreciate our customers and they appreciate us. Totally positive.

You seem to have an incredible relationship with the area’s top chefs; how has this benefited your farm? Other consumers?

It is great to get chefs insights and perspectives.  A lot of chefs were trained in foreign lands and can offer a lot of advice.  And chefs have the best palates, so you might as well ask them what they think.  Or, if we should try something new or old.  It’s nice to get a few thumbs up and some commitments before we plant something. We love menu collaborating.

Farmers market consumers’ benefit because they are like the chefs and want the best fruit and veggies they can get at a fair price.  We try to grow enough to make everybody happy.

You recently went on a research trip to Spain? Where did you go and what did you discover?

I was in the Southern part of Spain, Andalusia.  I stayed on the Costa del Sol and visited Marbella, Malaga, Tarifa, Cadiz, Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada.  I ate out basically every meal and had great seafood and tapas.  Saw the sights, the Alhambra, the Mezquita, went skiing, hiking, enjoyed the sunsets.  One can’t help but relax there; it’s where “the siesta” started.

You mentioned you brought back some seeds from the trip to experiment with, what will you be planting? When might we expect to see the results?

Piel de Sapo Melon and Padron Peppers.

What is your favorite thing to cook? Would you share a recipe?

My favorite things to cook would probably some sort of roast with all our root vegetables on the side. Also, stir-frying our Bloomsdale spinach or sprouting broccoli with olive oil, garlic salt and pepper, sometimes with chili flakes.

What advice do have to home cooks about picking the best produce?

Granted, buy produce at your local farmers market and get there early and come often.

Where can people find you?
Santa Monica on Wednesday.  Also at Hollywood on Sundays

Can’t wait until the market to see what’s in season? Check out the Weiser Family Farm Crop Availability!

Baked Butternut Squash Chips

There are obsessions and then there are cooking obsessions. The first kind can land you in counseling (and occasionally behind bars), the second will blow through your kitchen like a tempest, leaving every pot, pan, knife, cutting board, baking sheet and bowl lying in your sink like debris. I developed my first cooking obsession in the seventh grade after taking Wilton Cake Decorating classes with Debbie, the woman I babysat for. I learned how to make buttercream icing and transform it into pretty pansies and roses, shells and, of course, all of my friends’ names. Every time I made I cake I left icing fingerprints—leafy green and daffodil yellow—to dry on the kitchen drawers, the refrigerator handle, the doorknob and even the mailbox. By eighth grade the obsession had started to lose its sweetness, and I started scraping every inch of that pound of powdered sugar and Crisco off of each cake before I ate it.

As a food and wine writer, my cooking obsessions have turned my tiny apartment kitchen into a “test kitchen,” where I work to develop and refine recipes. My most recent obsession has run me through eight butternut squash, two mandolines, and a tiny sliver of my thumb (apparently the blade on the first mandoline wasn’t sharp enough to cut through butternut squash, but it was sharp enough to cut through my finger).

It all started on Thanksgiving when I made butternut squash chips with fried herbs and Parmigiano as one of my appetizers. They came out phenomenal, crisp and sweet with crunchy pieces of earthy rosemary and sage and the salty cheese. With tons of Vitamin A, way more flavor than a potato and the festive, seasonal aspect I knew I hit on a winning snack, but they were a pain in the arse to make without a proper fryer. I spent more than an hour standing over bubbling oil so hot it melted the numbers of my deep fry/candy thermometer, frying 10 chips at a time. Since then I’ve been trying to figure out the perfect way to oven-fry them—a feat that seemed easy enough, but actually posed some challenges.

The recipe I first followed said to slice the squash on the mandoline, soak the slices in ice water for a half hour, dry them and fry them. So I followed the same method for my oven-fried versions. Unfortunately my oven doesn’t really cook evenly (in case anyone at Viking is listening, I’d like a Classic Series Gas Range, please) so some of the chips were like shaved charcoal while others were soggy, sad translucent orange discs. Even when I left them to crisp up the centers remained limp. So after spending a couple of hours online researching baked potato chip recipes I decided to try blanching the squash first. And voila! The chips came out crunchy and sweet and were actually better (and much less greasy) than their predecessors. I had to watch the oven carefully and pull them as the turned golden brown since, unfortunately, blanching them didn’t fix my oven. They’re delicious with the herbs and Parmigiano or just dusted with Malden salt, or you can try spiking them up with some fresh ground cardamom and white pepper for a little spice. And since they’re baked, snackers can feel a little less guilty when the polish off a batch.

