food

Tonight I Had to Make the Cutlets

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

Nana style cutlets

My mother is in her last days. She has had a good, long life, filled with struggles and triumphs, as are the lives of all who are lucky.

This has been a difficult journey for her, as she has very, very slowly lost her strength of body, but never her strength of heart.

I am sad. I feel helpless to ease her on her way. I am blessed, and I know it, because I am surrounded by my loving siblings and because I have a chance to tell Mom how much I love her and what a good Mom she has been.

Still, I feel deeply sad that I can’t find the right way to honor her.

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I woke up this morning in my own snug bed. As I slowly rose to consciousness, I remembered a dream. A very vivid dream of my Nana, my Mother’s mother. In the dream, Nana was serving us dinner, as she did thousands of times in my life. She made chicken cutlets, in her special Italian way.

I woke up with the taste of those delicious cutlets in my mouth, and the determination to make them today in my heart.

Because I am something of a food hoarder, and a patron of our local farms, my freezer is well stocked with fresh and local meats. I got up early and took a package of chicken breasts out to defrost.

The day went on as usual, and I was busy taking care of my two little grandsons. There was playdoh and hallway soccer and trucks and more superheroes than I can count.

But as the afternoon wore on, I decided that I wanted to enlist the boys in the preparation of my “Nana cutlets”.

So the boys helped me to slice the chicken breasts, to pound them (18-month-old Max was particularly thrilled with this part), and to bread and fry them.

As the chicken simmered, I talked to the kids about Nana. I used the few little Italian phrases that I know. I told the silly story of the way that Nana would call us in for lunch by yelling something that I thought was in English.

“Come in, fill your belly” is what I heard.

It was many years later that I realized she was saying, “Come in, figli belli!” She was calling us her ‘beautiful children”, but we didn’t understand that.

I smiled to myself today, looking at my own “figli belli” and making cutlets with them. I loved the way that my Nana’s memory was shaping my day with the kids.

And after the boys went home, I looked at my leftover flour, bread crumbs, and egg/milk combination. I didn’t need any of it, and would normally have thrown it all out. But then I remembered Nana. I had a clear and wonderful memory of her standing at her stove, frying the cutlets.

When all of the chicken was gone, and only the coatings were left, Nana used to make a little pancake out of them. She would mix it all with a fork, and pour it into the hot olive oil. Then she’d mix it up in the pan, and gently flip it over to form a crispy little something that she let her little grandchildren eat.

Nana called it something that sounded to us like “Bishy woh-woh.”

It was DELICIOUS.

“Bishy woh-woh”

Once again, it took me many years and several classes in Italian to realize that this wonderful leftover treat, given as a gift to the grandkids, was actually called “pesce uova”, or “fish eggs”.

I love the history of this little dish. I love using my Nana’s recipes, although none are written and all are stored in my aging head. I love sharing this food, this love, with my grandchildren, just as Nana shared them with us.

I love that tonight, as Mom is readying herself to cross through the veil and join her parents on the other side, I love that tonight my grandkids helped me to make Nana’s cutlets. And that we will eat “Bishy woh-woh” with our dinner.

I pray that my dream means that Nana is close and that she is reaching out to Mom. Reaching out to bring Mom home.

I pray that one day one of my grandchildren will wake up from a vivid dream, and will make some special meal that they remember from their time with me.

Strange, Sweet Memories

/ momshieb / 3 Comments

Photo by Mats Hagwall on Unsplash

I am at my mother’s house today. This is the house where I grew up. The house where I learned to read. To write. To understand math.

This is the house in which I learned what it meant to be a member of a family. I was one of six children here. One of a group. I was part of a team.

Today I am here, having lunch with my Mom. She is old now. She doesn’t remember much. Her spirit is still here, still strong and still powerful. But she is only a shadow of the Mom I knew when I was young.

I stand in the kitchen. My arms are crossed. I look out the kitchen window.

I remember.

This was once the spot where I stood observing the power of my Mother. I stood here. She stood at the stove, apron around her waist, spatula in hand.

This is the spot where I stood and watched as the meatballs were browned. Where the sauce was stirred. Where the chicken was sauteed and the stew was simmered.

I stand in the kitchen.

I look out the window, across the yard. I see the aging shed as it now stands, and I see the slightly overgrown garden that sprawls across what used to be our lawn.

But I don’t see today. I don’t see the aging of this yard, of this land, of this house.

