As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’ve been introduced to all sorts of new vegetables since I’ve belonged to my CSA. There are a few I try to give away to loving homes, such as beets and kale – I’ll eat them, but they’re not something I adore and we get more than I can readily use.

Kohlrabi is another one of those vegetables. My father-in-law loved to see it in the share box and would eat it raw, but I’ve never quite been at ease with this alien-looking knobby thing.

Until now – I found something that I like, and it was fairly simple to make. I stumbled across this recipe last week, and decided to get some fennel so I could try it. Sadly, we don’t get fennel in our box (or haven’t yet this year, maybe it’s still to come), but another vendor at the Farmer’s Market sells it so I was set. I didn’t have capers and didn’t take the time to hunt down reasonable substitutes, so my version of the salad is below.

Fennel and Kohlrabi Salad

1 small kohlrabi
1/2 a medium (?) fennel bulb
Large handful arugula, chopped

Lemon Dressing
1 clove garlic (or more to taste)
The juice of 1/2 large lemon + more for crisping the fennel
The same amount of extra virgin olive oil (as lemon juice)
Black pepper
Sea salt
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

Slice the fennel as thinly as you can and add to a bowl of cold water and a dash of lemon juice (I used the jarred stuff for this step!). Peel the kohlrabi. Pare strips off with a vegetable peeler (this is to get wafer thin slices). Add to the bowl with the fennel.

Make the dressing: Crush the garlic with a generous pinch of sea salt in a mortar and pestle. Add some black pepper and a heaped teaspoon of wholegrain mustard. Stir together. Add the lemon juice and olive oil. Whisk.

Drain the lemon juice off the fennel & kohlrabi mixture. Put the arugula in a bowl, add the fennel and kohlrabi, then toss it with the dressing.

I peeled the kohlrabi rather sparingly with a paring knife, then started paring off slices with a vegetable peeler as recommended. I discovered as I went that the center of the root is sweeter and more tender, so next time I will remove a deeper layer before scraping the curls for the salad.

Jonski Papa is a big fan of cherry pie, and it’s sour cherry season, so I decided to make a pie. I was startled to find that none of my cookbooks had a recipe for cherry pie. So I used this recipe from allrecipes.com. Elsewhere (in the same search) I came across recipes that mentioned you could use pearl tapioca instead of quick-cooking. I had to make a special trip to the grocery store for the tapioca (it’s not something we use regularly!), and the organic pearl tapioca came in a smaller package than quick-cooking, so that’s what I bought.

those white balls are not mold spores!

My first clue that I might have done something wrong was when I removed the baked pie and noticed white balls near the top. Uh-oh – the pearls did not dissolve! The ones further down in the filling were soft enough that they were unnoticeable, but the ones near the top were kind of crunchy. Cherry pie is not supposed to be crunchy! What did I do wrong?? Maybe I drained too much of the juice from the pitted cherries? Maybe a full crust instead of a lattice would have made them soft? Or rather, what is the proper way to use pearl tapioca?? I dunno. I guess I’ll have to get more cherries this week and try again…

Dear Bahlsen,

I am a big fan of your Afrika dark chocolate cookies (or rather, those delicate slices of wafer enrobed in dark continental chocolate). In fact, I once contributed some to a chocolate-lovers gift basket with a note that they were “the world’s best chocolate cookie, bar none.” I truly believe this. And the packaging was so simple – chocolate cookie squares, packed side by side, in a little cardboard tray that slides out of the cubic outer box. Lovely. Elegant!

old Afrika box, product shot from web

But when i went to buy a box the other day, I noticed something had changed. Not just the picture (which had changed on the old box a while back), but the shape of the box. It was strangely bigger – unusual in the current economic climate! But as soon as I picked it up, I heard a little rattle inside that revealed the presence of inner plastic packaging. “Feh!” I thought. “They added extra packaging, I bet there are fewer cookies inside.” And while I can’t be positive, I think the weight has decreased and there are fewer cookies inside.

Newly purchased Afrika box. Notice end of box is no longer square!

Now I shouldn’t begrudge you the need to cut a few corners. But honestly, did you think we would be fooled? I don’t have any old packages so I can’t compare the weights. But even if I’m wrong on that point, at a time when companies right and left are bragging about their eco-consciousness, did it really make sense to add excess packaging? Silly, that’s what it was. And the part of my brain that sat through a very basic operations research workshop eons ago suspects this costs more than what you were doing before. Sigh.

Recently purchased box. Notice excessive inner packaging.

Oh well, at least they taste the same (which, I still concede, is fabulous).

World's best chocolate enrobed wafer slices, bar none!