Baked Butternut Squash Chips

1 butternut squash, preferably one with a long, narrow neck
spray olive oil
salt
Special tools: mandoline

Mise en place:
Heat oven to 400 degrees
Set up an ice bath
Spray a large baking sheet (or two small wines) with olive oil
Bring a pot of salted water to boil

Cut off the bulb part of the squash and set aside for another use. Peel the skin off of the squash and cut crosswise into 3-inch chunks. Using your mandoline cut the squash, crosswise into 1.3mm slices.

Blanch the squash in the boiling water, about two minutes then transfer it to the ice bath to cool. Dry all of the chips with a towel or paper towel and lay them out on the baking sheet. Spray them with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt or spices.

Set the squash on your oven’s middle rack and bake until golden brown and crispy. Keep and eye on them as some may cook faster than others even though they are sliced evenly.

Season and serve.

Heirloom Tomato Tart

Tomato season has officially begun and I’m a woman obsessed. All of the delicious, funky-looking heirloom varieties scattered across the tables at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market last Sunday tempted me like Tribbles. They were so fresh. They smelled so good intoxicating. And then I tried one, the juice dripping from my chin and between my fingers. Before I knew it, my bag was overflowing with Cherokee Purples, Golden Jubilees, Brandywines, Marvel Stripes and Black Crimsons from Tutii Frutti Farms, all bumping up against each other in the hot August sun.

The trouble with Tribbles, if you’ve seen the Star Trek episode, is that they multiply at breakneck speed. Initially there was one, but suddenly there are so many Tribbles that Kirk and Uhura can’t figure out what to do with them all. While my tomatoes didn’t exactly reproduce in my bag or on my countertop, I’ve ended up with way more than I’d planned to use and a freshness meter counting down like a time bomb.

Overripe tomatoes are as bad as, if not worse than, under-ripe ones. They are like being forced to eat raw slugs. Fortunately, cooked tomatoes, if done right, can mask the texture of a softening tomato, concentrating the sugars and elevating the tomato-y flavor to something quite decadent. (It’s why Nancy Silverton’s Mozza Caprese, with oven-dried tomatoes, is always so delicious.) Unfortunately, it can’t do anything for an unripe tomato. Nothing can.

Combine the flavor explosion of these heat-improved tomatoes with flakey, buttery puff pastry and you have a recipe for…Well, you have the recipe for an easy-to-make tomato tart! (You can use this same recipe for the bounty of figs showing up at farmers’ markets, too.)

Heirloom Tomato Tart

1 Sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
2 Medium-sized heirloom tomatoes
1 egg, beaten
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Place puff pastry sheet on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with egg and bake for 15 minutes or until lightly-golden.

While the puff pastry is baking, cut off the tops of the tomatoes, seed and slice. You can slice them into rounds or half moons, depending on the shape of the tomato.

Remove the puff pastry from the oven and let cool, but keep oven on. When cool, arrange tomatoes on the pastry, drizzle with olive and sprinkle with salt and fresh-ground black pepper. Place back in the oven for five minutes to heat the tomatoes. Drizzle again with olive oil and finish with fleur de sel. Serves four.

Homemade Cucumber Sorbet

I invented the root beer float when I was five or six years old. I was at a birthday party at the Ground Round, staring into my glass of soda, contemplating how to make my plain vanilla ice cream taste better. And then it dawned on me. And I dumped the ice cream in the cup, watched the fizz build and then started to suck down the creamy soda through my straw. My friends watched on in awe.At least that’s how I remember it. Of course, I wasn’t the one who invented the root beer float. And I was eating vanilla ice cream because I was allergic to chocolate and drinking root beer because I was allergic to cola. These were the stories I told myself to make my food interesting, particularly when my food was different than everybody else’s. And apparently it worked. I love root beer floats like I invented them.