For some inexplicable reason, as I stand in this small spot, I see one small memory from my childhood. I see it clearly. I feel it in the skin of my feet. I smell it. I hear the sound of that one afternoon.

When I was a child, my identity was largely shaped by the ethnicity of my grandparents.

We were Italians.

We were a part of that land. A part of that heritage.

We honored our Italian heritage.

So. As a part of that shared experience, my Grandfather Giuseppe took all of us to the beach. I remember it as if it had happened an hour ago. My Grampa leading the way across the rocky outcroppings, bucket in hand. I remember following each of his steps. He lead us across the rocks, down toward the tidal pools.

I remember the smell and the feel of the slippery green weeds, and how it felt to lift them up. I remember the feel of the small snails clustered on the rocks under the weeds. I remember, so very clearly, how it felt to pull them up and plop them into my bucket.

This was joy. This was summer. This was food. This was family.

We used to gather up buckets of “periwinkles” and bring them home to eat. We felt that we were a part of the earth, a part of the sea, as we’d capture our tiny prey and place them in our small beach pails.

It was magic.

But it was everyday life, too.

So today, as I stood in my Mom’s kitchen, a half a century past the last time I stood here with a pail full of sea snails, I felt my heart melting and pounding in equal measure.

I stood there in our kitchen. I looked out the kitchen window.

I didn’t see the overgrown yard or the falling shed.

Instead, I saw my young and tender self, seated on an old wooden picnic table, a shining silver pin in my hand. I watched myself laughing as I used the straight pin to spear a tender morsel of seafood and pop it into my mouth.

And I felt the salty, briny, sandy bite of that little snail. I felt the sun beating down on the back of my neck. I remembered the laughter of my siblings, and I saw the smile of my Grampa, watching us as we ate these tiny sea creatures.

Today I stood in my mother’s kitchen. I looked out into the backyard. I felt the sand gritting between my teeth. I felt the warm laughter of my Grandfather as he helped me gather a bucket full of food.

I stood still.

I remembered the sound of the little shells as they fell at our feet. I remembered the way that that the tiny “doors” would stick to the soles of our sandy feet after we had eaten our fill.

I remembered.

There is joy and purpose and meaning in the smallest of moments.

Today I remembered the feeling of the periwinckles on my tongue.

Tonight I wonder what small and tender moments my own grandchildren will take from having known me.

A New Idea

/ momshieb / 29 Comments

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that it has been a reflection of my emotional life for the past dozen or so years. I started it on the advice of a very good therapist who I was seeing to help me process the depression that I felt when my three children grew up and moved out.

Over the years, this blog has helped me to express my feelings about moving into the “Empty Nest” years and learning to accept myself as something other than Momma.

If you’ve been reading my words for a while, you’ll know that I’m now a very happy grandmother, and that my grandchildren have more than filled the hole that was created by the absence of my kids.

I’ve written about politics (grrrrr), teaching, aging, friendships and life in general.

But now we’re caught in the horrors of 2020. No more visiting, no more vacations or travel or dinners out. Now my world has closed in around me.

It can be more than a little difficult to cope.

But luckily for me, there is always food to keep me sane! I love to eat. Therefore, I love to cook.

So I had an idea.

I am thinking that I’d like to start a new blog. A cooking blog. But not one of those pretentious, sous vide, balsamic reduction, adorable presentation blogs.

Instead, I want to write a blog for people who think that they ‘can’t cook’. You know, people who are intimidated by roasting a chicken. Or making a salad.

I know those people are out there, because some of them are my friends and relations! I want to convince them that anyone…..anyone…..can cook well enough to eat happily at home.

If I do that….will you follow me? Will you come along on my new journey to bring sanity, humor and fun into the average American kitchen?

I hope so. I am excited to try this out.

I do need a catchy name for this new site, so please weigh in if you have an idea. Maybe something along the lines of “Oh yes you CAN make dinner.” Or “Demystifying Dinner”. I don’t know. I trust you guys to be more creative.

Anyone?

 

Food is Love

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

I first heard the phrase “Food is Love” from a colleague who was laughing at me gently on the morning of Sept.12, 2001. After the horror of the terrorist attacks in New York, and the long, terrifying night lying awake and watching endlessly repeating news, I had arrived at school with two dozen home made muffins.

I didn’t know what else to do. The world was out of control. I was sad, upset, scared, confused. I didn’t know how to react.

So I cooked.

Food is love. Food is comfort.

