Every Friday, Leslie’s friend Sarah sends dispatches from upstate New York where she tends her organic garden.
The drawing of feathery red leaves on the seed packet prompted an impulse buy. I really second-guessed myself too. I thought, I don’t cook mustard greens; they won’t get eaten. But I felt down, needy. What if I saw that picture in real life on the bottom floor of my garden, casting lacy shadows on the rocks? That sure would be nice.
It is. See?
When picked young, friends and I nibbled on handfuls of young leaves, and turned them into salads dressed with only salt and oil. Flavors of mustard and pepper made us goofy, delirious; these greens were hallucinogenically alive. I tasted hot Chinese mustard, horseradish firecracker mustard, sun-dazzled mustard mustard; I’d never tasted greens like this; I had never tasted mustard. As they aged, they required cooking