Ice cream, and I use the term loosely to include sherbet, sorbet and gelato, winds through our memories like ribbons of chocolate fudge. Chasing the ice cream truck. Sitting at a soda fountain. Or at the Bubbling Brook on a hot summer night. It reminds you of your first summer or after school job, of birthday parties and parents and grandparents and friends. Ice cream is a conjurer. Memories of discovery, like the root beer float, are echoed in the sound of a straw slurping at the bottom of a glass.

For something so cold, so fleeting, it’s amazing how ice cream can create feelings that are so warm and so long-lived. And while I love going out for ice cream (check out my post on the best ice cream shops in L.A. on Serious Eats) there’s something sublime about making it at home, too. That’s why once the weather turned warm I ran out and bought the ice cream maker attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer.

The attachment—just a work bowl you stick in the freezer and a dasher—helps keep making homemade ice cream simple. Want to make vanilla ice cream? For a rich, custard-based vanilla all you need is milk, cream, sugar, eggs and a vanilla bean. Prefer chocolate chip, or, as the Italians call it, stracciatella? Melt some bittersweet chocolate and pour it into your ice cream just before it’s done mixing. And once you get a hang of it, everything from the farmers’ market to the liquor cabinet can become inspiration for your ice cream maker.

My most recent experiment is based on the refreshing Gordon’s Cup, a gin-based cocktail I had last week at Osteria Mozza. Made using gin, lime juice, vanilla-infused simple syrup and crisp summer cucumbers, the drink was like sipping garden sunshine. So I stocked up on Persian cucumbers at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market on Sunday and created this elegant sorbet. Perfect after a long day’s work, on a lazy Saturday afternoon or as a palate cleanser during a long Sunday supper, this fresh cucumber sorbet is a must-try while these snappy gourds are in season.

Cucumber Sorbet

2 lbs Persian cucumbers, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp fresh-squeezed lime juice
2/3 c sugar
2/3 c water
½ vanilla bean

Puree cucumbers and lime juice in a blender or food processor and set aside.

Heat water and sugar in a saucepan on the stove, stirring until the sugar completely dissolves. Steep the vanilla bean in the simple syrup for 10 minutes (you can use a bean you’ve already split and used to impart flavor, or clean and dry this bean when you’re done to reuse).

Mix cucumber puree and simple syrup together. Push the mixture through a sieve, to get out any seeds; the batter will be slightly pulpy, but mostly liquid. Put vanilla bean back in mixture to steep. Cover and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, preferably overnight. Freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.

Chilled Cucumber Avocado Soup

In college, I had one friend who still refused to eat vegetables. “I hate them,” she insisted repeatedly and with the vehemence of a five-year-old presented with a plate of cauliflower. And she meant it. In the span of fours years, the only vegetables I ever saw her eat, on purpose, were carrots cooked with cinnamon, potatoes and artichokes dipped in butter and sprinkled with salt. Believing that her aversion to veggies lay in poor parental preparation—overcooked, under-seasoned and texturally inert—I learned to cook broccoli al dente and make fresh cheese sauce for the cauliflower. But to no avail. My friend would look at the veggies with disdain, sniff them and then, with a flick of her long, brown hair, push them away. So I resigned, like a concerned parent, to slipping vegetables into dishes on the sly. There was spinach in my stuffed shells, chopped fine and mixed into the cheese and there were carrots and onions in my turkey burgers.

If at first you don’t succeed…

According to the article “The Corrections” in the July 2008 issue of Gourmet Magazine, everything we thought we knew about taste was wrong. We don’t taste different things with different parts of our tongue and what we can taste isn’t limited to bitter, sweet, sour and salty. Even adding umami to the list doesn’t cover what we’re capable of perceiving. And while what we can taste isn’t clear, what is clear is that we all taste things differently. For example, I enjoy things that are usually thought of as bitter—black coffee, Brussels sprouts, really dark chocolate—so maybe I’m predisposed to liking bitter things. But a predisposition doesn’t, according to the article, equate to a like or a dislike. “There are many things you might not like the first time you taste them,” Dr. Ray Salemme tells author Bruce Feiler, “but you learn to like them. A lot.”