Food is family and warmth and security.

I guess that’s why I have raised three kids who are all exceptionally good cooks. My daughter makes the best pizza I have ever eaten. She makes Indian foods, Asian foods, and delicious focaccia.

My two sons are such good cooks that for Christmas I tend to give them ingredients as gifts. They went to college fully prepared to cook for the entire apartment. Now in their mid twenties and in serious long-term relationships, they love to cook for their partners and friends. They grow vegetables, they seek out organic foods, they browse through recipes for inspiration knowing that they will add/change/delete build upon whatever they find.

So I guess it’s no surprise that one of my favorite parts of every day is cooking with my grandchildren.

I get so much pleasure out of those moments when the two kids are seated up on my counter, helping me to mix, chop, stir, mince, sautee and simmer.

OK. Full disclosure and all that: when we’re cooking, I know where they are and I don’t have to chase them. The chaos is contained.

But that isn’t the whole story.

I just love sharing good food with them. I love sharing the history of our family recipes. I love teaching them how to handle foods, how to measure and pour and stir. I love letting them know that spilling is allowed, mistakes are expected and eggshells can add a little crunch to a cake.

Mostly, I love looking at them. I love seeing their big, dark brown eyes gazing into the bowl of dough. I love the way they listen to my every word, even as I realize that they don’t understand it all.

I mean, how many three year old really understand the difference between slicing and mincing the red peppers? How many 19 month old kids know how to crack an egg, crush a clove of garlic, zest a lemon?

My grandchildren do. Or at least they are beginning to.

Someday, when they are living on their own in small, drafty apartments, I hope that they will pull out a pile of ingredients, start to chop, and tell their gathered friends, “My Nonni taught me how to cook before I was old enough to talk.”

I hope that they think of me when they add a dash of crushed red pepper to a pot of soup. I hope they recognize, on some deep level, that they dare to experiment with spices because their Nonni helped them to feel at home in the kitchen.

I hope that they one day they will gaze with devotion at someone at their table and that they will say, “You know that food is love, don’t you?”

Yum. Can we crack some more eggs, please?

I’ll Cook My Way Back to Sanity

/ momshieb / 7 Comments

We are living in horrible times. We are witnessing the destruction of all that two generations of women have worked to achieve.

As far as I am concerned, we are seeing the complete collapse of the two party system in the US. I’m pretty sure that 90% of us would vote of “None of the above” if they were on any ballot.

So.

What’s a sad, angry, anxious old Italian lady to do?

Yup.

I’ll cook my way to relative sanity. l have bone broth on the stove. There’s a nice sourdough starter on my counter. I have canned tomatoes for sauce and locally sourced ground beef and pork for the meatballs.

I can’t make Mitch McConnell go up in a puff of smoke for his hypocritical bullshit. I can’t save the Supreme Court of the US from becoming infected with a total and complete lack of impartiality.

I can’t make Mueller hurry the freak up and get that awful, ugly, ignorant, hateful, nasty egomaniac out of office.

I can make ravioli and roasted peppers and maybe a nice ricotta pie.

If there is a Heaven, I will still be at least relatively sane when this insanity comes to its inevitable end.

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Sausages As A Metaphor For Life

/ momshieb / 7 Comments

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I know there are all kinds of sexy ideas that could go along with this title, but I don’t mean a single one of them.

I’m talking about actual pork and beef and spices and goodness on your plate kind of sausages.

As a metaphor for the stages of life.

No.  I have not been drinking. Stick with me for a minute.

Way back in time, when Paul and I were very young, we were both in graduate school. We lived in a cozy apartment in Highland Park New Jersey. We both had part time jobs along with our full course loads, but we were really poor. I used to go to the grocery store with a small plastic counter to keep track of how much I was spending. I had coupons, I shopped the sales, and I made very careful weekly meal plans. When my counter got to $35 dollars, I was done shopping.

That’s all there was, there weren’t no more.

It was hard, but this was many years ago, so a dollar went further than it does today. Also, our local pub had fabulous happy hours with free appetizers and two for one drinks. We survived!

Anyway, one night I planned to serve pasta with marinara sauce. Paul wanted to have a sausage in his. I said no. The sausages had been defrosted for the next night! He insisted, saying he’d go meatless the next dinner.

I had a nutty, as I recall. We had a BIG old argument. Big. Furious on both sides.

I think he ate the sausage.

That was long ago. We’ve always joked about the sausage fight, because it summed up so much of what was hard for us at that point in our lives.

