can you feel the kohlrabi love?

Posted on Posted in projects, Uncategorized

knitters to the rescue—what an overwhelming response to my abundance of produce and my kohlrabi confusion. i just got one email after another with tips and tricks for using extra produce. looks like a lot of knitters also enjoy making magic in the kitchen. and eating kohlrabi.

ahh, the kohlrabi—who knew? there seems to be quite a subculture around it out there. and this, a vegetable on which, up til now, the public arena of cooking has remained largely silent, as far as i know. hmm. i mean, i’ve read a lot of cookbooks and food magazines, and watched too many cooking shows in my time, being somewhat creative and handy in the kitchen (my days of being absolutely enchanted with cooking are behind me, though, i think, due to my fiber pursuits). anyway, i have heard next to nothing about kohlrabi in all my years of cookery. oh sure, i have one book green on greens, in which burt green runs on for about 20 pages about it, but i just thought he was being nice.

so, here’s how i fixed it: i roasted the kohlrabi with onions, carrots, celery, and garlic, salt, pepper and parsley, olive oil and a little veg broth. being italian, that’s what i instinctually do with a new root/bulb vegetable; you can’t go wrong with roasting. except, ps, don’t do it on a 96-degree day—just a lil’ tip.

and it turned out that our guests, bil and mark, are big kohlrabi fans—???? honestly, i thought i knew these guys REALLY well—and in all the years i’ve known them, and eaten with them (a lot), they never mentioned kohlrabi. not once! anyway, they had never had it fixed that way, and thought it was delish. i like it too; even after roasting for quite some time, the center of the chunks remained crunchy, like a turnip, parsnip or salsify (see, i DO have experience with weird veggies; just not kohlrabi).

i also sauteed the greens from it and am serving those at lunch today, alongside—you guessed it—pesto! they are a bitter green, with a slightly funny (maybe metallic) mouthfeel—i’m not sure yet that they have the same appeal, but we’ll see what a day’s distance does for them . . .
all in all, kohlrabi turned out to be wonderful veg that i would definitely grow again and cook more often now. and anyway, how can you go wrong eating something you picked from your own organic garden that day?

we also showed bil and mark the garden and they made fun of us and our humongous plants too. we’ll see how hard they laugh when we parade those big, ripe, juicy tomatoes past their noses—or maybe we’ll just throw the rotten ones . . .

(BTW, most of the pesto went into the freezer; we could never consume 9 cups of it it one week. in fact, even frozen, i doubt we ever used that much in a year . . .).

ok, back to fiber talk. after everyone went home last night, and after we cleaned up the HUGE mess in the kitchen, i pulled out my joy wheel which i had taken to the fair on saturday evening. since i had to stop by a given time at the fair, i came home with a bobbin and a quarter of this tweed in autumn colors bought from hollie, our local fiber enabler wool supplier.

it is a blend of her longwools, part dyed, part natural, and a bit of angelina that she has lately been fond of throwing in to the mix. i’m not crazy about the glittery stuff, which it why this fiber has languished in my closet for a number of months now. but i thought it would be good to bring to the event, since i wanted something that i could spin up fast, and wouldn’t be heartbroken about if it fell on the dirt floor of the sheep barn.

last night i i managed to fill the second bobbin before it was time to watch the bike races. i left the plying for tonight. it might make a really nice felted bag or clogs for a christmas gift. it would be a great scarf if only it wasn’t scratchy.
i gotta stop buying this fiber. i go to the guild meetings, where she sells it and i get rooked in because the colors are so great. but really, it’s not my cup of tea as a yarn. it’s a much better yarn for weaving or knitting outerwear. i dunno; i keep saying i will knit rugs with yarn like this, but i really should get real—that probably is NOT gonna happen. and even if it did, would i be able to let anyone walk on them? me thinks not.

i worked on this little beach wrap for my niece while i watched the tour

yeah, for the whole 30 minutes more that i was able to stay awake, i did. jeesh.
that was the end of me—i just went down like a tree at around midnight. i guess the cooking, the heat, the entertaining and the spinning just tuckered me out.

but here’s one last interesting tidbit. the other day i showed an alpaca lace yarn that chris from Briar Rose Fibers sent me.

friday night, i did a test swatch to help her decide what gauge she should put on the label. i worked it up half in stockinette and half in a lace stitch. when i was done, i wanted to photograph it for her, but the lace part was all squinched up, the way lace does. so, saturday i pinned it out

and measured it, and photographed it for her to see. i didn’t stretch it, wet it or steam to block it—i just pinned it out to make the edges straight and open the lace pattern a bit. then i walked away. on sunday, when i needed to get ready for our company, i unpinned it and guess what?

it stayed just the way it was! it did not spring back to its scrunchy state at all. i’m sure the heavy humidity helped to set the yarn in this shape. also, alpaca, which does not have the elasticity to recover the way wool does, can be coaxed fairly easily into the shape you want. you will not get the improvement of the fiber surface (blooming) with this dry technique, of course, but it may have applications somewhere for something. just thought i’d throw that out there.

time for me to get ready for monday morning classes, after which i am expecting company for lunch. and i think it’s going to ba another hot one . . .

6 thoughts on “can you feel the kohlrabi love?

  1. The same thing happend to me this weekend! I pinned out a section of lace shawl to get a good photo of it, left it overnight, and unpinned it the next day. And it pretty much stayed blocked! I blamed the ridiculous humidity we’ve had for the last few days.

  2. I am new to your blog and well I love it. I love that you knit lots of lace and socks and they are both so beautiful… You are very talented!! I was wondering since you knit many a sock if you would share your secret formula for them? How many you cast on? What needle size you like to use? etc?

  3. hi leslie!
    thank you for visiting my blog! i’m so glad you like it. this year i am certainly on a lace kick; normally i also knit lots of sweaters and other things (i’ve been knitting all my life!). we really depend on my knitting to keep us warm during the winter.

    i also design many other objects, and just recently published my sock pattern due topopular demand for it. it starts with a gauge swatch and enables you to make socks that fit your individual foot, with your own yarn and needles. it includes 16 sizes.

    if you press the button in the sidebar for the knitspot pattern catalog, you will find it in there (the sock pattern to end all sock patterns*), along with patterns for shawls, scarves, bags and misc. other objects. please let me know if you’d like to order it and have any questions about that!

  4. I’ve never heard of Kohlrabi.

    I like the fall colors in your spun yarn, I can see why you keep picking some up. Too bad it’s not softer.

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