Which brings me to my theory: You can learn to like things over time, by re-approaching them with an open mind. When I was a kid I was allergic to tomatoes, and though I grew out of the allergy when I was in my early teens, I didn’t appreciate a fresh tomato until I was in my 20s. I tried them periodically, but was always repulsed by the mealy, seedy innards. The flavor wasn’t bad, but the texture was like slurping primordial ooze. Then, one day I tried a crisp, grape tomato that popped in my mouth with a burst of sweetness. It was firm and fresh with a liquid center like Chewels gum and I was converted.

Try, try again

What my college friend refused to do was try again. She had decided that she didn’t like any vegetables as a child and teen and didn’t leave room for those tastes to change or adapt. She turned her nose at fresh spinach and green beans and corn based on a memory, not on a recent experience.

If we stop trying and retrying new food items, think of all the new flavors we’d miss out on.

There was a time that I didn’t like avocadoes, either. Their green, lizard-like skin was far from enticing and their interior was a textural challenge whether sliced or mashed into guacamole. The flavor was like cream of grass mixed with lard. But then one day I watched a server make guacamole tableside, using only lime juice, mashed avocadoes and sea salt. I forced myself to try it and was surprised at how delightful it was. Creamy, mildly sweet and a little earthy with the crunch of salt and tangy lime acidity it suddenly seemed like the perfect food.

These days I love avocadoes. Mashed into a guacamole, like the one at the restaurant or out of hand with just a squeeze of lemon and pinch of Maldon. I like them in sandwiches, over eggs and diced with mangoes. And with all of their healthy fats and fabulous flavor, I’m always looking recipes that will make use of the avocadoes growing on the tree in my yard, like this one for cucumber avocado soup. Perfect on a hot summer day, when sweat rolls down the back of your knees in torrents, it’s refreshing, easy and requires absolutely no cooking.

So the next time you here yourself say, “No thanks, I don’t like that.” Think back to the last time you tried it. If it wasn’t recently, give it another shot. You might just be surprised to find it’s your new favorite food.

Cucumber Avocado Soup
adapted from Gourmet

1 lb of cold, seedless cucumbers
1 large firm-ripe avocado
2 scallions, coarsely chopped
¼ cup fresh mint leaves
½ cup chilled buttermilk
coarse kosher salt

Chop cucumber into ½-inch cubes. Halve the avocado and chop into ½-inch cubes. Blend together cucumber (reserving about ¼-cup) and half the avocado, the scallions, the buttermilk and a teaspoon of salt until smooth. Mix whole pieces of avocado and cucumber into the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste. Makes four servings.

Asparagus and Ricotta Ravioli with Favas and Sage Brown Butter

Never mind that the recipe was probably one of the easiest I’ve ever followed. A year ago, if you asked me whether I ever thought about making my own ricotta cheese I would have laughed, crinkling my brow like a concerned mother in a movie, and said plainly: no, never.

As frequent readers of SpicySaltySweet can attest, I do like making dishes from scratch. In fact, I get quite the kick out of deconstructing things I used to take for granted. A few years back I made a soupy mess that was my excuse for Greek yoghurt. I’ve made my own butter. I make fresh pasta almost weekly now. But cheese? Cheese is something spiritual—a vehicle for transcendence that no mere home cook could possibly concoct in her kitchen.

But when I stumbled across Julia Moskin’s article about ricotta in the New York Times two weeks ago, I became convinced that making my own would not require divine intervention.

So in less than an hour last Thursday night I made ricotta cheese, following Moskin’s simple instructions. And the results were transcendent. Not as sweet as store-bought ricotta, with a firmer texture, my homemade ricotta was bright and light with a curd that was velvety smooth.

Ricotta draining

Homemade Ricotta

Ricotta is a traditional Italian cheese that’s actually made from a byproduct of cheesemaking: whey. It literally means “re-cooked” and it is made by heating the whey and adding a bit of acidity, causing the curds to separate. It is delicious when made with cow’s milk cheese, and I really love the sheep’s milk version, which has a slight tang and a deeper, more complex flavor.

The best part about making ricotta, as opposed to any other type of cheese, is its versatility. Spread ricotta on grilled bread, with a little sautéed radicchio, drizzle it with honey and top with fresh leaves of rosemary and you have an elegant bruschetta to serve at a dinner party. Mix with sugar, egg whites, lemon juice, orange zest, spices and chocolate chips for cannoli filling. Bind it with egg, Parmesan, nutmeg and flour for gnocchi. Savory or sweet, ricotta can add dimension or foundation to a meal any night of the week.