Flash forward, way forward, to two days ago.

I no longer carry a clicker in the grocery store. I no longer have to stop shopping at a certain dollar amount.

Now we buy all of our meats and most of our veggies from a local food coop called “MassLocal Foods.”

Food is no longer a problem. But there are other issues popping up at this point in our lives.

Sometimes I tease Paul about his slipping memory. He keeps losing his keys and forgetting to shut doors. Old man!!

I won’t be teasing him anymore, and its all because of a package of sausages.

It was evening, Paul was just home from work. We needed to get organized for a big family reunion that we are attending this weekend. He went out to mow the lawn and I pulled a package of delicious, local, organic sausages out of the freezer for dinner the following night.

Just then Paul called me to come out and help him put away some lawn furniture. I did. First I put the sausages down, then I went out. We puttered around, put things away, and I did a little weeding.

We had a nice evening, a good dinner, and we went to bed. I woke up at 3 AM thinking, “I need to grab those sausages and bring them upstairs.” Then I fell asleep again. I woke up and went through a normal day without EVER remembering the misplaced meats.

Finally, when it was time to cook, I remembered that I had never retrieved the sausages.  I went down to get them. They weren’t there.

Huh?

I looked in the freezer in the garage. I looked all around the garage, on the lawnmower, on the workshelves, even in the folded baby carriage.  Nope.

I looked in the upstairs freezer and in the fridge. Nope. I looked in the oven, the microwave, even in all the drawers. Nope, nope and nope.

I checked bookshelves, underwear drawers, dog beds. Nothin’.

Finally I sat down and googled “Alzheimer’s Disease.”

I texted Paul, just to fess up and give him a laugh. Then I started defrosting another package of sausages (I already had the rolls and wanted my delicious local treat!) I went down to the garage to throw something away and moved a pile of dishes and bowls that I had set aside for our camping trip.

And there they were. The missing sausages. Nestled in one of the plastic bowls and covered, for unknown reasons, by a plate.

Pretty funny, huh?

There are times in life when eating one little sausage seems like the greatest possible indulgence. Then there are times in life when you can buy all the sausages you need, but you keep forgetting where you put them.

 

Adventures in Eating

/ momshieb / 4 Comments

Oh, my.  Oh, yummy. Oh, deliciousness.

I went to Dim Sum today with my husband and some of my siblings.  It is so much FUN.  If you are not familiar with Dim Sum, let me explain.

Here in Massachusetts, Dim Sum means driving into Boston’s Chinatown and going into a big restaurant that is packed, packed, packed with young Chinese families, mixed groups of Chinese and non-Chinese, college students, babies, toddlers, old Chinese couples and everyone else you can imagine.

There’s no real menu. You just sit at your round table and wait a minute.  Waiters and waitresses come around pushing steam carts full of all kinds of Chinese delicacies in small steam bowls and little porcelain dishes.

Generally speaking, you have no idea of what it is that you are asking for.  The waiter or waitress will point to the various steamed, fried or sauteed items on the cart and say, in very heavily accented English, “bean, beef, very good!” or “mussel, yes?” or “bao tzu, you like!”

I love it.

I love the whole idea of it. I love the incredible smells of the spicy foods. I love biting into a steamed bun and finding a sweet mouthful of something that tastes like custard. I love the adventure of chomping into a crisply fried bit of dough, with no idea what will be inside. Today’s surprises included shrimp and eggplant.

One of my favorite dishes at Dim Sum is spicy chicken feet. I am not sure why, but there is just something so out of the norm about sucking the spicy fat off of cooked chicken feet……

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So often, our lives are simply a set of repeating days.  Toast, coffee, read the news, go to work, eat lunch, home again for the usual dinner. Not bad, nice and comfy.  But still….

How lovely to have a chance to sample an entirely different culture just by going out for brunch!  When I go to Dim Sum, I have a chance to pretend that I am an adventurous world traveler with a love of mystery.  When I go to Dim Sum, I can let go of my usual ideas about food. I can dive into a plate of something sort of wiggly and cabbagy,  and smile at my brother as we both realize that we are munching on slices of spicy beef tripe.

Thank you to my wonderful brother Mark and his wife Sue, and to my sweet sister Liz, for coming to Dim Sum today!  Oh, yes.  And to the ever patient Paul, who would have been perfectly happy with a plate of waffles.

