Do you ever send other folks to the grocery store, with your list in their hands, to do a major shopping?
How often, I wonder. I suppose it depends on circumstances -- large family, kids home and lots of help around? That is, if you can organize kids to help. Sadly, organization of help is not my forte.
Of course there are emergency situations -- you have the flu or a cumbersome cast on a limb that make shopping nearly impossible. Whatever the situation, single and happy or parent of 10, one issue seems to arise: Does the shopper get exactly what you wanted?
Take the celebrated case this week of celery. I sent He-Who-Must-Be-Fed shopping with of list of needed items; including my preferred packages of celery. My market offers celery in three ways: in bunches, the inner stalks and leaves (celery hearts), and my favorite -- several stalks combined with a whole lot of inner leaves (what I suppose to be cut from day-old bunches whose leaves are still perfect).
I love fresh celery leaves and I have been cooking more and more with them. In my opinion, we cooks don't use these flavorful leaves enough (in half handfuls). So I was delighted when HWMBF, always a model of generosity, brought home armloads of celery, lots of celery in all three package types.
I thought it romantic. All this celery brought memories of my teaching days. I thought of Shakespeare. Obviously, he knew celery and how to use it in poetry. Then there is Homer. Wow and woot! Odysseus curls up with Calypso in a lover's bed of wild celery ("selinon" in Greek, "apium" in Latin means either celery or parsley). All this is enough to fuel my spring fever.
In Europe, wild celery, called "smallage," shows up in many recipes, and in Italy and France the smaller leaves and stems are considered a delicacy served with olive oil splashed on them with a bit of pepper. As I write this, I realize I am going to serve some of the tender leaves HWMBF brought home and have them tonight that way as a spring salad.
The herb lovage has a distinct celery taste, and the leaves look like second cousins to celery leaves. Lovage grows very well in our area, and better yet, it is a "no-work" herb. It's a perennial, lasting many years, and it's early. It is up now in my kitchen garden and ready to use. All one has to do is plant it.
I've had it grow to six feet, so plant it at the back of a garden or where you want vertical attention. I planted it in the middle of a rose bed and loved its height there.
Black lovage is called "alexander" in Europe and tastes something like a cross between celery and parsley. Even lovage seeds are beautiful. I think of them as small umbrellas with raindrops on them. I get lovage seeds from seed catalogs, but for the first time this year, I've found lovage seeds in local seed racks.
My found packet was from Plantation Products I bought at a mart. Sandy Mush Nursery in North Carolina offers lovage plants ($4.50, www.sandymushherbs.com.)
Celery and its relatives have even more to offer. These stalks and leaves keep well for a few weeks; even then you can refresh celery by cutting a notch in the root ends, and standing it in water for an hour.
I love celery seed, too, especially in Bloody Marys at a spring brunch. And celery salt on pretzels is wonderful, and on homemade crackers, too. HWMBF balked at sprinkling our sheets with dried celery, thinking of Calypso and Odysseus.
"I'd feel like I was salad," he said.
Perhaps rose petals would be better.
Meanwhile, sheets washed and hung outdoors will suit us just fine.
Spring Chicken with Celery Leaves
1 roasting chicken (about 3 lbs.)
1/2 c. chopped celery plus 1/2 c. chopped celery leaves
1/2 c. pieces of a Granny Smith or other semi-tart apple, peeled, cored and chunked
1/4 c. diced sweet white onion
1 lemon
1 T. olive oil spread or butter
1/4 t. celery salt
1/2 t. dried rosemary
1/4 t. dried marjoram
Salt and pepper to taste
1 14-oz can of low-sodium chicken broth
Cream together the celery salt, rosemary, marjoram, salt and pepper into olive oil spread or butter. Gently rub mixture into the skin of the chicken.
Toss the celery, celery leaves, apple chunks and onion and place into the mixture into the cavity of the chicken. Make three or four slits into whole lemon and tuck it into the cavity of the chicken. Put the chicken into a slow cooker, and add the chicken broth. Cook on high for one hour. Reduce heat to low and cook for six to eight hours, basting now and then. Serve with egg noodles. Makes four to six servings.
--Sally Ketchum
Sally Ketchum is a northern Michigan food writer and avid kitchen gardener. She can be reached at ketchum1985@gmail.com. For lovage seeds, try www.territorialseed.com; for black lovage try, www.nicholsgardennursery.com.
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