It was hard to decide what to do with my ricotta, with so many options. But I finally decided on asparagus and ricotta ravioli with favas and sage brown butter. It was the perfect farewell to spring (though, fortunately both vegetables will be around all summer, their peak season is springtime).

Asparagus and Ricotta Ravioli with Favas and Sage Brown Butter
adapted from Bon Appétit

Filling
1 lb slender asparagus
¾ cups fresh ricotta
1 tsp fresh mint, chopped
1 large egg

Fresh Pasta
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (preferably Italian 00)
3 eggs, beaten
pinch of salt

Sauce
1 lb favas, shelled
4 tbsp butter
1 tsp fresh sage, chopped

Remove the tough, bottom portion of the asparagus. Cut up the remaining vegetable into ½-inch pieces. Cook in saucepan with boiling, salted water until slightly tender, about 2 minutes. Shock in ice bath to set color. Pat dry and mix, in a large bowl, with ricotta, mint and egg. Set aside. **You may want to reserve a scant ½ cup of asparagus for the sauce.

Following either the well method or using the paddle attachment on your mixture, slowly incorporate eggs into flour and salt mixture to make pasta dough. If the dough is too wet, add a little flour, if the dough is too dry add a little water. When the dough just comes together, switch to your dough hook or knead by hand, about 10 minutes. Wrap in plastic and let rest for at least 15 minutes.

Roll pasta out into sheets either by hand or using a pasta roller to desired thickness (7 on a pasta roller). Spoon mixture onto half the dough lengthwise, spacing it about 2 inches apart. Fold the other half of the dough over to cover the filling. Cut ravioli using a pastry wheel or a ravioli cutter. (You can also cut using a knife, but crimp the edges of the ravioli with a fork to keep sheets of pasta from separating). Place filled ravioli on a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal. **I find it easiest to roll one sheet of pasta, fill it, then roll the next, continuing until I’ve used all the dough. Rolling all of the sheets ahead of time puts them at risk for drying out before you’ve got them filled.

Boil a large pot with salted water to cook ravioli. While water is boiling, melt 1 tbsp of butter in a sauté and cook favas until tender. Toss in reserved asparagus to warm. Set aside.

Melt remaining butter in sauté with chopped sage. When butter starts to brown, remove from heat.

Add ravioli to pot of water and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Cooked ravioli will float to the top. Plate ravioli, about 6-7 per person, top with favas and asparagus and drizzle with brown butter and sage.

Piselli con Asparagi e Basilco

Nature has put on her Technicolor dreamcoat and cast a verdant spell across California’s brown hills. Last weekend I found some gorgeous wild fennel tucked in amongst the daisies and sage in Runyon Canyon, it’s bright green fronds fanning the smaller plants in the breeze. I didn’t pick any, but fully intend to go back with a bag and a little gardening shovel to pluck out a licorice-scented bulb or two. I’ve also been on the lookout for ramps, the garlicky wild leeks prized by chefs; they’re bound to start popping up soon. Though, since there growing season is so short and the flavor so sought-after, I doubt any will remain in the ground long enough for me to find and pick. I’ll just have to watch restaurant menus to get a bite while I can.

The farmers market is awash in green, too. Fava tendrils hint at the broad beans to come, graceful, tender asparagus line stall after stall like crowned guards and snap peas and English peas pour out of baskets, crisp pods beckoning like the Jolly Green Giant’s fingers.

What? You don’t like peas? Chronically overcooked and often served to most of us either from a can or the freezer, peas have one of the worst reputations in the vegetable world (just behind Brussels sprouts, I think). But a fresh English pea is anything but mushy, grey or flavorless. A recently shelled pea pops in your mouth like fine caviar, exploding with sweetness. But peas start converting their natural sugars to starch the moment they’re picked. So the longer they travel from garden (or farm) to your table, the less appetizing they’ll be.