Next time, I hope to get more siblings and some of our kids to join us.  You haven’t lived until you’ve sucked on a chicken foot.

 

Oh, Brassicas!

/ momshieb / 10 Comments

Bacon-Radish-Brussel-Sprouts-1-Watermark

Oh, how I love being the Mother of children who cook!  Its so rewarding to hear my three grown kids discussing the various ways to prepare incredibly healthy foods! All of them buy local, sustainable, GMO free organic foods whenever they can.  All three of them cook those foods and eat them with great pleasure and an awareness of the health benefits of what they are consuming.

I’m so proud of them!

In fact, I’m so proud of them that when I realized that both of my sons would be heading home this weekend to complete their tax forms, I decided that I should probably cook something local, organic, sustainable and wicked delicious.   So I defrosted a big pork roast, from a farm about 5 miles away.  As a fairly recent convert to fresh, organic pork, all I can tell you is YUMMMMMMMM.  Yum, Yum, super yum, holy yummification factor, wow, YUM.    I love these fresh pork roasts.  So. Much.

And I decided that I should also roast up a big pan of local, delicious, fresh veggies.  Like the red onion, the fingerling potatoes and the crisp fresh carrots that I got from our local food source last month.

But I also decided to add a big pile of brussel sprouts to the roasting pan.  Because my son Matt told me a couple of weeks ago that he “loves all of the brassicas”.

Yep.  The little boy who wouldn’t eat a grilled cheese unless it was served on a glass plate and cut on the diagonal, that little boy, “loves all of the brassicas.”  The child who refused to eat green beans or fresh tomato, that boy has grown up to be the king of roasted parsnips, brussel sprouts and cabbages.

So I tossed a huge pile of wonderful veggies in olive oil and flavored salt. I added some herbs from last summer’s garden, and popped it all into the oven with the incredible roast.

And everyone came for dinner.  My daughter and her husband and our beautiful baby Ellie, and both of our sons.  All gathered in the house for a wonderful dinner, for laughter and music and good conversation.

It was just what this Momma needed! Nothing is sweeter than seeing my children together, seeing them happy, seeing them with the baby.  My heart was full to bursting!

And after they left, and the table was all cleaned up, Paul and I went out onto the deck, to relax in our hot tub.  We gazed at the beautiful stars, and listened to the wind in the pines. We talked softly about how blessed we feel to have such happy and loving young adults as our children. We soaked in the hot water, feeling our muscles relax and our minds fill with peace.

And we stepped out of the hot water, and into the warmth of our home.

Where we were greeted by the lingering dirty diaper smell of roasted brassicas on the air. We looked at each other, our noses wrinkled.  “What the?????” Paul asked.  I hurriedly lit a lilac scented candle and opened the kitchen window.

Phew.

I know that no matter what I do to counteract it, we will smell the uniquely sulphurous aroma of roasted sprouts all night.  There will be no escape.

My only hope is that as I come awake at 3 AM to the unpleasant reek, I will roll over and murmur to myself, “I love having kids who can cook.”

Holy Brassicas.

Next time I’m going to make some frozen corn.

 

Food is Life, Food is Love

/ momshieb / 9 Comments

I am such a ridiculous foodie.

Here I am, in the United States of America. I live within an hour and a half of a major city.  I have never, ever gone hungry, or even had to live without a favorite food. Ever. One look at my waistline, and you will know that I do not lie.

I am a terrible gardener.  All 6 of my tomato plants died this summer, for no apparent reason. I got 4 peppers out of 6 pepper plants.  The berries were out of control, but I didn’t plant any of those.  That was all Mother Nature.

So I don’t know where I get the nerve to envision myself as Ma Ingalls, but for some reason I have become completely 100% OBSESSED with local foods.  Like, insanely obsessed.

I belong to an incredible food coop called “Mass Local Foods”, where I go on line every month and order fresh, sustainably farmed, organic, local cheese, eggs, meats, chicken, grains, vegetables, honey…….  I can’t tell you how fabulous it was for me to discover the taste of FRESH pork…..holy deliciousness….. And fresh chicken, flash frozen and kept that way!  Wow. Like a whole new world of food.

The thing is, though, that I seem to be taking the locavore thing to a slightly crazy extreme.

We are approaching “peak harvest” here in North Central Massachusetts, and I am bound and determined to preserve these wonderful foods for the winter.

Why, you may ask yourself?  Given the fact that I can just run to Hannfords and buy canned tomatoes and frozen corn, why am I doing this?

I dunno.

But this is how I spent my Saturday:

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I canned a dozen jars of fresh tomatoes, complete with my own fresh garlic, local onions, my basil and oregano.   I burned my arm, made a mess of my counter, broke a jar and burned all ten fingers.  But I have at least 20 meals set for the winter.  Take that, Martha Stewart!

And I did this, too.

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I made two batches of vegetable soup base, two batches of carrot/ginger soup, and one big batch of tomato basil soup.  All fresh.  All local.  All made by me.

For the past three weeks, I have blanched, frozen and stored enough local sweet corn to last until next year’s crop.  Yummmmm.  I’ve made blueberry jam, blackberry preserves, strawberry jam and jars and jars of cucumber and zucchini pickles.

And I don’t really know why.

I mean, I guess it will be delicious on a rainy, icy December afternoon to simmer a pot of those tomatoes into a good pasta sauce.  But I don’t think that’s the whole reason.

I think that for some strange, innate, Italian Momma reason, I feel incredibly competent when I can feed people.  And I feel safe when I know that I have a kitchen full of healthy, fresh foods.  In case of an ice storm, a power outage or a Zombie Apocalypse, I’ll be ready to serve a healthy dinner to those I love.

How nuts is that?

My favorite kitchen decoration. From the local farm, natch.

My favorite kitchen decoration. From the local farm, natch.

Even the worms hate it.

/ momshieb / 13 Comments

 

Bleh

Bleh

Yeah. I know.

I keep writing about food.

But its been snowing for the past month and there are five feet of frozen disgustingness outside my window.

Of course I’m preoccupied with food.

So today I want to write about one of the great food cons of all time.  Today I want to expose the misleading information being spread around about kale.

“Kale is a superfood!”

“Kale makes a delicious shake!”

“Kale will cure your high blood pressure/heart disease/sagging butt/bad breath/crappy mood.”

Ha.  What they fail to tell you about this superfood is that it tastes like the smell of skunk and is just about as digestible as a pile of brillo pads.

I have tried it in shakes. I have tried it steamed.  Sauteéd. Raw in a salad. I have even tried kale chips.  R-r-r-rr-r-r-r-rowf. NO.

I recently cleaned out the veggie drawer in my fridge.  I pulled out the aging lemons, the shrunken radish and the mystery slime.  What was left?

Three old leaves of curly kale.

What the hell is that stuff made of? It had been in there for at least two months.  It was still crisp.

I scooped those old leaves up with everything else, ignoring my “don’t waste it” instinct, and I threw it into the compost bin that I have going in my basement.

Let me take a moment to describe this compost system.  I collect all kinds of fruit and veggie parts, along with coffee grounds, bread, tea bags, napkins, egg shells and paper towels in a small bucket next to the sink. When the bucket is full,  I dump all of it into a big plastic box that is home to a pile of “worm castings” and roughly 2,000 wriggly little red worms.  These guys are voracious and indescriminate.  They eat anything they find, and transform it into compost. I once dropped a face cloth in there by accident and two days later it was in shreds. They will turn a banana peel into rich, dark soil in about 20 days.  Orange peels? Maybe four days.

So I dumped in the lemons, the radish, the mystery slime and the three leaves of kale.  I dug in with my trowel, turning the compost and making sure that everything was buried.  The next day, I turned it again, and up popped the kale, untouched by a single worm nibble.  I turned the compost again the next day, and the next.  Kale leaves kept coming to the surface, looking as green and crisp as the day I bought them.

“What the hell?”, I had to ask myself, “Have a really been eating this stuff?”  I poked the leaves with the tip of trowel, tearing them into smaller bits.  I thought maybe smaller pieces would be less intimidating for the worms.

No such luck.

It is now one full week since I dumped everything into the compost.  I’ve added another small bucketful since then.  I turned the pile today, and saw half of an eggshell that I threw in yesterday, and part of an apple core.

And 9 pieces of crisp, green curly kale.

I looked at the worms.  One of them seemed to approaching a kale leaf, so I grabbed a magnifier and looked closer.  I saw a tiny worm mouth open and take a teensy nibble of kale leaf.  Then I watched in amazement as the minute little guy pulled his head back and made a perfect miniscule grimace of distaste.  He turned around, slid of the kale and buried himself in a pile of potato peels.

Even the worms can’t seem to digest it!

I guess the explains all the gaseousness that came along with those healthy kale shakes.