If you’ve got a black-and-blue thumb like me, the trick is to find English peas, also known as the common garden pea, at the farmers market, where you know they’ll be their freshest. Buy them in their pods, which should be unblemished and emerald-colored. If you can, crack one open and eat a pea or two, they should be glossy, crisp and sweet. If you don’t plan to use them right away, keep them stored in the refrigerator in a plastic bag for no more than three days.

Shelling peas is easy and surprisingly relaxing. After rinsing the peas in cold water, sit down with a bowl for pods, a bowl for peas and a bowl or bag to discard the spent shells. Snap the end drawing the string down the length of the pea like a zipper. Then, just run your finger through the inside of the pod, dislodging the peas inside. I love the plink-plink-plink sound as the first peas hit the empty bowl. Every now and then eat one straight from the pod.

Now what to do with those peas? Enjoy them raw or lightly sautéed with mint or tarragon. Puree them into a delightfully bright soup. Or, try this super-simple recipe for Piselli con Asparagi e Basilco (peas, asparagus and basil) from the April issue of Gourmet. It was a hit in my house on Easter, incorporated another springtime gem, asparagus, and is sure to win some converts at yours, too!

Piselli con Asparagi e Basilco

¼ c finely chopped shallots
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2 lbs asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
¾ lb freshly shelled peas (1 ¾ lbs in pods)
½ tsp fine sea salt
handful torn basil leaves

Melt butter in a skillet and sauté shallots over medium heat until just tender, about four minutes. Stir in asparagus, peas, salt and a little fresh-ground pepper, the cover the skillet with foil. Cook over medium heat until vegetables are warm but still al dente, about eight minutes. Stir in basil and sea salt to taste.

Romanesco Cauliflower

Corny-flower. Slowly pedaling toward 60, my father still won’t eat cauliflower. He calls it names and turns his nose and vehemently refuses to eat it. He hates it with a passion usually reserved for Brussels sprouts and broccoli and, not surprisingly, there’s a reason. Cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable, a member of the cabbage family, actually, and when overcooked it emits the same sulfur compounds. You wouldn’t lick a wet dog or munch on a spent match, would you? So why would you eat vegetables that make your nose hairs curl?

Frankly, I didn’t like cauliflower much as a kid either. It paled, literally, in color and flavor to its sweet, evergreen brethren. And since my dad wouldn’t eat it and my brother didn’t eat any vegetables, my mom rarely prepared it. Then, about five years ago my flatmate, Ben, steamed up a few fresh white florets and doused them with a rich, homemade cheese sauce. They were sweet, nutty and slightly creamy in flavor and didn’t taste like I’d been forced to suck on rotten eggs. Plus, I found out later, they’re packed with vitamin C, K and lots of antioxidants. I was converted.

Still, no cauliflower I’d ever eaten prepared me for the beautiful Romanesco variety I found at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market a couple of weeks ago. Like an M.C. Escher painting, the florets on this heirloom, baseball-sized cultivar, are repeating fractal shapes. You can get lost in their elegant geometry and faded chartreuse-like color, which becomes more vivid when cooked. It has been cultivated in Italy for nearly 2,000 years, but has only recently begun appearing among the more common purple, green and white orbs at the market.

I grabbed a couple of heads, popping them in a plastic bag before sticking them in the fridge, and began pondering how to prepare them. While I found a lot of interesting recipes for cauliflower, they all seemed designed to mask its flavor instead of enhance it. I finally settled on the simplest preparation I could imagine:

2 heads Romanesco cauliflower, thoroughly rinsed
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp sea salt or coarse kosher salt
¼ tsp hot chile flake
¼ tsp fresh cracked black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place cleaned cauliflower heads in small baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkling with salt, chile flake and pepper. Bake until tender, about 30 minutes.

When I pulled the Romanescos out of the oven they were the same neon green as my favorite shirt back in the ’80s (which seems to be back in fashion these days—yikes). The curd, the technical term for the florets, was so tender it I could easily cut it with a butter knife. I ladled these beauties up and ate them with quick-fix salmon croquettes for lunch. Sweeter, nuttier and more complex than any cauliflower I’d ever eaten, I can’t wait to try these out on my dad. There are only a few more weeks before they’re out of season, but these mathematical gems might make those with a corny-flower-phobia say mmmm.